Filling a Tape Loop with Drums

[@SeeSawMassacre]

I found an easy way to get perfect loops. I just record something onto the tape, and then time how long the loop is based on when it repeats. Then i use this beats-per-minute calculator (toolstud, can't link it), that does the math for what different tempos fit within that time. So for an 11 second loop, you can do 16 beats at 87 bpm, or 24 beats at 131 bpm etcetera. Then i'll just listen to a metronome at whichever bpm and play to it when laying down the first loop. Actually, since i can't monitor where i'm at on the tape, i just do all the subsequent layers to the same metronome and let them fall where they may. The results are surprising.

[@MadeOnTape]

this is amazing info thanks for sharing!

[@WotanSkyFather]

Everyone should write a song in 11/4 at least once in their life.

[@MadeOnTape]

helllllll yesssss

[@Fly-In-Music]

Nécessairement gééénial 😆Hi!👋Ma première K7 TASCAM fut une succession de tests quasi-inaudibles. Je ne comprenais rien au fonctionnement de l'appareil, je tâtonnais, tantôt j'enregistrais en speed normale, et puis le morceau d'après en high, ....et en plus j'enregistrais sur la piste A puis B??!! Vous imaginez? UN VRAI BORDEL 😶Un soir avant de dormir, j'ai mis mon casque et j'ai réécouté ce vieux vestige qui sonnait dans tous les sens et à toutes les vitesses dans mes oreilles lol=> Ça m'a inspiré une mélodie : ))) Et elle a mangé tout mon sommeil!! Voilà en partie ce que je voulais vous faire partager en découvrant votre ^tape^ La création inattendue est souvent anecdotique, et dans vos vidéos `purement` intemporelles c'est un monde à l'envers que vous remettez à l'endroit. Vous êtes vraiment doué pour ça! Et puis aussi, vous contribuez à perfectionner mon anglais! Je comprends mieux maintenant loll même si je vous écris encore en français^^ Bons Délires👍+++

[@MadeOnTape]

my French is far worse than your English and I have to use Google Translate to get the message! Thank you for sharing and I hope you continue receiving inspired melodies! Always record them, even on your phone!

[@ChrisCaaa]

Sounded so incredible when you rolled up the tape speed, just those pedals through the send and return already make it sound like a fully finished track alone!

[@MadeOnTape]

yes! I can't wait to figure out what I'm doing with the track hahaha

[@ChrisCaaa]

@@MadeOnTape Yeah man, I was just watching that episode about the making of the drums for The Last Word this afternoon, kinda like a Mario DiSanto video with the old mic lol, love it if you guys did a collab lol

[@MarcoAzevedo]

To me it is the perfect drum tone, 3 mics you get the sound bro👏👏👏

[@MadeOnTape]

thank you so much Marco 🙌🏻🙌🏻 love the 3 mic sound as well

[@theComaCalling]

That original groove you guys came up with is straight genius! Beautiful work guys!

[@MadeOnTape]

thank you 🙏🏻 i’m very lucky to work with Eric he’s the man

[@lbstrtelephone]

Can't fully explain how wonderful this is to me. Thank you

[@MadeOnTape]

appreciate you! Also this is a good reminder for me to finish one of these tracks hahaha

[@DavidTenenholtz]

amazing! I really liked the sounds created when you did the lofi EQ on track 1, and the double speed!

[@MadeOnTape]

this comment reminds me i’m sitting on unreleased music 😂 thanks for checking it out!

[@Govier]

Man this sounds awesome! I especially love when you pushed it to double speed.

[@MadeOnTape]

me too! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 thanks for listening 👂

[@cstocker77]

This is so great! Excellent! I love it.

[@MadeOnTape]

you're excellent, Stocker!

[@statesofinertia]

love the sonic experimentations but also the video editing. Great stuff man 👊

[@MadeOnTape]

hey I really appreciate that. I always go into an edit thinking "this should only take a few hours" and it takes more than 10 overall probably...sometimes more, sometimes less. But I have to get it to where I would watch it

[@subliminalistic]

This process was so rad to watch!

[@MadeOnTape]

thank you Scott! it was fun to process!

[@StephenMcLeod]

This is so awesome.

[@MadeOnTape]

🙏🏻🙌🏻 i’m traveling but wanna check out your channel later! thanks for dropping by 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@hhyoutubenoname]

You've been hitting it out of the park recently! Was listening through my phone speakers and it still sounded ace

[@MadeOnTape]

ah that’s very kind of you to say 🙏🏻🙌🏻 thanks for listening 👂

[@commonlyforgotten2]

Keep doing what you're doing man this is awesome!

[@MadeOnTape]

hey that means so much thank you 🙏🏻

[@beatprocess]

yeah, that double time is sick

[@timdykes7858]

Nice! I dig the cassette tape. Used to do it on reel to reel . But cassette is way cool

[@MadeOnTape]

reel loops are fun!

[@joe5808]

Sooo sick

[@MadeOnTape]

🙏

[@jayteelee]

Great job and fun toooooo thanx, I like your videos :)

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching and listening!

[@wehappyfewmusic]

Man, that sounds awesome, love the layering and processing! ❤

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for listening 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻 we had fun

[@BatteryOperated]

Great work as always!! Thanks for the kind words!! ❤

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for the great cassettes !

[@aftertheendtimes]

Highly inspirational, 🙏👍 thanks bro'

[@MadeOnTape]

i appreciate that!

