Echo-Matic: how to turn a cassette deck into a delay

[lincolnic]

I'm giving this its own thread, so as not to further derail the Belton-based reverbs conversation.

I found the pedal I was talking about - it's the Echo-Matic. I'm not sure what book this actually comes from, but check all of this out:

[drezdn]

I could swear that I've seen someone post a working build of this project. I thought it was on the BYOC forum, but can't find it.

[stecykmi]

man maybe i should keep my eyes open for an old tape deck...

[midwayfair]

I could swear that I've seen someone post a working build of this project. I thought it was on the BYOC forum, but can't find it.

DIYSB, but the pics are gone.

Moosapotamus might have built it too. He used to have that on his site.

[lincolnic]

Moosapotamus might have built it too. He used to have that on his site.

Yeah, those pictures are actually linked from an archive.org copy of his site - the site itself seems to have vanished into the ether.

[lincolnic]

I just realized - if you guys downloaded Brian's "Electronics Library", this project is actually in the "stompboxcookbook" folder. I knew I had this on my hard drive somewhere!

[artstomp]

..its from The Stompbox Cookbook, 2nd Edition, by Boscorelli

[ch1naski]

I have that book.....

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[spaceboss]

Here's a you-tube demo I found. So great!

[jtn191]

There's a guy on Flickr who did something similar with two walkmans

[jimilee]

Good luck putting that thing on your pedal board! Multiplex sounds just like that, Nice work!

[GhostofJohnToad]

watching that video made me wonder about one of his last statements about tape speed.  How well would this concept work with say an old tascam 4-track and its variable speeds?

[lincolnic]

watching that video made me wonder about one of his last statements about tape speed.  How well would this concept work with say an old tascam 4-track and its variable speeds?

It'd be fine. Actual tape machines have variable speed controls as well. The slower the speed, the more delay time you get out of it, since it's increasing the amount of time it takes for a location on the tape to travel between the record and playback heads.

[culturejam]

I'll repeat (har-har) my suggestion of using an 8-track player/recorder. One benefit would be that the tape flips itself when you get to the end. Also, the tape in an 8-track is twice as wide as that of a casette. So in theory, it should offer better fidelity.

Here's some background:
http://www.8trackheaven.com/archive/work.html

http://www.estecho.com/gear/tape_delay_media.php

[ch1naski]

I used to have a couple of reel to reel machines, I had them set up like a Fripp machine....two stools, a machine on each, and the distance between them dictated the echo time. 

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