Splice/Splicing

A process where audio tape or film can be edited by literally cutting it apart and reassembling the pieces. One simply listens to the tape (or looks at the film), finds the point where an edit is desired and uses a razor to cut it. Generally a fixture known as a splicing block (similar to a miter box in woodworking) is used to help make precise and straight cuts. A product known as splicing tape is used to reassemble tapes that have been sliced. It’s simply a small piece of tape that sticks to the back side of the audio tape to hold it together. A skilled editor can splice and reassemble audio tape very quickly with almost no sonic side effects (of course this depends somewhat on the recording and where edits need to occur). Digital recordings can’t be edited in this fashion because of the way the data is encoded to the tape, which is what originally gave rise to early DAW systems.