Why I Still Record on Tape

I still record on tape because it makes me feel close to something I do not want to lose.

Part of it is sound. Part of it is process. Part of it is nostalgia.

There is something in tape that brings me back. Not always to one clear memory, but to a feeling. A slower feeling. A warmer one. The kind of feeling that lives in old rooms, old voices, old machines. It reminds me that sound can carry time inside it.

That matters to me.

Everything now is fast. Clean. Immediate. You can record something, fix every detail, and move on. I understand why that is useful. I work with digital tools too. But tape gives me a different kind of experience. It asks me to slow down. To listen better. To stay with the sound a little longer.

When I record on tape, I feel more present. I hear more. The room, the air, the small imperfections, the little movements that usually disappear. A breath. A slight shake in the voice. A soft noise in the background. These things make the recording feel alive to me.

Hand made tape loops (except the bottom left one)

Tape is also part of the way I compose.

In almost all of my pieces, there are cassettes somewhere in the process. I slice tapes by hand and make tape loops from them. This has become part of my language. I like touching the sound, cutting it, repeating it, letting it turn into something else. A loop can be very small, just a few seconds, but after a while it opens a space. It creates a mood. It starts to carry emotion in a strange and quiet way.

Maybe this is where nostalgia enters the most.

A tape loop always feels like a memory to me. It returns again and again, almost the same, but never exactly the same. It wears out. It shifts a little. It becomes softer, older, more fragile. The more it repeats, the more emotional it becomes. Like a memory you have visited too many times. It fades, but it also grows.

I think that is why I keep coming back to cassettes.

They do not feel neutral. They already carry a past with them. Even before I record anything, they already seem full of age, dust, distance. When I use them in a composition, I am not just using a format. I am using a feeling. A sense of time passing. A sense of something half remembered. A sense of presence.

I do not use tape just because I love old things. I use it because it still gives me something true. It gives weight to sound. It gives texture to emotion. It helps me accept imperfection. It reminds me that music does not need to be flawless to feel close.

That is important to me.

I think we live in a time where everything is pushed toward clarity and control. Tape moves in another direction. It keeps a little blur. A little damage. A little mystery. And sometimes that is exactly where the feeling is.

That is why tape is present in almost all my compositions.

Sometimes the loops are easy to hear. Sometimes they are buried deep in the track. But they are there, moving under everything, like a memory under a conversation. They shape the piece from the inside.

2 Library of Congress Tape machines, a walkman, my old OP1 and pedals. (Old Setup)

I still record on tape because I love what it does to sound. I still record on tape because I love what it does to me while I listen.

And maybe most of all, I still record on tape because nostalgia is not only about looking back. Sometimes it is a way of holding on to the parts of ourselves that still need slowness, texture, and care. Tape helps me do that. It helps me remember that music is not only something we make. Sometimes it is something we return to.