Re: lo tech delays

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

At 1:09 PM -0800 2/9/01, Richard Zvonar wrote:
>At 3:32 PM -0500 2/9/01, Pete Mundt wrote:
>>I've got a good friend who described how he did this with 2 reel to 
>>reel machines by placing them both on a level surface side by side. 
>>Then he would place coke bottles between the 2 machines, and thread 
>>the tape through the first machine, then in a zig-zag patern 
>>through the coke bottles and on through the second machine. 
>>Depending on how long of a loop he wanted, determined how many 
>>bottles he would use, and how far apart the machines would be.
>
>Mic stands also work well as tape guides, though coke bottles are 
>obviously cheaper!
>
>This dual-deck delay technique has a history dating back to the 
>1950s, and it was a favorite practice of Pauline Oliveros during her 
>San Francisco Tape Center days in the '60s (she uses four PCM-42s 
>now).
>

A not uncommon problem with the cheap reel-to-reel decks I used to 
own for this purpose was slight differences in tape speed. As a 
result, the tape could get progressively tighter, knocking over the 
coke bottles or whatever, or looser, until it unthreaded itself. This 
was troublesome but on the other hand, it caused a slight pitch shift 
in the regeneration loop which can be interesting.

My friend Bob Ostertag dealt with this issue in an amusing way: he 
used helium balloons as tape guides. The tape between the two decks 
ran through a loop tied in the string on a big balloon. The play deck 
ran slow, so the balloon gradually rose up into the air as more and 
more tape fell slack between the machines.

-Alex S.