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Hal McGee (USA) - Cheap, Plastic and Fucked Up

from Cheap and Plastic by various

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"Cheap, Plastic and Fucked Up" by Hal McGee is the first track on the Cheap and Plastic online compilation, which features the sounds of cheap and plastic consumer level electronic music keyboards. On this track I played four Casio keyboards -- a circuit bent Rapman, a VA-10, a circuit bent SK-1, and a VL-1 VL-Tone. I originally attempted to record the piece on a Fostex X-12 4-track cassette recorder. I recorded the Rapman onto Track 1. As I was recording the Casio VA-10 onto Track 2 I noticed that the tape sounded really slow and warbly. I forged on ahead. I don't know what caused this, but it may be due to the cheap generic cassette tape I used, or maybe the X-12 is just worn out and fucked up. I went ahead and recorded the circuit bent Casio SK-1 onto Track 3 and the VL-Tone (some "Auto Play" sequences and beats) on Track 4. When I played the 4-track tape after all four tracks were recorded, it sounded terrible and because the tape was moving too slowly, I realized that the track would last more than the prescribed 5 minute maximum time limit for tracks on the compilation. I wanted to save the piece somehow! The X-12 records at standard cassette tape speed, unlike many cassette 4-tracks that record at double tape speed. I put the 4-track tape into one of my Tascam cassette decks and when I played it Tracks 1 and 2 sounded great. I transferred and mixed down the two tracks via a Behringer mini-mixer into a stereo track in Audacity with live panning during the mixdown. Then, I turned the 4-track tape over and thereby played Tracks 3 and 4 backwards in the Tascam and mixed it down into a second stereo track in Audacity. I cleaned up the beginnings and ends with some minor digital edits, and voilà!

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from Cheap and Plastic, released August 17, 2012

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