Maybe I'll start from the initial idea, what motivated me to do that. In 1953, I had access to a tape recorder. Tape recorders were not widely available. There was no cassette tape back then. It was a Sears Roebuck tape machine. I put a microphone in the window and recorded the ambience.
People who leave their cars on the street with tape covering their broken windows are obviously too trusting. I mean, when your car did have glass for a window, someone broke into it. How is tape any more of a deterrent? What are the thieves going to say? Ooh, that like looks like duct tape, we can't beat that. Let's look for one with scotch or masking.
I had invented my own system, my own way of making electronic music at the San Francisco Tape Music Centre, and I was using what is now referred to as a classical electronic music studio, consisting of tube oscillators and patch bays. There were no mixers or synthesizers. So I managed to figure out how to make the oscillators sing. I used a tape delay system using two tape recorders and stringing the tape between the two tape machines and being able to configure the tracks coming back in different ways.
Now clearly this advantage is when the data on tape has been found and just needs to be transferred back. You need to add a minute or so of seek time to find the data. On large transfers, though, tape should outpace most disk systems. From an ingest perspective, LTO-6 and other enterprise tape formats may be unrivaled when compared on a single unit basis.
Tape machines are effects boxes as well because each tape machine has its own sound. You can over-load a tape machine or you can bump it a certain way so it compresses or makes a sound, tape saturation.
But who cares? I can honestly look back and realize that everything happened for a reason. Everything that fell apart has fallen back into place beautifully and magically.
All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language.
I don't have any computers in my studio, it's all analog tape. All analog tape, all old equipment, I mean my mics are like from the 60's and early 70's, everything in there is old.
So, I bought a new CD and I was trying to get it open but couldn't with all the layers... I mean plastic and then tape, and the tape is like government tape. It says 'open here.' Is that sarcasm?
O'Connor lives by the following words: You don't look back. When people ask O'Connor now, "Aren't you sorry you resigned because everything you voted for is being reversed by the current court?" She says, "You can't look back."
Everybody's dream is to win a championship, but not everyone gets that chance. The only thing you can do is make sure you don't look back and have to wonder whether you did everything you could have done. I know I'll be able to look back and feel I had a good, honest career.
You will have to look at the tape. Actually, you could burn the tape. It's not even worth looking at... We just have to move on to next week. If we just get the next one we will be fine.
I'm always looking for older equipment and ways of recording, but you can't escape the fact that it's all going to be digitized and reduced. I do think music sounds better when it's on tape and more simply recorded. I've been arguing with people for 10 years about tape versus digital, and I believe tape is absolutely essential in getting the sound that's conducive to the enjoyment of music. I wonder if it's going to go back to that. Sometimes I think it has to. As music becomes more computer-based, it's lost some emotional impact.
Some people record onto tape, and then they pay for the tape, and download those onto a hard drive. Initially in a Pro Tools program. Other people go straight into digital, and use no tape at all.
I am a team player, I want to give everything for the manager and I don't look back. I just look forward.
When we had the San Francisco Tape Music Center, we had a couple of Ampex tape machines there, and I could string tape from one machine, past the heads, and over to the next machine to the supply-reel amp, and have another delay there.