Time lag accumulator
The Time Lag Accumulator (literally: time delay memory ) is a delay / feedback system based on two tape recorders and was created in 1963 by an unknown sound engineer from Terry Riley's staff for the recordings for the album Music for the Gift in Paris at his request for the technical feasibility of a certain sound idea presented. The arrangement was used by Terry Riley for this publication for the first time and was used by Pauline Oliveros and Steve Reich among others at the San Francisco Tape Music Center , which was an important address for contemporary electronic music in the 1960s . Oliveras later developed the system further into his Expanded Instrument System , which is specially designed for the needs of live looping . The Time Lag Accumulator became popular through Brian Eno's early Ambient (since 1978).
Arrangement and use
It was about two tape machines, usually Revox A77 , which shared a tape, whereby the spatial distance between the machines determined the length of the effect - usually 3–5 s (image representation: see web links). For Enos Music for Airports , the tape length was up to 30 meters (97 feet).
"The accumulation technique hadn't been invented yet and it got invented during this session. I was asking the engineer, describing to him the kind of sound I had worked with in Mescaline Mix. I wanted this kind of long, repeated loop and I said, 'can you create something like that?' He got it by stringing the tape between two tape recorders and feeding the signal from the second machine back to the first to recycle along with the new incoming signals. By varying the intensity of the feedback you could form the sound either into a single image without any delay or increase the intensity until it became a dense chaotic kind of sound. I enjoy the interplay between the two extremes. This engineer was the first to create this technique that I know of, this began my obsession with time-lag accumulation feed-back. It took me quite a while before I could afford to buy two good tape recorders to run this process in my own studio. "
Riley was originally looking for a way to create very long delays through which he could play saxophone and organ solos (as heard on Reed Streams and with Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band , 1969). With the TLA, the feedback component is responsible for the volume of the subsequent events. In a row ta ... ta ... ta ... ta ... i.e. the delay for the distance between the ta s (this results in rhythmic variations in areas that are difficult to quantify ) and the feedback for the frequency of audible repetitions, as well as overlays, etc.
The source material for Terry Riley's very first loops is said to have consisted of recordings by the Chet Baker Quartet with an interpretation of Miles Davis ' So What . The result is said to have inspired him to repeat as the basic form of his other compositions.
Frippertronics
Robert Fripp (via Eno) has been interested in the technology since 1972 and developed the so-called Frippertronics , a name that referred to a special version of the Time Lag Accumulator, which was intended for use for live solo performances. Like Terry Riley, Fripp was interested in having a stable basis for his long solos. In September 1972, the recordings for The Heavenly Music Corporation were the first points of contact Fripp had with minimalism in music in Eno's studio. The 21-minute piece is included on the LP (No Pussyfooting) (1973) and is mostly a reference piece for the use of Frippertronics .
"I was soloing over the Frippertronics loop and I heard the next note and played it, and I was weeping as I was playing because something was beginning to move."
Eno used Frippertronics for Discreet Music (1975) and a second collaboration with Fripp, Evening Star (also 1975). Then he returned to the original arrangement of the Time Lag Accumulator (as already on Ambient Music 1 - Music for Airports ; 1978), while Fripp, also in collaboration with Peter Gabriel and Daryl Hall , further developed the Frippertronics. Fripp also released two albums based on the so-called "Pure Frippertronics" ("Pure Frippertronics"), in which the audio material consists exclusively of layers of tape loops.
history
In the history of effects, the Time Lag Accumulator followed the first delay attempts in the 1920s. The Frippertronics, which were far more successful in terms of public attention, became the standard of music technology for such effects well into the 1980s and eventually replaced by modern, digital effects devices and effects combinations and design options as well as designs. The original TLA was first shown publicly in 1968 for the Magic Theater Show (Nelson Atkins Gallery) in Kansas City. At the beginning of the turn of the century it was restored and shown again at a festival in Lille in 2004. A new version of the TLA is now in the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon .
Discography
- Terry Riley - Music for the Gift (1963)
- Terry Riley - Bird of Paradise (1964)
- Terry Riley - Reed Streams (1966)
- Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain (1965)
- Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969)
- Fripp & Eno - (No Pussyfooting) (1973)
- Brian Eno - Discreet Music (1975)
- Fripp & Eno - Evening Star (1975)
- Brian Eno - Ambient Music 1 / Music for Airports (1978)
- Robert Fripp - God Save the Queen / Under Heavy Manners (1980)
- Robert Fripp - Let The Power Fall (1981)
Web links
- [4] Chris Muir: Max / MSP patch with an image of the time lag accumulator
- [5] TAZ article on the presentation of the original TLA on August 2, 2004
- [6] Terry Riley Biography with background information
- [7] Notes on Steinway Hall Program , 1967
Individual evidence
- ↑ [1] Looper Delight.com
- ↑ [2] Oliveras EIS website
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ The musician Kim Cascone also appears under the pseudonym Heavenly Music Corporation based on the title .
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Eric Tamm: Robert Fripp. From Crimson King to Crafty Master (1991; online)
- ↑ id 1980 and 1981
- ↑ [3] History of Delay and Reverberation English
