Tape monitoring with almost any reel to reel recorders

At your risk.


This comes from an idea of Stelios Giannakopoulos (engineer at Columbia EMI Athens) using 2 tape reel to reel recorders separated at a distance to create a delay. This delay was long enough to create a canon (musical form of repeating parts delayed in time, eg Canon in D - Pachelbel) while mixing for a Manos Hatzidakis composition which had a choir part. The choir part hence became a canon.


One of the problems of the Pleiades experiments from mic to headphones is that reproduction is instant. So the listener hears 2 sounds, one is the original acoustic voice and two the voice coming out of the headphones after electronically passing through the analog signal path under test.


One way round it would be to record to tape and then reproduce. But it takes too much time, to rewind stop listen etc.


So here is how it may be possible to create a real time delay of as many seconds are wanted in real time.


So far it was tried only at reproduction and it worked.


2 Uher 4200 report (non monitor version) reel to reel tape recorders were used.


The 2 recorders were separated at such distance that the 2 head blocks were 15in apart. This would give a delay of 2 seconds if the tape runs at 7.5ips.


2 reels were used only. The feed tape reel was on the left tape recorder. The take up reel on the right recorder.


The tape was carefully thread through both recorders, the usual way.


Important. The Pause button is activated on the left recorder. This frees the tape from the capstan and pitch roller. Then the play button was pressed. This leaves the left spool free to move.


When play was pressed on the right recorder everything started to move as if one tape recorder was being used.


At this stage both recorders were in playback mode. So whatever was heard from the left recorder was repeated after 2 seconds from the right hand recorder.


So it seems it should work by pressing rec on the left recorder and play on the right one.


The 2 recorders can be rotated on the table they are sitting so that the tape passes through all tape guides at a small or the correct? angle. The left recorder can be rotated counterclockwise and the right one clockwise.


Would this be a useful method of texting mics, optimum mic distance, passive mic filters, booster amplifiers etc, optimum modulation levels, etc?


Would it also be useful for real time recording of many musical parts in real time by just 1 or a few musicians. This requires feeding playback signal back to the recorder etc.


Here is a video in YouTube using the Frippertronics technique. It is not shown if the pause button had been pressed on the feeding machine. It is pressed on the left Uher in order to avoid disastrous stretch of the tape. Only 2 spools were used.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d5OMrB9Opjg