The Sound-O-Mat

The Electra EP 350 vs. the Roland RE-301 and RE-501

Unfortunately, we've been sitting on two Electra EP 350 tape echoes as well as two Roland RE-201's as we're down to two people, one who is traveling abroad (thank god for Internet cafes in every country now) and another who is very sick. It's put a big dent on our hopes to restore the tape echoes we have and sell them.

We won't be putting the Roland RE-201's up on this site nor Ebay, since people do not seem to know a good deal when they see one. Once we get them working as best as possible for NM- condition (they're definitely not mint) we'll sell them locally as fortunately Portland has enough bands that have "made it big" (aka signed to major labels) that they'll pay top $$$ for one they see in a local shop and can play with.

But the Electra EP 350, which we want to talk about here, the local shop won't even carry. Turns out that a decade or more ago (we haven't pinned down an exact year yet) the Electra company was bought out by "Krate" (spelling?) who makes cheap, rip-off junk and has a bad reputation even amongst bad musicians (of which we count ourselves, so no insult intended.)

That said, we have no less than 10 people who're interested in buying the EP 350 tape echoes once one of us can get the time or energy to finish fixing them up. Minimum offer so far has been $600 for a fully-restored one. We noted one up for auction on Ebay that quoted from a piece we wrote about them, comparing them to the Roland RE-301 and RE-501 tape echoes, and we wanted to instead do a comparison, since we believe that if you're into tape echoes for more than the RE-201 "Stray Cats / Brian Setzer / Scotty Moore" slapback echo sound, all three have their own unique reasons for being amazing, and our hope is to sell off our extras but still have one of each (EP 350, RE-301, and RE-501) in our studio when we're done.

[More to come...]

Aligning Tape Echo Heads

Someone wrote the other day and asked:

"Could you please tell me how to properly align the heads?"

Here's our answer:

Do you have a tape loop with test tones (sine wave at various frequencies) and the ability to measure the output? That's the only way to do it correctly.

That said, the better answer is "Don't Panic!" Tape head alignment is highly over-rated on tape echoes.

On reel-to-reel and tape cassette recorders, it was important, since you wanted to make sure that what you recorded, say, four years ago, would play back and sound the same.

But since the tape loop is being written to over and over, if they're slightly off, it doesn't matter, since it's playing back what it just wrote < 1 minute ago. Make sense?

It takes about 15-20% variation off alignment before you start losing certain freq. ranges. And even then, given the units, there's already so much freq. loss which acts like compression and they have to get really bad before you'd notice the loss. We've had heads that were very out of alignment and they still passed the tests with the test tape loop.

If you still want to try, there's a trick using a laser level that you can at least make sure all the heads are aligned the same by lighting it across the heads. But if the one you chose to align the rest to and it's off, they'll all be off. That said, having them all identically mis-aligned will sound better than having them randomly misaligned. Not optimal, but close.

Motor Slows Down on Roland SRE-555

Got the following request for (free) info today. We've decided that we will respond to requests if we either feel they'd make a good blog entry or if someone wants to pay us for our time and experience.

Really honest, we are not mean people, but none of us at The Sound-O-Mat of us is rich, far from it, we're all just getting by. We promise if any of us every gets rich, we'll be happy to answer questions all day for free. Scouts honor.

So here is the question we got, reworded a bit since the writer probably doesn't speak English as a first language:

"I have a Roland SRE-555 and if it has been off for a couple of hours and I start it up after its been running a couple of minutes it slows down the tape speed.

If I direct restart it it speeds up again but slows down after a minute it gets worse as longer it runs. If I pull out the pinch roller so it not in contact with the capstan, the motor speeds up. I can also pull out the roller a bit so its still in contact with the tape and capstan (lighter tension) then it also speeds up.

I checked the pinch roller tension and it's approx 1 kg. I have been cleaning everything,of course changed tape loop etc. Do you know what can be wrong?
Has the motor lost it's power or could it be the pinch roller that is bad?"

Without having the Roland here, there's really no way for us to tell. In general, it's good advice to make sure the tape heads are cleaned and demagnetized, and the tape is new or in good condition to start with, which it sounds like this guy did.

