pause tape tricks

H

hideous pony

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I know there are some people on here that used to make pause tapes. I've tried a few times to make them, but haven't been able to get the loop to groove - there's always a tiny bit of dead air between the loops. Do you just have to hit pause a little before the loop is over, or do people remember other tricks to make a tight pause tape?
 
damn pause tapes i thought people stopped making those in the late 80s. I never made one but id love to hear from someone who did
 
Yeah, it's totally unnecessary, but I got a sweet tape recorder yesterday and decided to try it - Heard about so many producers that started that way, just curious if there were any tricks or just trial and error.
 
I started out with pause tapes a long time ago. I had this trick where I would put masking tape or a piece of paper over the erase head of the tape recorder to prevent it from erasing the tape. This let me overdub multiple sounds.
 
I started out with pause tapes a long time ago. I had this trick where I would put masking tape or a piece of paper over the erase head of the tape recorder to prevent it from erasing the tape. This let me overdub multiple sounds.

I used to stick a piece of paper in the hole. I never made pause tapes though. Software samplers and windows recorder were out. There are too many easy ways to make loops nowadays so I wouldnt even mess with it.
 
alright I figured it out - pause tapes are fun! the trick is using a tape recorder which doesn't have the 'soft touch' electronic pause button - you need one with the mechanical button. Once I got that I was surprised at the tight loops I could get - all analog! Not realtime, but lots cheaper than 2 turntables and 2 copies of records.
 
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alright I figured it out - pause tapes are fun! the trick is using a tape recorder which doesn't have the 'soft touch' electronic pause button - you need one with the mechanical button. Once I got that I was surprised at the tight loops I could get - all analog! Not realtime, but lots cheaper than 2 turntables and 2 copies of records.

Can you explain the technique or do a tutorial? Im interested on how to do this now. I researched it a bit but nobody really breaks it down.
 
Yeah, maybe I'll do a video sometime. You hit record, play, and pause on the tape player, play the record a little before the loop you want, then right on the first beat of the part you want to loop you unpause real quick. Then at the very end of the part you want to loop you hit pause really quick again. Then you go back to the beginning of the part on the record and repeat. You're just recording a small part of a record over and over onto the tape to make a loop. It takes a little practice to get the timing just right, but I figured it out after an hour or so. It's how lots of producers got started.
 
Not that I know of. If you had a 4 track you could play drums/pads along with the loop in realtime - I can't think of a way to sync up a second loop over the first one though. Maybe some clever way with a 4 track, 2 tape decks/karaoke machine or disabling the erase head on a 3 head machine (so you could still hear the original loop while overdubbing)
 
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