Re: [microsound] Fw: What do these terms mean?

[Ian andrews <i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> > tape loop
>> > tape splicing
>> > cut-ups
>> > musique concrete
>> >
>> > Sorry for crossposting this, but I guessed the chances of getting
>> > responses would increase if I posted to both groups.
>>
>>            I remember seeing those terms on alot of old Skinny Puppy
>> Albums, Sounds to me like the pre digital age version of Sampling. I
>> knew this guy once who was kinda a looney, but he would cut tapes, and
>> loop them and do everything. He could make a tape recorder into a
>> sampler,.

Yes. you had to be a looney back then to do that sort of stuff. Who would
spend months in a little room cutting up bits of tape and joining them back
together again to make ridiculous music(?) that 99.99999999999999% of the
world's poulation couldn't care less about, that's never released on
anything but cassette (unless it has vocals and is in the genre of
industrial dance a la skinny puppy)?

The Loop Orchestra (all loonies as well) still make the most beautiful and
sublimely complex music with nothing but reel to reel tape recorders. Its
not that they are too poor to buy samplers (or PCs), or that they are
digital luddites, its just that the limitations of the tape loop method
creates in itself a certain mode of creation and collaborative
participation that would be difficult (if not impossible) to achieve with
with other technologies.

Several years ago I was lucky enough get my hands on a mellotron (and old
tape based keyboard used by Rick Wakeman et al.). To the horror of
collectors of rare musical instruments, I proceded to rip the guts out of
it and  covert it into a tape loop player. This machine costantly surprises
me. I cannot make the same kind of music with digital equipment (well I
suppose I could if I really tried). Its the limitations that bring out the
creativity, and the all important randomness that keeps conscious volition
at bay, keeps you from  repeating the musical forms of your own cultural
millieu.
I bought the mellotron around about the same time that I got my second
sampler (one that could play more than one voice). As impressive as this
machine was to me then, I found myself doing alot of work with the
mellotron which resembled the way I used to work. In the old days my method
(like many others) involved recording sounds onto reel to reel 4track, then
cutting the tape into predetermined lengths, splicing them into loops, and
then playing the loops back on a second machine at different speeds,
backwards,etc., and recording back onto 4track where I could layer them up.
Then mix down to a cassette master (or later digital PCM on Betamax tape).

I'm sure there are digital applications around now that can easily simulate
my mellotron tapeloop player (to some extent). In fact I've created rather
clumsy versions with Flash
http://sysx.org/microsound/slipsync.html

But during the sampler age there was nothing which came close to it.

I also used to make cut-ups and audio collages. I graduated from pause
button editing on cassette, to using razor blade and splicing tape with
open reel tape, which was much more accurate. However,this is one way of
working which I would never go back to. Digital editing has absolutely
replaced this technology. Tape editing was slow laborious work and I'm glad
to see the end of it.





Ian Andrews
Metro Screen
Sydney


Email: i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.metroscreen.com.au

Metro Screen
Sydney Film Centre
Paddington Town Hall
P.O. Box 299
Paddington NSW 2021
Ph : 612 9361 5318
Fax: 612 9361 5320