Use a hifi tape deck to get a classic analog tape delay | Tutorial
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- The tape deck I use in this video is a Technics RS-AZ6 3-head deck. Which is essential for this to work. It's the distance between the record-head and the play-head that determines the delay time, the slap back echo effect.
You can of course use another delay line (digital or analog) between the tape deck and the mixer, to get a longer delay/echo time, but I think that defeats the purpose of this video, to show how you can achieve this using only the tape deck as the delay unit.
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The song I use to demonstrate is the song "Online" from my Korg DSS-1 video. You can find that here:
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Beautiful! In high school in the 80s, we found a three-head cassette deck that also had a knob for variable playback speed and were able to increase the delay time (and get more analog dirt as well). Great demo video, Espen, as always.
Oh heck yeah
Cheers man!
As I understand it, you can use a PWM thingamajigg to adjust the tape speeds on most tape machines.
With some extra tinkering one could probably make the distance between record and playback head variable as well. And replace the cassette itself with one that has a tape loop. But.. at a certain point one might be better of getting a real tape delay..
But as I understand things, a PWM mod is usually pretty straight forward as a mod.
Deck systems were my first love. I did my first mixing experiments with deck's in the 90's. It was a great days...Yess I'm nineties :))
Ad a pitch control in the tape deck to change the time in the delay 🙂
On your cassette deck; feed your signal into the left input, then take the output from the left channel and feed it into the input of the righjt channel, then feed the output from the right channel to your console. You have now doubled the lenght of your delay.
Fun and interesting tip. Thanks for sharing! :)
Nice. We used an EP-4 Echoplex for a few years until it broke. We then used a members cassette deck for this type of thing for a short time until we bought a Roland Space Echo. That was so expensive it was the only thing we grouped our money together as a band to purchase. Lots of fun memories.
They're very expensive these days.
RE-201 is an instrument on it’s own.
That was fun! Thanks Espen! It's wonderful to have you back on UA-cam. Glad they got your channel fixed!
Cheers!
The result is simply amazing !
"This is a demo vocal, so don't take it too serious"
*plays an absolute jam for like 2 seconds*
That sounds way much better then I expected. Nice.
Cheers!
Legends say that if you use the Swedish TRACK tape from the 80's you instantly have a mega hit.
Haha, at least I listened to "Tracks" on radio every Saturday.
Look behind you, a three-headed tape deck!
Please, mister three-headed tape deck, don't eat me!
Cool! I wish I had known this trick when I was 17!
This is a great idea. Sounds awesome!
Great delay, great vocal, great song, great reverb. All great. Cheers! :-)
Thanks!
Damn, your set up is incredible.
Cheers!
By using EQ in the monitor channel strip you can create resonant feedback frequencies which is fun for tweaking.
Super cool! I bought a bunch maxell IILS cassettes a few years ago but haven't gotten around to using them. My deck is in storage somewhere. I need to go unpack it.
Espen do you have any experience with the Yamaha SY77?
Not very much. Not something I was very interested in back then.
Two SSL Sixs ! Nice idea.
Thanks for sharing this Classic and useful analog technique.
What a great idea !!! Thanks a lot !!!
This actually sounds great!
This Delay sounds good -📼-good - 😊
This is a great video! Great idea of explaining tape delay.
Cheers!
perfect for 50s rock'n'roll style , you should be able to record 'in the red' and get some tape distortion too.
Your video are unique ! You are the best …
Cheers!
ACHIEVED! nice work :)
Cheers!
Another cool video man!
Cheers!
Also remember that you've got *two* mono delays available with this technique - with some extra patching you can do double-length delays as well as ping-pong! I do this with my Akai 4000DB sometimes, thankfully that's got quite a significant head gap.
True. With a split cable and patching you can get more out of this technique.
eye opener, thanks
Sounds great and the track is great as well by the way.
Thanks!
Hehe sounds epic! gonna try and get my hands on something like this
I was gonna try the same thing with a VHS player, wish me luck !
3 head cassette deck? Fancy! ;-)
Very cool idea!
I have Strymon Deco V2. It covers all tape saturation & delay doubling needs!
4:20 Sounds perfect to me.
How many three-head cassette decks do you have? How about taking it to the next level and feed the output of the tape deck into another tape deck ... and maybe a third one ... and so on ... ?! Cheers!
That would defeat the whole purpose of a simple, fast and great setup. I'm not a lab scientist, I'm a musician. ;-) Cheers
Can you mod the deck to have a variable speed? I mean, I’m sure someone could but is it something people do? I am from the tape era but I got a duel deck at a thrift store yesterday for TWENTY DOLLARS! I thought those days were long gone. I fixed it up. Built my own demagnetizer and spliced two cables to make one long enough. I felt like a pro it’s just a pioneer but I’m so happy to have it. If you can’t see the Soap Opera effect on tv and you can’t hear the warmth of tape and vinyl then you don’t get to criticize people who do. I’m no audio file and I suck at eq but I can tell you, hearing Gary Newman on tape today was so great. I’ve got something to mix down to. I might make some individual tracks recorded on tape. Have something’s digitally crystal crappy and other things blurry and fuzzy like tape. Just wish I had a master record lathe. Dude from the Wipers had one. Unreal huh?
