What where the old tape editing techniques?


what tricks did they do to tape do editing to tapes?


Cutting up the Waveform what did they do back then?

I heard that George Martin and The Beatles took a length of tape and cut it up into 15 inch (I think) segments, then threw them up in the air randomizing them.

When they spliced them back together the sounds were completely random, I forget the song this is on now, but a new sound evolves every sec, the tape was running at 15ips.
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Recording Studio Suntans

Interesting bit of History AC.

smokin-man wrote:

Interesting bit of History AC.

Yeah I still can't think of the track, I'll have to dig out my albums.
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Recording Studio Suntans

I'm probably mistaken, but wasn't the Beatles "White Album" completely done on 4-track?

smokin-man wrote:

I'm probably mistaken, but wasn't the Beatles "White Album" completely done on 4-track?

You know I got a feeling they started on 2, went to three 3 (somehow) and most of their career were on 4, yes, though by the White Album could have been up to 8.

I'm gonna do some research and post some more stuff about this next week, as it's such humbling stuff.
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Recording Studio Suntans

AC wrote:

smokin-man wrote: I'm probably mistaken, but wasn't the Beatles "White Album" completely done on 4-track? You know I got a feeling they started on 2, went to three 3 (somehow) and most of their career were on 4, yes, though by the White Album could have been up to 8. I'm gonna do some research and post some more stuff about this next week, as it's such humbling stuff.

The studio sessions for the double album "The Beatles" (nicknamed The White Album) were started on thursday 30 May, 1968 in studio 2 of Abbey Road. A four track was used and many tunes such as Revolution had around 20 takes to completion.

With each successive bounce-down a new take was numbered.

The Producer was George Martin with Goeff Emerick as engineer and Phil McDonald as 2nd engineer.

It might be interesting for us to deconstruct individual songs in a seperate threads if anyone is interested?
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Recording Studio Suntans

I forgot to mention that tape trick can be heard on "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!" off the Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

19 pieces were used and it was George Martin's idea, class!
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Recording Studio Suntans

Here's another one. The start of Pink Floyds - Money.
Apparently done by recording different noises like cash registers and coins being thrown into a dish and then cutting them up by calculating the length by the tape speed in ips. The bits were then spliced together and run through an improvised set up of capstans and tape rollers. Then the correct tempo was arranged by adding or subtracting more tape, bit by bit until they came up with the finished product.
Now that's art.

That's right! I completly forgotten about that song. I just love how Pink Floyd made "Money." Every time I hear the beginning of this tune, I always wonder how long it took them to record all the change that was moving around. That waas so genius of them! Even for their live show,s they still use that clip in their intro. Everyone recognizes it, and it's the best way to start a song off. What do you guys think of their genius talents?

Pink Floyd - Money
http://www.napster.com/player/tracks/13183938