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Re: Time Lag Accumulator, Frippertronics, Eno



Looks like he is in the atrium of some mega-mall in middle Minnesota. :)
c
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: Time Lag Accumulator, Frippertronics, Eno

----- Original Message -----
From: "marcus savino" <marcuskp@mail.com>
> I am trying to put together my own Time Lag Accumulator, used by
> Riley, Eno, Fripp etc. I have done quite a bit of research and
> have been unable to find a really detailed description/diagram
> of the proper ways to make this work.
> 1. Is there a diagram (besides Eno's Discreet Music jacket) that
> outlines in detail how to to put one of these together?
 
Here is a photo of Fripp with the system:
 
As you can see the feeder reel of the left deck passes tape under the left deck's head, which is recording.  The tape then passes under the head of the right deck, which is playing, and is taken up on the right deck's takeup reel.  The audio output of the right deck is fed into a mixer, which mixes the live guitar sound with it and feeds into the audio input of the left deck.

> 2. Is there something specific to Revoxes that make them ideal
> for this process? Is it necessary to use Revoxes or will Teacs work as well?
As I understand it most other tape decks (including Teac and Tascam) have wheels adjacent to both reels that the tape goes over.   These wheels fall to the bottom of their grooves if the tape is not there.  If either of these wheels fall the deck will no longer run.  You may be able to jury-rig tape decks by duct taping the wheels, but this may not be your best approach.  The Revox decks provide superior sound quality (they were sometimes used for the master mix down in studios back before DAT machines), which is important for looping.  Every minor degradation gets magnified on each iteration of the loop.
 
A great thing about this approach is that when you are finished, you just remove the takeup reel from the right deck, rewind it, and you have a master tape of your performance.  This is what Fripp did to record his Frippertronic albums.  They were not recorded using a recording studio's deck.
 
Good luck putting this together.
 
-Vance