Siërra R., "Botfly Mother "Inhaling The Sodium Vapors""

i want to build a tape organ ! it will probably take a lot of time (which i have) and a chunk of money (which i dont have) ! rich mfs who want a mellotron type instrument that uses loops instead of strips of tape (kinda like the birotron !!!!!! i learned about that existing recently and apparently its coveted!!!! if that sweetens the pot) and will pay for me to bring it into existence may inquire within

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in reply to @botflymother's post:

@Janet4/9/2023, 8:50 AM

hm... to simplify, one could fix all the loops around a single rotating drum or as many drums as you have motors i guess... perhaps you could use a metal pipe, like an oven pipe? perhaps the quality would be worse than on a wire recorder but at least you... oh right, it could also be just loops of wire... im just thinking about how to built the cheapest, jankiest version of this to offer to hainbach to play around with....

perhaps one could route a single wire in a way to make it move past all play heads with different speeds, like double the speed for each full octave ... but now that i am thinking about that im not entirely certain that is possible without deforming the wire... as in drawing it through tools to make it longer and thinner... you know, like they do to make wire.

Siërra R., "Botfly Mother "Inhaling The Sodium Vapors""@botflymother4/9/2023, 8:54 AM

yep yep. one capstan driven by a big motor. thats how the mellotron does it and its how im gonna do it. it also makes tuning much much easier because you can do it with one speed control. all the loops recorded in half steps will keep the correct ratio to stay in tune with each other no matter the playback speed. keeps the wow and flutter uniform too. the birotron apparently used 8 track cartridges to hold its loops but im planning on not using cartridges, just having the loops on the machine directly

wire would make everything much much much much much more difficult. i dont know whwre id get even 1 wire recorder head, much less 37 lol. im planning on buying 4 track heads from aliexpress and using normal cassette tape

@Janet4/9/2023, 2:55 PM

sorry, yeah no i was just allowing my head to spin its tires i guess. i dont think you could actually built what i suggested regarding the wire.. but there was also a thought about using a ferromagnetic ovenpipe as a magnetic medium, i suppose the wire-thought was more interesting to my puppy brain, because at first i was thinking about a cardboard cylinder, with the magnetic medium adhesively attached to the carboard, a loop for a key, i guess 37 loops on a large cylinder like that driven by a single motor, you could allow the player to varry the speed by hand too and perhaps a monitor-touch on the keys, not quite hitting the note off but just to like touch into the sound to find the right place// ok ill stop now and eat my dinner ^^

damn... i let my brain go fetch again, you might want a cone instead, to double the length every octave down, with varying results regarding tracking. or a pyramid of cylinders in 37 steps?

Siërra R., "Botfly Mother "Inhaling The Sodium Vapors""@botflymother4/9/2023, 6:46 PM

oh shit what if the heads moved down the wires like ziplines instead of the wires moving. you could change the angle of the wires to change the terminal velocity of the head going down it to change the pitch. the wires would probably need to be longer the higher the angle as well. im imagining a grand piano shaped instrument that logarithmically curves up. it would need to be in a room with a fairly high ceiling

@Janet4/9/2023, 8:08 PM

hehe lovely idea, and it screams to be put in an acrylic case

Siërra R., "Botfly Mother "Inhaling The Sodium Vapors""@botflymother4/9/2023, 8:12 PM

or no case at all. thats a semi-permanent art gallery installation idea if ive ever heard one. mounted directly to the walls, criss crossing wildly, plays a piece controlled by midi every 15 minutes

@Janet4/11/2023, 9:25 AM

... what is your opinion on microtonal music? :host-evil:

im halfway down a cifteli and turkish music theory rabbithole, reading this wikipedia page after seeing this yt vid

heck, i should build some sort of electronic instrument myself... i guess i should start a todo list

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