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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / Ashtom's music / Sometimes I Forget To Breathe

Sometimes I Forget To Breathe

By Ashtom on January 18, 2026 10:00 pm

I have been toying with this idea for a while and this week I finally executed it. This week is about recording on cassette tape at high speed and then playing it back at low speed. Yes, I know, mind-blowing...

Anyway, I started with a simple motif on the Liven Ambient Ø, using all 4 layers. Then I recorded in stereo (on 2 tracks) on the Tascam Portastudio 424 Mk2, twice!
Finally I mixed all 4 tracks on the Portastudio and fed the mix in a Golden Master Pedal, recording its output on the Zoom L-12 (who needs a computer anyway?).

Pretty happy with the results! I think I'll keep exploring this process by composing and arranging in an even higher register, to keep more high end when slowing everything down.

Have a nice week everyone!

Hey Ashtom, while listening I also thought of a tape, now reading the text and it makes sense. Quite dense sound , contemplative and in my case just listening and breathing :-).. i like it!

Great textural piece with notes that hold on and waver for every last moment.  I enjoyed learning about your process and how it all came together

SWEET process, nice result! I like the idea you said about recording at higher freq to end up with higher octave stuff as well. You can also consider recording crickets and things that are way higher freq than we can enjoy naturally, then slow them down a lot.

I played around a lot with a tape-like looper called Gauss (on iOS) where I would record lines on high speed, play them back on low speed, improvise around, do the reverse as well, ... and also the reverse i.e. record in reverse and playback slower or faster or same speed in reverse. But this is all digital so I think your process must be much more intentional. Still, you should welcome happy accidents as well in this process, it's v cool to be surprised by it. percussive sounds too, feedback loops and distortion and whatever else...

I have questions about the zoom L-12! sounds like a cool piece of gear, wonder if you have also used its mixing interface creatively like messing with the levels and panning etc while recording, like old school mixing engineers?

loved it

Mockq wrote:

Hey Ashtom, while listening I also thought of a tape, now reading the text and it makes sense. Quite dense sound , contemplative and in my case just listening and breathing :-).. i like it!

Thanks for your feedback! Glad you liked it!

formalprocess wrote:

Great textural piece with notes that hold on and waver for every last moment.  I enjoyed learning about your process and how it all came together

Thank you for your feedback!

horatiuromantic wrote:

SWEET process, nice result! I like the idea you said about recording at higher freq to end up with higher octave stuff as well. You can also consider recording crickets and things that are way higher freq than we can enjoy naturally, then slow them down a lot.

I played around a lot with a tape-like looper called Gauss (on iOS) where I would record lines on high speed, play them back on low speed, improvise around, do the reverse as well, ... and also the reverse i.e. record in reverse and playback slower or faster or same speed in reverse. But this is all digital so I think your process must be much more intentional. Still, you should welcome happy accidents as well in this process, it's v cool to be surprised by it. percussive sounds too, feedback loops and distortion and whatever else...

I have questions about the zoom L-12! sounds like a cool piece of gear, wonder if you have also used its mixing interface creatively like messing with the levels and panning etc while recording, like old school mixing engineers?

Thanks for your input! I have many things I want to try with the cassette medium, and I'm looking forward to hearing the results. I really use the L-12 like a standard mixer and multi-track recorder, nothing fancy or experimental. Although these days, I realize a simpler digital recorder would be enough.

loteq wrote:

loved it


Thanks!

Wow, this is amazing !

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