[sdiy] Tape Deck Module Brainstorm (was Fw: Re: [AH] Sampler Module for Modular????)

Sun Jan 10 11:16:39 CET 2010

I've done a lot of messing with this sort of thing over the years (at age 12 even).  I have some ideas/suggestions that may not directly pertain to making a "tape module", but are interesting anyway.  Some points may be overly obvious, but I've mostly found them useful at one point or another.  Apologies for the verbosity.

Add a switch inline with the erase head for "sound on sound".  On cheaper cassette decks, the erase head is a fixed magnet that mechanically engages.  In these cases there's large switch with many contacts that selects either record or playback mode.  This can be especially neat if you have one of those cassette recorders that lets your wail on the buttons while playing/recording.

Stick your fingers in there (carefully?) to mess up the tape speed in real time.  Or if it's reel to reel, grab the tape.  Making it "squeak" between your fingers adds nasty distortion (I guess it's technically FM).

Slowing the tape down while recording will speed up the sound on playback.  This is obvious, but if you stop the tape entirely, you will create a sonic singularity.  Amazing!

On on a reel to reel you can easily stick things to or over the capstan to make it play faster, or to add "flutter".  You can also manually "play" the pinch roller to engage or disengage it.  Or leave it out of the tape path entirely.  Play it with your hands or let the reel motors do their thing.

Auto-reverse decks (cassette or reel to reel) can be made to play in reverse by modifying the relay or switch that selects the side (or in some cases, the mechanism that physically rotates the head assembly).  Obviously, this is unnecessary on quadraphonic or multitrack machines.

Find answering machine outgoing message cassette loops.  At the splice point there may be a sensing strip that can't be recorded.  Cassette loops can also be made, but the tape is too fiddly for me to want to do that.  Be a thrift store Brian Eno or Steve Reich.

Crunch up, mangle or badly splice the tape.  On a 3 head machine this can be used as a real time recording effect (perhaps with a loop so you don't have to ruin a bunch of tape).

It's easy to do tape loops with an 8 track.  Take a cartridge apart,
remove any tabs that hold it together and cut out the rear portion. 
You can make a loop that winds around the internal posts, or one that
hangs out the back.  If it hangs out the back, you can pause the tape
and "play" it with your hands, forward or backward.  Flip the loop over
to reverse it.

Cheaper stuff (and also anything with a pitch adjust) uses DC capstan
motors.  You can get easy speed control (fast down to stopped) with an
LM317 (or similar) adjustable regulator.  Use a switch to bypass it for "normal" use.  On my 8-track, this applies to fast-forward/seek as well, for extra fun.  Of course external CV control is also possible,
but there should probably be some sort of closed loop control to make
it linear, and there will be a lot of inertia due to the flywheel.  More high end gear (reel to reels and fancy cassette decks)
use synchronous motors.  Speed control isn't really practical with
those unless you want to make a CV controlled variable frequency drive (and if you're that crazy you can also add portamento to your Hammond B3).

3 head tape decks (cassette or reel to reel) can be used as is for delay.  Ping-Pong delays are easy with stereo decks, and complex multitap delays (poor man's binson echorec?) are possible with quadraphonic machines or multiple recorders.  Multitrackers usually only have 2 heads for synchronized recording, and thus are not eligible.  The tape path or speed affects delay time.  If you're lucky enough to have two identical machines (or otherwise two with the same inter-head distance and thus delay time), you can do easy real time thru-zero flanging.  Bonus points if they have speed controls.

Loops can span multiple reel to reel decks.  Of course there are easier ways to do "Frippertronics" now, but they're not nearly as unreliable or bulky.

I haven't played with noise reduction, EQ or bias circuits but they might have something to offer as well.

Keep an eye out for 3 head quadraphonic reel to reels and those Library of
Congress "C1" cassette players that can play all 4 sides at normal or
half speed, AND include a speed control.  And there's also microcassette for extremely horrible sound quality.  

> Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 22:09:55 -0800
> From: lightburnx at yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Tape Deck Module Brainstorm (was Fw: Re: [AH] Sampler	Module for Modular????)
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> CC: 
> 
> Hm, so there's some kind of RIAA-esque EQ treatment for tape? Makes sense, though this is my first time hearing of such.
> 
> While getting more complicated, if I could run a closed loop of spliced tape over some larger wheels, connected to servos, that would improve the control with the motors I suppose (more tape moved per revolution of the motor).
> 
> This is starting to sound more and more impractical, but by the same virtue it seems all the more fun. I've some old Walkmen to play with, so we'll see what happens. Even an outboard ghetto delay/flange unit would be a fun toy to have :]
> 
> 
> _Kyle
> 
> --- On Thu, 1/7/10, Harry Bissell <harrybissell at wowway.com> wrote:
> 
>> From: Harry Bissell <harrybissell at wowway.com>
>> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Tape Deck Module Brainstorm (was Fw: Re: [AH] Sampler Module for Modular????)
>> To: "Kyle Stephens" <lightburnx at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>> Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 7:16 PM
>> Different speeds will need different
>> tape eq, and the motors have limited
>> ability to change speeds. It would be lo-fi...
>> 
>> There was an 8-track echo unit that used cassette tapes,
>> they made the base speed
>> 3 3/4 ips and added additional mototr current via the
>> 'fast-forward' windings to get faster
>> speeds.
>> 
>> Could be goofy fun...
>> 
>> H^) harry
>> 
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Kyle Stephens <lightburnx at yahoo.com>
>> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>> Sent: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 21:12:05 -0500 (EST)
>> Subject: [sdiy] Tape Deck Module Brainstorm (was Fw: Re:
>> [AH] Sampler Module for Modular????)
>> 
>> Hiya List...
>> 
>> There was some interesting talk recently on AH about
>> recording with tape. I've no where near the funds nor am
>> that infatuated with the sound of tape recording to invest
>> in a full blown deck, but I had a lower-fi idea come to
>> mind:
>> 
>> Take the guts of a few hand held (ie: small) cassette
>> players (maybe 3-4), and stick em in a module. Have voltage
>> control over recording and playback speed (with two decks
>> one can tune playback to do octaves, chords, demonic vocal
>> pitch pitch bends and slowdowns etc.), and triggered/gated
>> playback (play sample for duration length X or as long as a
>> gate is present).
>> 
>> Least these are the ideas I have so far - anyone else think
>> of anything cool I could do with this, and what might be
>> good ways to go about doing it?
>> 
>> Shifting and scaling 10V p-p CV to run the motors directly
>> seems logical enough, and a 555/556 for integrating the
>> triggers/gates...
>> 
>> 
>> _Kyle (out of the loop or onto something reel good?)
>> 
>> 
>> --- On Thu, 1/7/10, Kyle Stephens <lightburnx at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> From: Kyle Stephens <lightburnx at yahoo.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [AH] Sampler Module for Modular????
>>> To: analogue at hyperreal.org
>>> Cc: "chris neotek" <neotek303 at hotmail.com>
>>> Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 5:49 PM
>>> Chris,
>>> 
>>> Seb Francis has a DIY toy in the works that is a
>> sampler,
>>> among other things:
>>> 
>>> http://burnit.co.uk/sdiy/index.php?page=digimod
>>> 
>>> A few times I've spoken to him about it, and seem
>> it'll be
>>> a while til it's fully available; the hardware is good
>> to
>>> go, though the software needs some finishing up. Seb
>> has the
>>> code he's done so far available if you ask for it,
>> though
>>> you're asking here on AH and not SDIY, so dunno if you
>> can
>>> ride that pony or not (I sure can't yet). It's an all
>> SMT
>>> board, which may not be your cup of tea either, though
>> it's
>>> cool enough to be worth the trouble imo.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I've been playing with an idea of sticking the guts of
>> a
>>> few handheld cassette players in a module, and have
>> voltage
>>> control over record and playback speed, kinda a proto
>>> sampler/Mellotron-in-a-module, though again this is AH
>> and
>>> not SDIY, so I'll save more thought on that for the
>> other
>>> list :]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _Kyle
>>> 
>>> --- On Thu, 1/7/10, chris neotek <neotek303 at hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> From: chris neotek <neotek303 at hotmail.com>
>>>> Subject: [AH] Sampler Module for Modular????
>>>> To: "AH" <analogue at hyperreal.org>
>>>> Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 10:33 AM
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Is there such thing for a modular system as a
>> sampler
>>>> module? Does anything like that even exist? 
>>>> 
>>>> I guess, it would have to have audio in and
>> either CV
>>> or
>>>> MIDI
>>>> for triggering, with some input patch points for
>> real
>>> time
>>>> sample manipulation. I think I’m dreaming, but
>> I
>>> hope not.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers
>>>> 
>>>> Chris.
>>>> 
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>>           
>>>>   
>>>>
>>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>> Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to
>> see
>>> what
>>>> you’re up to on Facebook.
>>>> http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9691816
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>>       
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Synth-diy mailing list
>> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
>> 
>> -- 
>> Harry Bissell & Nora Abdullah 4eva
>> 
> 
> 
>       
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Synth-diy mailing list
> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390710/direct/01/