Max The Tape Recorder's second album

Max The Tape Recorder's Second Album

Max The Tape Recorder's second album is a mixture of modern/contemporary and experimental music, the latter being especially in the way things were recorded: from recording all instruments through the telephone line to using a turntable as a microphone...

It's not always "easy listening", so listen at your own risks! ;)

You can preview and read comments about some of the tracks below.

Max The Tape Recorder's second album - Tracks

1. Dephased - preview
2. Open seas
3. Com---
4. Interlude
5. pletely sublime (inal)
6. Fun fun phone fight - preview
7. L'art de l'exercer cet art (l'heure de l'exercer c'est tard)
8. Drums vibrations in D major
9. Incarnate the turntable - Music through the mass -
What the Earth hears
10. Éphémère
11. CD groove
12. Oxygen needed

All tracks composed, performed, recorded and mixed by Max;
Cover art by Valérie Côté.

You can listen to the album on Bandcamp.

Comments on some of the tracks:

Track 2 - Open seas

A piece composed with the whole tone scale.

Track 6 - Fun fun phone fight

The only song on the album, all instruments and voice were recorded through the telephone line.

Track 8 - Drums vibrations in D major

The drums were recorded through electric guitar and bass pickups, the drums making the strings vibrate which were tuned to a D major scale.

Track 9 - Incarnate the turntable - Music through the mass - What the Earth hears

(Click on the images to see them full size; Will open in a new window)

All instruments were recorded through the vibrations that a turntable generates from the noise of the instruments (either naturally (drums) or amplified through a speaker (electric guitar, synth, bass) put in front of the turntable) while playing a vinyl record (a Hi-Fi test record with around 2 minutes of silence recorded for hum testing).

Track 10 - Éphémère

This time all instruments were recorded using small "in-the-ear" headphones as microphones;

	For the drums one headphone was solidly attached to the upper tip of the drum stick,
	and another one attached to the bass drum pedal.

For the guitar chords I attached a headphone between the thumb and index of the hand making the rhythms.

For the guitar melody I held a headphone between two fingers and pressed the string with it.

For the bass I attached the headphone to the only string used for this piece (the lower E one), vibrating with the string, becoming "one".

Track 11 - CD groove

I got the idea from a YouTube user (polimorfomusic) where he recorded music on a CD by cutting a groove on it, just like vinyl records, and then played the CD on his turntable.

I thought it was a good idea and wanted to try it myself but with my own music.

I developped a way to cut the groove on the CD:

I took a 5" car woofer and attached a sewing needle to it in order for the needle to touch the woofer and vibrate to the music.

	I then built a rail system where the woofer would stand over the plate of a turntable in order to cut the groove,
	the woofer attached to a thin polyester string tied to the plate's center of another turntable which would be used to make the woofer advance forward very slowly on the rail, all of this in order to make a beautiful groove and allow a constant distance between it, which is much better than holding the woofer by hand.

Then I recorded a drums beat with synth bass on my multitrack recorder for around 30 seconds, and played it through the woofer on the rail, making the needle vibrate to the recording, and cut the groove on the CD turning on the turntable at 33 1/3 rounds per minute.

I then played the finished cut CD on a turntable and transfered it on the computer to use as a sequence where I later added an electronic beat over it and other instruments on my multitrack recorder to make an instrumental piece: CD groove.

You can hear the untouched product of the groove cut on the original CD at the beginning and the end of the piece, and you can also hear in the middle of the piece the untouched drums and bass sequence I used to cut the groove.

Track 12 - Oxygen needed

This piece could demonstrate the brain in its working state;

It may also show what happens when the brain lacks oxygen, or gets too much of it!