TAPE LAB LORE
TAPE LAB LORE
The Tape is Still Spinning
Still, the relative ease with which you can create, loop, and change sounds lends itself to creativity. The less barriers to making music, the better. At the time, I did have access to Ableton, but the interface is daunting and not that much fun.
Cassidy brought over a Yamaha PSR-700, a classic 2000s keyboard design with a bulky plastic form, built-in speakers, and an unmistakable sound synonymous with learning to play piano. Not to mention the vast orchestra of sounds (called “Voices”), drum fills and backing arrangements.
Having the right wires was what brought everything together.
Tape Lab started with a Y-spliter wire, two 24oz. Twisted Teas, and a tape deck.
I had just recently moved to Graham, NC and Cassidy was living in Efland - two tiny towns on the I-40 Corridor, just far enough West of RTP to be affordable. Like any great creative friendship, and Cassidy and I have been “yes, and”-ing each other since we were 11, the idea to record some music live, directly to tape, has nebulous origin.
Likely, I was still thinking about the album—recorded and edited entirely on tape—that Cassidy and a mutual friend Sammy D recorded some years earlier. They named it H8. I loved it and, being young and flush with summer cash from my lucrative teaching job, I impulse purchased a Korg Kaosillator Pro ($350).
If you’re unfamiliar, it's a fun music toy that has ~120 premade sounds (drums, synths, space, a really great saxophone sound) that you play by pressing on a square, pressure-sensitive X-Y Pad. Press the middle (0,0) to get one sound and move up/down (y-axis) and left/right (x-axis) to change what it sounds like. You can loop these sounds into patterns.
Essentially, a Kaosillator is a great way to get started making music without the pesky task of learning how to plan an instrument. That is self-deprecating, it is an instrument, but more like a video game controller than a piano, and in that sense, “mastering” the Kaosillator translates little to composing or creating songs.
Heres the rundown:
Best Practices
Plug the Yamaha’s audio out (⅛’’ TSR, Stereo) into the Kaosillator (RGA). This setup allowed us to LOOP the audio played on the Yamaha directly onto the Kaosillator. From the Kaosillator, the combined audio out (RGA) goes into the Microphone In (¼” TSR, Mono) on the Tape deck.
In order to hear anything out of the speakers, you arm the record option by pressing record and pause at the same time. This tells the microphone to pass through the speakers but does not start the recording until you release the pause button.
The speakers on the boombox (my sister got this one for Christmas in 2001, I got a PS2 - both still work) sound ratty and great, and have zero latency (delay)!
Another fun tip—with a dual-head tape deck—you can record audio from another tape (“dubbing”) by putting the blank tape (what you’ll record onto) into Tape B, put an audiobook (or other audio source, maybe yourself singing?) into Tape A. Pause Tape A, and then Arm record on Tape B.
DOUBLE TIP: Since the tape deck is powered by a motor, which has minor inconsistencies that are called “Tape Warble.” Basically, the audio is being pitched up and down slightly based on how quickly the motor spins the tape. You can manipulate how the motor spins by pausing, unpausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding, etc., while a tape is being played.
The first lesson we learned using this setup is what audio nerds call “Gain Staging.” The Yamaha has a volume knob, the Kaosillator has an INPUT volume knob, the Kaosillator has a volume OUTPUT knob, the Tape player has a microphone INPUT knob, and finally, the tape player has a volume OUTPUT knob.
(HINT: The microphone volume input is the most important; don’t gain this out, keep it about 50%, and make sure the rest of the volume is loud enough).
The metaphor that made the most sense (for my generation) is: Remember those tape-to-aux-cord adapters in cars? You have to keep the volume on your mp3 player at about halfway or else everything will sound like garbage distortion. These days, that hyperdistortion is a meme. I think Gen Z makes it by turning up the volume to like 200% on a video editor in TikTok.
Thinking about it now, it is quaint to consider a time without any MIDI cables to sync clock (what's that?), mixer to EQ sounds, interface to record audio, or DAW to edit and master sound. We worked through the problems without knowledge of a broader “best practice,” which can be a major speed bump toward creating something.
Creatively, Cassidy is excitable. Me too. Together, we can get stoked quickly.