He probably answered the question himself, which is that it works fine when he pulls back the pinch roller so it's probably too tight and needs to be loosened. Here's the list of suggestions made as to how to fix it or what might be wrong, in the order that is most likely the cause of his problem:

1. Pinch roller tension needs to be decreased.
2. Motor is dying and needs to be repaired (if possible) or replaced.
3. Bad capacitor supplying power to motor can't hold enough charge.
4. Capstan from motor needs to be cleaned and perhaps "etched" (unsmoothed)
5. Pinch roller needs to cleaned and perhaps "roughed" (unsmoothed)

Please note: We do not have any replacement parts, but if a motor can be removed, the later Sayama/Pioneer motors used in the Roland tape echoes can some times be repaired, so if you can pull out your motor and mail it to us, we might be able to fix it.

We have repaired 2 out of 3 to date but cannot refund money if we cannot fix it (we spend time which we need to be paid for whether or not it can be fixed.) So if you have a broken motor you want us to try to fix or want to sell to us, please contact us.

No Roland Parts, and Setting a Roland Echo on its "Side"

We recently got an email:

"Are you parting out a Roland re-301?"

Reply: Nope. Can we ask where you saw that? We're trying to write up everywhere that we no longer have any Roland parts nor will we be getting any.

Our main site and on the blog says that we are not selling Roland parts, but we're still finding places we need to add that info.

So for the record, we do NOT have any Roland parts, we are NOT parting out a Roland Tape Echo and we are NOT likely to be buying any parts. Sadly, it's far too much work for the prices people want to pay, not to mention all the requests for free advice. If we were wealthy and didn't have to struggle to get by, we'd be happy to, but we're barely getting by. Sorry.

"also... did the Re-301 have "feet" on the side like the re-201?"

Reply: Early model RE-201's did not have feet on the side, but they were added in one of the later models, as it was "revised", we're learning, in minor ways, probably a dozen times. The later RE-301 and -501 units all had the "side feet" from the start.

It's actually better to set them set up on their side, as it helps keep the tension of the tape against the tape heads, rather than laying them parallel. Depends if you like the pseudo-chorusing effect caused by mild tape slippage or if you just want clean echoes. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes on some units.

Cheers!

--
The Sound-O-Mat
http://www.sound-o-mat.com

Early Model Roland RE-201 For Sale

We're listing an early model Roland RE-201 Space Echo analog tape echo unit for sale here at a discounted price of $599. SERIOUS BUYERS ONLY. If you want to pick this up locally, expect to come with money in hand - we will no longer entertain people who just want to play around with it and "aren't sure", etc. etc. when they simply don't have the money. Go to a music shop and play with one if you're not positive you're ready to buy.

It's in perfect working condition, having been thoroughly cleaned, all electronics tested and fixed, with a new tape. We prefer local pickup, but if you're willing to pay for UPS packing, shipping and insurance, and will make an insurance claim should anything not work, we'll be happy to ship it, but we advise the expense of 2nd Day Air as UPS Ground seems to break these old tape units more often than not.

If it doesn't sell, we'll list it on Craigslist for awhile, and then it will be off to the consignment shop, which already has several buyers lined up starting at $700. We already has it there but it needed adjustments, so it's back in the studio for now.

Overall the case is in decent but obviously "used" conditions, and the black vinyl is dinged on almost every corner. If you're looking for "pretty" / mint looking unit, this isn't it. But the insides are what matter, and once you open the case, there's the original operating instruction sheet, and everything is spotless, having been cleaned and tested thoroughly. The heads show almost no wear and it sounds great.

How can you tell this is an early model? Well, the serial no. tag helps, as it says "Roland Echo System" and has a low serial number, 290535. The plug is also two prong with no ground, although the system is properly grounded to the metal grill on the bottom that provides air flow to keep it cool (later models reduced the size or moved it to the side/back.)

The lid is held down by latches, which is seen as good or bad, depending on your point-of-view - it's a lot easier to get inside the unit than with later models which have ridged bolts you can turn by hand, but on the other side, latches are far more prone to pop open if you're moving the unit a lot, which is why they switched to the bolts in later units, after complaints about it opening while gigging with it. And really, how often do you need to get inside the unit? The controls are all on the front, and aside from changing tapes 2-3 times a year, there's no reason to open it up unless you need to read the instructions.

In the front, the echo of/off switch is the small, white knob style, which was so prone to breaking that Roland included an extra in the pouch with the spare tape, cleaning kit, and instructions, which is the only thing missing from this unit.

