RE: unexpected gear behavior

[Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com>]

This is one of the biggest reasons why I continue to enjoy using a 
cassette machine for looping, in spite of its obvious limitations. When 
I click off my punch-in pedal, I only have a vague idea what I'm going 
to get. The length of the loop is fixed, and there is no kind of click 
track, so a perfectly rhythmic loop is almost impossible. I often 
distress the tape stock, so when the playback starts there may or may 
not be wow and flutter, dropouts, distortion, etc. Also, I change tape 
speeds frequently while recording, so the pitch will also change in a 
fashion which is very hard to predict when combined with the lag of the 
machine's motor. It's very easy to introduce the unexpected into this 
system, it seems part and parcel of the whole package.

Every now and then I'll try out a digital looper in stores, and when I 
play something and hear it back, I'm so disappointed when it sounds 
exactly like what went into it!

BTW, thanks for posting our schedule for the Chinapainting show, Jim. 
Hope some folks can make it out to see us.

Daryl Shawn
www.swanwelder.com
www.chinapaintingmusic.com

> There is a distinct charm in gear doing unexpected things, and a few 
>methods to create them:
>