So after presenting my first version of project2, things didn't go very smooth... Basically the whole thing had to be scrapped.

I could hear the crickets cherping as an uncomforatble silence filled the room. Afterwards I talked with Sandy and Joey, whom basically suggested that I do a new project.

An idea that I had before came back to me. The basic idea was to create a sort of tape flanger effects box using the real tape flanging effect. Flanging is this sort of comb filter or phasing effect on audio created by adjusting the speed on the "wet" signal and remixing it with the original "dry" signal. It was named after the Flange on a tape recorder which audio engineers use to manipulate in order to create this effect.

Here are some motivational speaker tapes I got for 33 cents each from Texas Thrift. One is Zig Zigler and the other one is Pat Robinson. Using these to record seemed like a better idea than buying new tapes.

This tape recorder here is a Technics m224 purchased for $12.34 at Texas Thrift. It was in fully working order and with some testing I learned the first tape head is an erase head and the other is a combo playback/record head.

This tape recorder here is a Panasonic rq-309as purchased for $2.94 at Texas Thrift. It also was in fully working order with an erase and combo playback/record head. It also had working batteries!! With this find, I got some advice from Joey and called up Jerry Chamkis to get some help with electrics.

So I arrive at this interesting house. When I get there nobody is home. I take this oppurtunity and enjoy this very eclectic frontyard. I wish I had taken a picture of this house in context with the rest of the neighborhood.

After hauling in my stuff, Jerry was surprised to realise that I had been talking about modding a cassette tape recorder rather than a reel to reel setup. At this point Jerry explains alot of stuff about consumer tape recorders. Originally I had Had the notion that maybe the playback and record function on the Techics could be rigged such that both are simultaniously on. Jerry explained that most consumer grade tape decks use the same electronics for both record and playback. The solution here was to add the head from the Panasonic and use its hardware for recording.

Jerry had just come back with two other guys from a Hamfest. Somewhat dazed and ackwardly crammed into his house, I sort of just try to stay out of people's way and not bump into anything sensitive (which would be everything).

After alot of soldering help from one of Jerry's friends, the end result is this neat wiring job of the Panasonic hardware wired to its head, which now sits in place of the erase head in the Technics deck. Jerry only had about 2.5 free hours, so after getting that soldering job out of the way, I packed my stuff up in a box, along with some solder and various parts that I might need.

The weather was pretty good that day. I talked with Jerry about his work with disabled kids a bit. Overall I was also glad to have made some progress on my new project II. Aterwards I left to go record some bird noises and foley for a grad thesis film (Kid [Cabrito], Dir:Miguel Alvarez, ...and it sounds awesome).

I got home and set this box on top of a table. I also made a test recording of what this thing was producing. Basically there's the Zig Ziglar tape and that noise you hear in the back is this demo song of mine played from my mp3 player into the Panasonic line level input, recorded onto the tape and played back.

All that was remaining was to optimize the alignment of the playback and record head and then mix the original and processed signal back together... But after some tooling around, I managed to break off all of the oh so delicate wires from the Technics head. Thus far I haven't managed to soldier them back.

At the moment my flanger sounds like this.

Right now this project is on hold until I can get some help resoldering those wires back in place.