I recorded a loop which I made the other day, but something went wrong, no idea what but as I went to play it back on my reel to reel tape recorder no matter what way I loaded the loop on it, It would not play, it played the first time but the second would not. Its not broken either, it played my other prerecorded reel which came with it, so I don't know what went wrong here but ill have to try again. it is such a frustrating process as-well, it might look like, produce - record onto tape - loop tape - destroy/decay/distort - repeat
Its not such a easy process, nowhere near. Making the loop on garage band is hard enough especially if you don't know what you're doing or know the laws of sound etc. so that takes a few hours to find something which can work on a loop, something which can be catchy but not annoying, something that can take you to another place.
Once you have the loop done you need to transfer it to reel, this is a nightmare as you have to load the reel and play it the same time its recording. You also have to be pretty much on the nose for where the loop stops and starts, if you run over you have something which doesn't sound right but if its cut short you can hear a clear drop off with the recording. I did learn a small way around this by cutting the reel diagonally which does help to some extent.
then when you have it recorded on your tape you need to splice the ends together at the perfect point, this could send the average person into a coma. if you lose track of which side its recorded on you can spend a while figuring it out where you left off or if its not cut correctly. The next step is actually disrupting the loop, this is the easiest part but it can still be really frustrating. If you're recording the final piece you have to be really careful not to create any unnecessary sounds or movements, or even if the sandpaper or blades slips off the reel it can be heard in the final recording. Then you have to find the correct tension behind the distortion, say you're using a blade, you cant have it pressed too tight otherwise it will cut the loop, but you cant have it too limp otherwise it wont do anything. The smallest snag can stop the whole process, sometimes this is quite fitting but others not so much.
Then theres the issue of recording it to digital and putting it on Bandcamp or Youtube for others to listen to.
Not such a straight forward process.
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