 Swope's first role was as a tape loop engineer for Mission of Burma's live performances, but his role gradually evolved into live sound mixing as well.From his seat off stage at the mixing console, Swope used a reel to reel tape machine to record and manipulate sounds produced by the musicians onstage by speeding or slowing them, reversing them and/or creating tape loops.These techniques were inspired by composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen who earlier led Miller (also a pianist) to write compositions for piano and tape loops.