Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

Re: Dig if u will my research paper Chapter 3



Title: Re: Dig if u will my research paper Chapter 3
Kim - thanks for that confirmation.  I had seen on the web, Mike Battle's name, and dates ranging from 1960-1963 for the "creation of the Echoplex".
 
Richard - you are an amazingly rich and generous resource! :)  Thank you for calling the man himself.
 
So, then... if Mike Battle starting making prototype 'Plexes in the late 50's, was he aware of, or involved in, the activities of Riley, Oliveros, Reich, et. al. at that time?  Was it really, as it seems, that an Echoplex made it into Riley's hands... he explained it to someone... who implemented the idea in a different way (large tape decks)... which Riley tagged the "time lag accumulator"... which Riley continued to use and others used later as live looping devices... sorta like that?
 
Again, curious.
 
Thanks!
 
Doug
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: Dig if u will my research paper Chapter 3

At 2:15 PM -0700 5/27/03, Kim Flint wrote:

Mike Battle made his first Echoplex tape delay prototypes in 1963, according to this post:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=52nksm%24aqu%40casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu
I would guess production would have started sometime later, so the dates don't appear to match up quite right.

I just called Mike Battle, and while I can't say there's a definitive answer to this question, here's what he told me:

Mike and a friend started building tape delay units in the late 1950s, and the units would dribble out to various musicians. It wasn't until 1964 that he received a patent for the Echoplex, but it seems likely that a number of them were in circulation under that name even before that date.

I've found references with dates of 1960 and 1962 for the Echoplex.

Analog Echoplex fanciers will be happy to know that Mike Battle's new design, the "TubePlex" will be available in numbers at the summer NAMM show in Nashville



Here's what Ramon Sender told me about his early exposure to and use of tape systems:

If Pauline is referring to feeding one tape through two Wollensaks,
the first on record and the second on playback, this set-up was first
demonstrated to me by Terry Riley who I think said that he and
Lamont Young used it during a dance performance of Anna Halperin's
troupe during the period they were the composers involved with her.
I then used it for a 'piano canon' performance during a Sonics Concert,
if I recall correctly. We're talking the fall-spring of 1961-62?

I also had an Echoplex-type machine at the Conservatory that I
abused happily during some early tape pieces, until I discovered
I could get a more natural echo by recording in the men's bathroom.


Les Paul's thing was the Les Paulverizer.

...which had nothing to do with tape loops. It was just a button mounted on his guitar that enabled him to start and stop a cassette deck with a prerecorded backing tape on it.
-- 

______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD      
(818) 788-2202                                 
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com