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Here’s some links to some other related sites
Please visit them !
Buy their stuff !
King Crimson Official Band Site
Malcolm le Grice’s Home Page - Filmmaker
Crim Zone - An excellent King Crimson Fan Site from Poland
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Here is a technical explanation of the delay system as explained by Robert Fripp to audience members at most Frippertronics events as heard on numerous recordings. This is a delay system and not a tape “loop” (as in a loop of tape) as is often presumed.
Part 1 - How is a monophonic Frippertronics piece created ?
There are two Revox tape recorders placed at a variable distance apart. The Left Revox has a tape spool on the left reel and the right Revox has an empty spool on the right reel. The tape is fed from the Left Revox past it’s Playback head, then Recording head, then into the Right Revox past it’s Playback head, then Recording head and then collected in the empty spool of the Right Revox on the right reel. Fripp’s guitar is fed through his pedal devices, directly into the Left Revox and recorded on the Left Channel onto the moving tape. The recorded guitar sound travels along the tape into the Right Revox past it’s Playback head. The signal is fed via cable from the Right Revox Left channel back into the Left Channel of the Left Revox. The mono signal is also fed from the Left Channel from the Left Revox into the PA system. This typically creates about a 3 to 5 second delay from when a sound is made and before it is heard again. This time varies depending on the physical distance between the two Revoxes and the tape speed. The entire piece is captured in mono on the left channel only in the right reel of the Right Revox.
Fripp is able to bypass the signal path via footswitch, which allows himself to solo to the monophonic loop, but rarely does so, as the delay system does not receive any additional sounds and simply continues to decay in volume (i.e. uneventful).
Part 2 - How is a stereophonic Frippertronics piece created ?
The monophonic “left channel only” piece (created in Part 1) is rewound back to the start, back onto the Left reel of the Left Revox. The tape is played back by the Left Revox Left Channel and also recorded onto the Right Channel of the Left Revox. This creates a true stereo signal because the Right Channel is one tape generation down from the original version on the Left Channel and thus it’s EQ characteristics are slightly altered. More importantly there is a delay of about 175ms between the Left and the Right Channel due to the physical distance between the Playback and Record Heads of the Left Revox. This has a separate and very distinct delay effect that gives the illusion that the guitar sounds are “flying past your head”. The tape travels to the Right Revox where it is played back to the audience in stereo through the PA system and also again collected (this time in stereo) on the Right reel of the Right Revox. As this requires no additional effort on Fripp’s part once he sets the Revoxes in motion, he is free to add the additional element of playing solo guitar with the now stereo Frippertronics piece. The stereo Frippertronics piece is changing in the identical manner in which he created it in Part 1 and therefore does NOT remain static (i.e. eventful)
The tape reel collected at this point is what we hear when we listen to God Save the Queen or Let The Power Fall. Sadly this is captured WITHOUT the soloing element which is necessarily always external to the delay system.
Here is a short graphic display of the piece “1984” from the Let The Power Fall album. The Blue wave pattern is the Left Channel and The Red wave pattern is the Right Channel.
The first view is from farther out showing about 15 seconds of the piece.
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The second view is a close up of the first 1100ms of the piece. Note the delay time between the left and right channels. |
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A variation of this stereophonic Frippertronics loop was discovered on the DGM Live release of the Frippertronics performance at Inroad on August 5, 1981. A detailed explanation of that method can be found here |