Re: Throbbing Gristle tape looping

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

Heh!

I think the immediacy you get with direct mechanical control of the 
media is the main attraction for these kinds of rigs, besides the 
innate raw machine aesthetic.

You could do what I am guessing Peter did, which is remove various 
switches and pots from the car stereos, and wire them up directly via 
longer wires to a control panel. Take a bicycle brake lever and cable 
and attach it to pull the pinch wheel away from the capstan...this 
might give you a rather Gristly speed control that would be hard to 
emulate with a digital sampler.

For theremin like control, I can think of a couple ways to do it, but 
they require either lots of money or lots of hardware hacking skills, 
or some of both. Translating a gesture into a voltage and then into 
data and eventually back into a mechanical movement seems kind of 
silly, but anyway:

1. You could buy a MIDI theremin and an AMX or Crestron control 
system, and program the AMX to read the MIDI and translate it into 
emulated IR remote commands for any cassette decks that have remote 
controls. This is sort of an absurdly expensive of approach, but 
could be done quickly by anyone with the cash.

2. You could build a PAIA theremin kit with control voltage outputs, 
and program a Basic Stamp or other microcontroller kit to translate 
the CV's into relay closures or other triggers that press the buttons 
on the front panel of the cassette decks. For someone with a moderate 
amount of electronics hacking skill this would cost a lot less and 
not take forever.

-Alex S.





>If there are any TG fans on here they'll understand what Im talking 
>about....
>
>Peter Christopherson played a sampler/tape looper keyboard that when 
>you pushed on keys it would trigger car tape decks that had cassetts 
>of sounds. The keyboard could controll speed, rewind, forward, etc.
>
>Does anyone know of a way to controll car stereo tape decks or any 
>tape decks for that matter through like a joystick or keyboard maybe 
>even in a theremin like instrument?
>
>kris
>
>
>
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