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Join a one-way video call to ask in-depth questions, see the products close up or get a product demo of your choice. As a music lover, you have no doubt heard the magic of Tape Echo. The sound of Tape Echo has a distinct warmth and saturation like no other effect — an effect that has evolved from its very first experiments in the studio. Since then, Tape Echo has been an iconic effect that has defined music genres from rockabilly to reggae.
If you have ever owned a modern delay pedal or multi-effects unit, you are probably already familiar with the term Tape Echo.
This term refers to the type of delay created by spools of magnetic tape in vintage effects units. Originally published on the Roland Australia Blog. Whether analog or digital, this magical tone is a sum of its parts — created by a number of physical elements of the tape machines themselves.
So we use the storage of electric charges instead of a magnetic medium to create our delay. We could almost say that this is the precursor of the BBD! This technology had a unique sound, producing a delay with a slight mix of reverb and vibrato. VOX has even developed a mechanism working on the same principle but without using oil! We will first explain how the 2 main elements of the recording part work : the tape and the magnetic heads. The magnetic tape is a plastic tape coated with a microscopic ferromagnetic powder.
This means that the particles of this powder can become permanently magnetized when another magnet passes close to the tape. It can therefore be seen as a tape covered with lots of small microscopic magnets! A magnetic head is an electromagnet. Basically, it is a magnet whose magnetic field strength depends directly on the electrical signal that it receives.
By placing a head in front of the tape, we will be able to magnetize the particles on the tape, depending on the electrical signal we send to the head. But what if we want to restore our signal and listen to it again? Well, the advantage of an electromagnet is that it also works the other way around!
So if we put a second head after the first one, the magnetic field created by the particles of the tape will generate an electric current in the head, which we will be able to recover to do what we want with it. This is the main principle used in tape echoes. The distance between the 2 heads and the speed of the tape makes that the signal requires a certain time to pass from one head to the other, which creates a delay, and thus an echo effect!
That will allow us to understand how it works and what makes it characteristic sound. As we have seen, the principle of tape echo is to record the input signal on a tape, and then play it back to create a delay. So we can imagine a first diagram like this one :.
Since the recording head needs a signal strong enough to magnetize the tape, we will need to amplify the signal first. In the same way, the read head only produces a very small signal, which needs to be amplified as well. In addition to these 2 amps, we will generally find a buffer at the output, and a preamp at the input. We will talk about it later, but this preamp is an important part of the tape echo sound since it will act directly on the dry signal.
So we get this diagram :. Then, to get more repetitions, we will add a feedback loop to it. This loop will return part of the delayed signal to the recording head. Here is a breakdown of some epic echo units and the guitarists that love them.
In Memphis, Sun Studios would produce some of the most dramatic echo and delay effects on their landmark s recordings. Sam Phillips, head producer and engineer, utilized two separate tape machines to create his trademark echo effect. One machine would record and playback the dry signal to the second machine which would have other reverb effects in its signal chain to create a slapback echo that would be affected in its length by the speed the tape was played.
This blended signal would then be fed back to the master tape. The Keeley Memphis Sun pedal pays tribute to this iconic sound. One of the earliest standalone echo units was the EchoSonic. This amplifier was the step between those jerry—rigged tape echo studio systems and self—contained tape echo effects.
On the EchoSonic, the tape machine with recording and playback capabilities was built directly into the amplifier, just like how amps by Supro and Fender had tremolo or reverb. By the s, several all-in-one style echo units had been produced.
These units would hold a single reel that played on an infinite loop with through multiple play back heads to control the number of taps or repeats, and a recording head. The user could control the mechanisms guiding the tape and the heads to create a number of delay and echo effects of varying lengths and repeats. Each unit had its own peculiarities and potential. The Maestro Echoplex EP—3 was a popular unit for much of the '70s thanks to the unique warmth of its preamp and the nature of its repeating decay.
The other famous tape echo unit of the s is the Roland Space Echo RE , made unique by its adjustable tape speed.
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