Walkman Analog Tape Delay

[theavondon]

Plus, entirely too complex. But, then again, I only like rather short delay times, and rarely touch the knobs on my delay. So, only one time would work for me.

[dubkitty]

Walkmen don't have record heads, but regular home cassette player/recorders do, and in the age of CDs giving way to MP3s and DVD-A old cassette players are cheap as chips. if you want hi-fi, old home 4-track cassette units appear to go for less than $100 on eBay and often have the benefits of higher-speed operation and varispeed pitch control.

VHS recorders are going to be difficult to implement as tape loopers because of the way the internal mechanism of the recorder operates. the recorder pulls tape from the cartridge and draws it to tension after raising capstans around which the tape is, effectively, looped; this is going to make it difficult to add a loop without screwing up the tension, tripping the automatic shutoff, and shutting down the recorder. i'm not saying it's impossible, i'm saying that from my limited former A/V guy knowledge of VHS machines it'd be complicated.

[Scruffie]

Walkmen don't have record heads, but regular home cassette player/recorders do, and in the age of CDs giving way to MP3s and DVD-A old cassette players are cheap as chips. if you want hi-fi, old home 4-track cassette units appear to go for less than $100 on eBay and often have the benefits of higher-speed operation and varispeed pitch control.

VHS recorders are going to be difficult to implement as tape loopers because of the way the internal mechanism of the recorder operates. the recorder pulls tape from the cartridge and draws it to tension after raising capstans around which the tape is, effectively, looped; this is going to make it difficult to add a loop without screwing up the tension, tripping the automatic shutoff, and shutting down the recorder. i'm not saying it's impossible, i'm saying that from my limited former A/V guy knowledge of VHS machines it'd be complicated.

There ya go! Knew there'd be some hurdle haha.

Ah well, wouldn't have ever got round to the idea anyway probably.

Yeah I suppose a Home Cassette could work... I just don't think it's worth the effort, I love me some BBD Delay.

[dubkitty]

i think i've got it. get an old 4 track cassette that'll run at 7.5 ips (or get any old 4-track cassette and max the motor speed adjustment ); disable the erase head; get a batch of endless-loop answering machine cassettes and splice them to various lengths; use the varispeed on the deck to tune the loop speed; set all four channels to "RECORD"; say hello to Brian Eno for me.

seriously, at 7.5 the noise level should be acceptable, especially if you use Dolby or dbx (which was generally available on the kind of 90s-era machines that are cheap used nowadays)...if i use a digital repeat the amount of noise that accretes from pickup noise and fuzz is probably equal to the amount of tape noise you'd get from a 7.5 ips cassette loop.

[theavondon]

i think i've got it. get an old 4 track cassette that'll run at 7.5 ips (or get any old 4-track cassette and max the motor speed adjustment ); disable the erase head; get a batch of endless-loop answering machine cassettes and splice them to various lengths; use the varispeed on the deck to tune the loop speed; set all four channels to "RECORD"; say hello to Brian Eno for me.

seriously, at 7.5 the noise level should be acceptable, especially if you use Dolby or dbx (which was generally available on the kind of 90s-era machines that are cheap used nowadays)...if i use a digital repeat the amount of noise that accretes from pickup noise and fuzz is probably equal to the amount of tape noise you'd get from a 7.5 ips cassette loop.

Soo, wanna make it?

[cloudscapes]

I'd love to try building this one day! just because.
do they really need to be 3-head? hmmmm yeah I guess so.

the biggest potential is in the pushing down and warping of the sound with your fingers!

[dubkitty]

i could have a go at it. i don't know if it would be an immediate thing, and i don't really want to hack up the Teac because it still may be useful in non-bent form, but it seems like this could be doable without destructo-mods.

the major obstacle i'd need to overcome would be disabling the erase head, which i'd prefer to do without screwing with the mechanism. would it be possible to cover the erase head with some sort of smooth-surfaced material which would block the head from erasing the tape, allow the tape to cross the erase head without excess friction, and be removable without leaving a ton of crap behind? and what would that miracle substance be? tape? plastic? non-magnetisable metallic foil?

cutting down the loop cassettes to length shouldn't be too problematic as long as i don't have to take the cassette shells apart, at which point the loopage could get confusing...i was splicing cassette tape back in the 70s when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and now i can actually afford proper splicing tools rather than cellotape

of course, the big flaw is the likelihood that endless-loop cassettes running at 7.5 ips are likely to tie themselves up in knots tout suite. but you never know until you try.

[dubkitty]

the biggest potential is in the pushing down and warping of the sound with your fingers!

and with the 4-tracks you often have the option of pitch control as well, so you could varispeed and pitchbend the repeats

[dorfmeister]

http://hackaday.com/2010/12/20/tape-del ... k+a+Day%29

[achillies000]

Eventually, there'd be like, little pieces on tape on the floor, to mark where to put the walkmans for the specific amount of delay you want. And at shows, you bring a tape measure . . .