The story
You know those musical experiments that result in something completely different than what you set out to do? Yeah, this is one of those. Using an old tape recorder from a thrift store, I was excited to experiment with running sounds through a cassette tape for the first time. Once I plugged it in and tried to get it working, I realized this tape recorder was, unfortunately, broken. It did, however, have a built in microphone that seemed to work and started a feedback loop between my studio monitors and that microphone. The result? This library. Don’t fight it when these experiments go wrong. It’s always better to lean in and make something cool from them! It’s not what I thought I would get from this old piece of kit, but it’s probably 10x cooler than what I expected!
Broken Tape Deck Creation
Interface
Reviews for Broken Tape Deck
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Class Sounds
Pad 1 instantly reminded me of the Chernobyl soundtrack. There are some really cool deep sounds in here that I'll be using as dark drones for sure.
Instant phenomenal ambience!
This is a custom instrument with a bigger than average size, and that's because it includes 7 different patches with multiple unique 1+ min samples on each one. And let me tell you these samples are fantastic. With a slightly synthetic tone and an evolving character, the sounds that come from the keys can be haunting, thrilling and menacing, if not all at the same time. As the title suggests, there's a "tape" texture that helps with the mood, and though you will find no settings in the GUI, it is easy to realise that you don't need to modify anything in order to make this work.
As a note, it seems that in the Pad 1, theres a small zone in the middle of the keybed that has a small clicky noise right on the attack, that sounds like an impulse response sample. This is can be dealt in numberous ways. The easiest is to slightly raise the attack via the modulation panel on the Kontakt instrument settings (wrench icon on the top left corner), and the other is to slightly modify the D#2_BTD_PD1 file, which is the one responsible for that click. Changing the attack is a better way though, since the nature of the instrument favors a slower attack because of the builtup.
Reel To Really Moody
A nicely atmospheric and very usable sound pack. What is offered is basically 7 different takes on the same feedback loop style sound with the best results being found in the lower registers. Perfect for scoring murky industrial landscapes and moody uneasiness of all kinds. Some work will be needed to reign in the resonant frequencies to get the sounds to fit nicely. Overall a one trick pony that might just be exactly the sound you are looking for.