Def gonna buy a 3 head with monitoring! There's an iPhone app "K7D" is the closest thing, other than a RE201 that you can get to actual tape delay on iPhone. I have an 6s so i can use the analog inputs and outputs on my iPhone for EFX processing, it's pretty slick...
I used this technique quite often, though I wished I could slow the tape down manually to space the echoes out.
Exactly what I thought, you could adjust the delay time by altering the motor speed - at the price of a lower audio fidelity for the delay (but that's part of the appeal)
Even staying with a cassette deck, you can obtain better results in using a 'real' 3 head one (like the high end models by Technics, Uher, Tandberg, Teac, Revox, Nakamichi), meaning using a dedicated full range playback head (same as on a reel to reel tape recorder) contrary to the model shown year solely equipped with a simple monitoring head (exclusively used for direct monitoring during the recording session, while the machine returns to the recording head this time used as a playback one when normal listening session.
Einfach zu cool 😅❤
You should feed that delay into the Reverb for a nice tape pre-delay
You have the SSL bus compressor lunchbox!
I remember doing that with tape machines. Hey Espen, How's the analog instrumental CD coming along? I didn't miss the release, did I?
It's not a CD release, it's cassette. ;-) No, I haven't started taking pre-orders yet. The first run of a hundred will be a very limited edition, signed and numbered. I will take preorders on my Patreon first and with anyone left I will make them available here on the open channel. If you follow the channel regularly you'll see my announcement. ;-) Cheers
@@EspenKraftI don't have a cassette deck anymore. I been following since 2008.
The album will be released digitally online as well, eventually. ;-)
i agree that cassette decks /can/ do this but 3 head decks tend to be in the 250+ price range, and at that point i'd say just get an open reel deck
Didn’t Sylvia Massey run a signal through burnt toast and head of lettuce? As I recall, she said that signal chain gave an interesting effect but the studio smelled bad for two days. I miss the days when every recording session was an adventure.
I have DCC lying around, I could use that as a Digital delay.
:D
Technics RS-AZ6 was have very bad heads. Me and my friend, many years ago was tuned this model. We install sandwich by Canon H36001. Effect very smallest.
For great result use top decks.
Too bad most of us can’t afford «The Dragon»… 🤷🏼♂️ When I play all my cassettes, both own and bought tapes from the 80-90s, they sound perfectly fine on this player. I think you’re just very picky when it comes to this topic.
@@AndersEngerJensen sorry, this is not pickiness, but experience. At one time he owned a model from Nakamichi zx-9. Channel-by-channel calibrator, manual selector, you can record chrome in 120ms. And the author's Technics AZ6 is Matsushita's last breath. The same Pioneer CT D7 is better. The dragon is certainly good, the price is yes, 10 years ago it cost much less.
@@universal_migrator But… we’re talking effects here, not reference listening. Even though, I do not agree it has «very bad heads»… you need to weigh your adjectives more precisely. They aren’t top shelf, but they’re certainly not bottom either. Mid to high is more acurate. But it’s mine, and I will use it as I feel like and that’s that.
I don't think we're after the "best sound of the year" award here. Just a simle tape echo slap back effect. For that we could use anything really, the more dirty the better.
Wow, surprisingly high quality for the ordinary tape-recorder.
Problem is, nowadays most of us probably don't own a decent tapedeck anymore and to buy a quality one (if you still can do that) probably would cost as much, if not more, as a real space echo.
But if you do own one, this seems to be a really cool thing!
Buying a great sounding tape deck today is neither very expensice nor difficult. Lots of good quality players (used 90s decks) on Ebay or better still, local/national lists.
😂LOL! No cassette deck in the world is going to cost as much, if not more, than a real space echo. That is the funniest comment I've read in a while. Seriously.
why two ssl six :) ?
I've gone through that in a previous video. It's on here. Much more flexibility, more channels, more sends, more returns and I don't want anything digital going on in my analog mixer.
Dont find many 3 headed decks on the used market sadly..
Not really an "ordinary tape deck". Most of them only had 2 heads, not 3 unfortunately.
There's a gazillion 3-headed tape deck out there. Half of what's on sale here are.
@@EspenKraft Maybe it's different in your country then. To me, they still feel a bit like a holy grail, wish I had one when I was a teenager. :D
Plenty on Ebay as well. They're really not that rare.
@@EspenKraft Well, I'm not an ebay guy actually, ha ha. On a completely different subject: I just saw your interview on Vaughn George's channel. Very interesting analysis on 80's VS today's music. I also like you being a true lover of sounds and synths technic much more than a collector.