[@gordonsmith33]

insane

[@electricsuitbatman]

Dude, your drum loop intro sounded lime "lookin down the barrel of a gun"

[@mugenDelta]

Even this experiment sounds great. I can easily imagine this is not you but Massive Attack =)

[@MadeOnTape]

really appreciate the kind words! This was a fun one for sure and big props to my man Eric: he's a creative force

[@jodyjorchard]

I love it!

[@BigNovantara]

sounds therapy man. nice one

[@JSlackArt]

Cool!

[@MadeOnTape]

🙏🏻🤘🏻

[@mickrinaldiofficial979]

Another great video man!

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching! 🙏🏻

[@redacted743]

Jw, how did u apply phantom power to the sm7b on the kick but not to the ribbon mic?

[@MadeOnTape]

hi! The sm7b doesn’t take phantom power, but funny enough our ribbon is active and needs phantom. We have a battery powered phantom unit in the line: www.sweetwater.com/c959--Ess_Phantom_Power?highlight=P1Pwr&mrkgadid=&mrkgcl=28&mrkgen=&mrkgbflag=&mrkgcat=&acctid=21700000001645388&dskeywordid=&lid=58700008501015626&dsproductgroupid=&product_id=P1Pwr&prodctry=US&prodlang=en&channel=online&storeid=&device=m&network=x&matchtype=&adpos=largenumber&locationid=9004335&creative=&targetid=&campaignid=20420409729&awsearchcpc=&&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3NT2waOWggMVzs7ICh01ywVXEAQYASABEgI-r_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[@redacted743]

@@MadeOnTape thx uuuu

[@tapeexperiments]

Rad

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks! I dig your drum loop experiment #1 ! sick sounds!

[@vortexalerand9949]

well done

[@vortexalerand9949]

!

[@MadeOnTape]

🙏🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@andrewvigil7407]

Dope AF

[@Jessica-yy5ub]

Very cool!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@MadeOnTape]

thank youuuuuu

[@whiterottenrabbit]

Love all the tutorials and videos about tape loops, and this one is awesome as well, amazing skills! But is it just me or why do all the content creators just skim through the most important thing of how to create the drum track loop perfectly without any misalignment. Is it some top secret information they don't want to reveal? Who doens't think that getting the loop in sync is the most important thing, especially when working with tape? Like, you can't just wing it, you have to meticulously plan end execute everything, no? But every video is like "I just made this tape loop, period, no further details are given"... **slow clap**

[@MadeOnTape]

you are very correct and astute. AND you're gonna hate this, but we approximated the tempo, went for it, and it worked. I was fully prepared to do some tweaking with the motor speed. Here's what I was prepared to do: 1) pick a tempo and groove for drummer to play 2) record it, and find out if the "loop" cut off too early or too late 3) slow down or speed up the motor, then have the drummer play the exact same groove and tempo 4) listen again and adjust. hope that helps!

[@MadeOnTape]

i should probably make a video breaking this down exactly...

[@MadeOnTape]

in other words, with cassette portastudios, I understand that tape loops have been cut to a certain length in theory, and you can therefore make a mathematical approximation based on loop length, tape speed and tempo. HOWEVER, this calculation almost NEVER works in practice due to too many imperfections in A) the loop length B) the machine's motor speed ... honestly with a good drummer C) tempo is the easiest part to nail.

[@whiterottenrabbit]

Thanks for your kind words in the face of my rant! I'd love such a breakdown and I am sure many others would appreciate too. And yes, in my (very limited) experience this mathematical approach doesn't always work so I am eager to learn how people do create such awesome drum loops like yours.

[@wallofsheep5645]

Very nice!

[@MadeOnTape]

many thanks 🙏🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@collinstanley5246]

LOOPSSS

[@MadeOnTape]

round and round and round and round and round and round and round

[@BrockHenry]

I found a 4track tape machine on FB Marketplace, did some googling here, and now I'm interested. Should I buy it?

[@MadeOnTape]

i would make sure it works or is easily fixed or is very cheap but yes they’re fun!

[@BrockHenry]

@@MadeOnTape I've asked the seller for some more info. We shall see what happens.

[@BrockHenry]

​@@MadeOnTapeUpdate: seller not seeing or responding to any messages. *shrug*

[@JoshuaPickenpaugh]

First! sounds good chris.

[@MadeOnTape]

yo thanks for listening Josh! 🙌🏻

[@martybyrnemusic]

Am I right in thinking that you worked out the tempo of that first kick, based on knowing how long the tape loop was? Or did you have to figure out the length of tape / length of loop time, then find a tempo that would work within that time? If the latter, how did you do this? Do you just experiment with tempos, until you hear a decent repetition without too much of a glitch / jump? Either way: This is very cool. Cheers!

[@boombap28]

This is absolutely crazy!! This is so inspirational and I appreciate all you share here! What’s the amount of recording time you have on that loop cassette?

[@MadeOnTape]

hey thank you for the kind words! this is about an 11 second loop 🔁

[@markitux]

damn!!! is like Propellerheads Reason but better 'cause it's in tape... oh my! im still struggling with the tape length vs tempo accuracy ratio for a perfect in tempo loop. Can you explain some of that, please? Great job, man! Greetings from Chile

[@musiquepourladanse]

Ya, im interested too!

[@MadeOnTape]

you’ve both inspired me to show this on camera! i have a few techniques but mostly it’s finessing pitch knob

[@slamcrank]

@@MadeOnTape yes please! I'd love to see more info on this as well.

[@canconeteirodopunk]

hey dude!!!

[@MadeOnTape]

yoooooo

[@canconeteirodopunk]

@@MadeOnTape Nice content! Thks!