Hi, there must be a few of us in here playing with tape: cassettes? spliced loops? echo machines? portastudios? 1-inch multitrack?
Who’s got interesting stuff to share?
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I saw a couple of recent videos about tape flanging: 
• The Psychedelic Sound of Magnetic Tap… • The David Bowie Flanger
So I tried it with two 1960s UHER REPORT L tape-recorders.
Both tapes have exactly the same track recorded, playing back together, almost in sync. But not quite in sync so the audio waveforms interract and interfere.
More about the UHER tape-recorders: UHER 4000 REPORT-L tape recorder – ShedSynth
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1960s UHER tape recorder as a low-fi tape echo:
My TAPE INPUT/OUTPUT module patches the tape recorder into my synthesizer.
My TAPE HEAD AMPLIFIER module is based on Music Thing Modular’s Magnetofon and inspired by Sam’s recent video USING A BIG PLASTIC DISK AND LOTS OF TAPE HEADS TO BUILD A TAPE DELAY?.
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Frippertronics with a WEM Copicat
I bypassed the Copicat motor and used another tape recorder to pull reel-to-reel tape across the Copicat heads, and then plugged the tape recorder’s playback head output into the Copicat’s second instrument input to add a long delay back into the mix.
More details about my WEM Copicat echo unit here.
And more Frippertronics here.
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An idea to shield tape-recorder erase heads to do sound-on-sound tape loops:
I used short lengths of stainless steel embossing tape, sold for permanent labelling of underground pipes and cables.
This non-ferromagnetic tape is 13mm wide and bends easily to hook around the head, and might be sneaked into the back of the head block or along the tape path (but probably won’t work with cassettes).
Watch out: the edges are sharp when cut, so I cleaned them with a file and added sticky tape handles.
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Cool! Far more elegant than the deformed copper pipe I used to cover the erase head on my old BBC issue UHER back in the 80s. It’s worth looking around for an old powered degaussing brick which does a great job at restoring tape to a like new fidelity. (Don’t try to make your own. The DIY variants rarely work as well and can easily kill)
Good stuff!
Thanks @Farabide, I hadn’t thought of trying copper.
Most conductive but not ferromagnetic materials should work here, except perhaps alumimium which has some odd magnetic properties.
Mr Hainbach used aluminium foil with cassettes, but I didn’t find that to work very well on my 1/4" tape-recorders unless I bunched up many layers.
I suspect foil might work on a cassette by pushing the tape away from the erase head because the cassette shell only has a sprung pressure plate behind the record head, whereas the tape recorder I used had pressure plates for both heads.
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Hi, the erase heads on cassette systems can vary as some are degauss type but most are simply record heads with an inaudible signal. The tape spacing would block the latter but have less effect on the degaussing type. I’m curious as to why you’ve chosen a physical deactivation as opposed to isolating the erase head electronically (add circuit to turn it off) as this would let you control the function and add effects like tape stutter or circuit bend the erase head to be more or less effective adding fades and other artifacts. Take a Google at Music Concrète, techniques used in the 1940s recording days. I got loads of ideas from this. Keep going and leave no tape or head unturned!
Oh and have a look at card stock with magnetic strips which are superb for jamming or swiping across the heads manually and a lot of fun.
Answer 1: I wanted to experiment with the sound effects before I commit to drilling holes in my (admittedly scruffy, appropriately cheap) Copicat.
Before I do, I’ll test whether the bias oscillator frequency changes significantly as the inductance of each head is removed from the circuit.
And I probably won’t modify my other tape recorders, so I’ll still use the metal strips for those.
Answer 2: It turns out that I got it completely wrong about aluminium.
An experiment this morning with pieces cut from a disposable aluminium pie dish worked just as well as the stainless steel embossing tape.
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When prototyping a mechanical mod I find my hot glue gun is perfect for temporary work. We luthiers use hide glue for the same reason; warm it up to undo.
I look forward to seeing what you get up to.
Merry Xmas!
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