In the late 1940s,
Pierre Schaeffer used special phonograph discs with a
sillon fermé (closed groove) to repeat segments of sounds in his
musique concrète studio in Paris. When magnetic tape technology became available, he replaced this technique with tape loops, where such segments could either be simply repeated, or could undergo electronic transformation during repetition. In 1955,
Éliane Radigue, an apprentice of
Pierre Schaeffer at
Studio d'Essai, learned to cut, splice and edit tape using his techniques. However, in the late 60s she became more interested in tape feedback. She composed several pieces (
Jouet Electronique [1967],
Elemental I [1968],
Stress-Osaka [1969]
, Usral [1969]
, Ohmnht [1970]
Vice Versa, etc [1970]) by processing the feedback between two tape recorders and a microphone.
Halim El-Dabh, who experimented with
tape music from the early 1940s to the 1950s, also utilized tape loops. Beginning in the late 1950s, the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop began using tape loops to add special effects to some BBC programming. Several different configurations of tape loops were employed in the early years of the
WDR Studio in Cologne. One such arrangement was used to build up multilayered textures by sequentially recording sounds with the
erase head disconnected or with a customised arrangement of the heads.
Gottfried Michael Koenig applied this method in 1954, in his
Klangfiguren I. In Canada,
Hugh Le Caine produced "a particularly clear and memorable example of
musique concrète" in 1955 titled
Dripsody. It was built from the sound of a single drop of water, using a variable-speed tape recorder, tape loops, and just 25 splices. At this same time in Cologne, Karlheinz Stockhausen produced a more ambitious work,
Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–56), which made extensive use of tape loops, particularly for its stratified impulse groups and choral swarms. Minimalist composer
Terry Riley began employing tape loops at the end of the 1950s. Using simple
Wollensak tape recorders, he recorded piano music, speech and other sound samples, which he would reproduce on speakers surrounding the audience along with live performance, creating "orchestral textures", as Edward Strickland puts it. With assistance of
Richard Maxfield and
Ramon Sender, Riley combined tape loops with
echoplex devices, producing an "acid trip" piece
Mescalin Mix (1961), made from sound samples from his earlier works. Later, he experimented with combining different tapes together, producing pieces such as
Music for the Gift (1963) and culminating in his use of a tape delay/feedback system employing two
tape recorders (collectively described by Riley as the "time lag accumulator") in live solo performances. The use of tape loops in
popular music dates back to Jamaican
dub music in the 1960s. Dub producer
King Tubby used tape loops in his productions, while improvising with homemade
delay units. Another dub producer, Sylvan Morris, developed a slapback
echo effect by using both mechanical and handmade tape loops. These techniques were later adopted by
hip hop musicians in the 1970s.
Steve Reich also used tape loops to compose, using a technique which he called "
phasing". He would put two tape loops together at slightly different speeds, so they would start playing simultaneously and then drift apart. Pieces created by this method are ''
It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). In Violin Phase (1967) he combined the tape loop with an instrumental score. Later on, Gavin Bryars explored a similar concept in composition 1, 2, 1-2-3-4'' (1971), played by a small ensemble in which every musician independently tried to reproduce tape recording. In the 1960s and 1970s, use of tape loops made a breakthrough in
popular music. As they progressed towards their "
psychedelic" phase,
the Beatles increasingly experimented with new technology and tape recorders, a process which culminated with
Revolver (1966) and its last track "
Tomorrow Never Knows", based on five tape loops running simultaneously. "
Revolution 9" (1968) was an even more experimental venture, consisting almost entirely of tape loops fading in and out. Introduction of new technologies, such as analog
music sequencers and
synthesizers in the 1970s, followed by digital sequencers in 1977, marked an end of the tape loop era in the music industry. With the advent of
MIDI in 1983, computers and digital devices took over the production of sound effects from analog devices. Tape loop compositions have seen only sporadic revivals since, such as
William Basinski's
The Disintegration Loops series (2002–2003), evidencing the slow death of his tapes originally recorded in the 1980s. == Recordings ==