The Electra EP 350 "Flat Response" Tape Echo

The Electra EP 350 "Flat Response" Tape Echo

We'll start out with a controversial assertion that we base on our own 10+ years of experience owning up to two dozen tape echoes at the peak: the Electra EP 350 (no dash) is far better than the Roland RE-301/501 Space Echo. Period. There, we've said it. It doesn't do "sound-on-sound" nor does it have a chorus effect from what we can tell, but aside from that, it's perfect.

This is an article we started awhile back and really should have finished. You see, we've since learned that Electra "turned into" Crate - or so the average musician in Portland would say, it turns out. Actually, it was another company that bought out Electra, then turned into Crate, who makes crap. Nonetheless, he and he's convinced that his clientele feels the same (I think only because they listen to him) that people see "Electra" and they think "Crate" and then "Junk." He wouldn't even listen to my "play it, dude, you'll be blown away, it might be the only tape echo better than a Roland RE-501/SRE-555!" Hence this article. Sorry if it's a bit rushed, but being over a month old, want to get it out and can always revise it. Although good luck finding out anything about Electra products, esp. the tape echoes.

Electra was primarily known back in the '60's and '70's for making a number of "knock-off" guitars, perhaps even some of the Sears "Silvertone" ones (still researching that) but it also made a number of effects units during a brief period - they weren't well-marketed and being known as a maker of guitar style copies, they didn't sell well at all, so they weren't make for long nor were there a lot of them made.

During the 60's & 70's Electra put out a small selection of effects, starting with analog delay units, and later digital ones, with the tape echo being one of the last pieces of gear before they got bought out. The delays are very rare and sought-after as well; like this tape echo, they're "secret weapons" that rarely go up for sale because people who have them would never part with them. We've been looking for Electra delays since we read about them five years ago and have never seen one for sale.

We were lucky to be able to get our hands on an Electra EP 350 (no dash) "Flat Response" Tape Echo" in the summer of 2007. Although the design and tape loop chamber is a rip-off of the Roland RE-series, it was not made by Roland at all, just like the Korg Stage Echo - the design is certainly "borrowed" but that's all.

Like the Roland, this is a combination unit (the Electra carries a reverb along with the tape delay, but no chorus). Unlike say, an Echoplex, the Electra doesn't use a tape cartridge - but rather has a loop of tape running free on one side, then it gets fed over six heads as it travels around a semi-opaque (see-though) top, which is just too cool.

When it comes to analog tape echoes, it's the cream de la cream, an RE-301 with better features and a fantastic reverb that has "Cathedral" setting / sound that will blow you away. There was one up on Ebay we were bidding on but the selling got offered $700 cash so he took the auction down (Feb 2007.)

[much more to come, with pics!]

Currently No Parts, Nothing for Sale Except Tapes

We currently have no units or parts for any tape echoes except we have proper graphite-backed replacement tapes built to Roland RT-1L specs.

We have a Watkins, an Electra, which we'll prolly keep, since the reverb is amazing, but everyone wants the Roland RE-201 sound right now.

So if we can get both our RE-201's working, we'd rather sell those for $600-700 and keep the Electra EP-350, since it's not well-known (it's very rare) and the few who have heard of Electra know they turned into the company "Crate" that makes cheap repro crap junk. But this is an old Electra built in Italy back in the 1970's and is pure quality, so like the Ace-Tones, we'll let people pay us way too much for tape echoes that don't sound nearly as good.

Anyway, again, the main point is that right now:

All we have for sale is replacement tapes and manuals at this time. You can purchase what we do have available at The Sound-O-Mat using PayPal. Please contact us if you would like to pay any other way, but PayPal is the only way we can accept credit cards, although we hope to add Google Checkout soon.

We're sincerely sorry, esp. when we write grumpy email replies. We're not happy about it either, trust us. We will post something if and when this changes.

Tape Echo Repairs

This mostly applies to Roland RE-series Space / Chorus Tape Echoes, but since we collect and repair almost every type of tape echo made, this info pretty much applies to anyone contacting us about any make/model tape echo repair. Please read, otherwise your email will be ignored.

1. Do not ask us questions about how to fix your tape echo. Just don't. We have lives and jobs and are barely scraping by these days, and the last thing we need to do is spend 4+ hours, 7 days a week answering and replying to email questions about your tape echo. We're glad you love yours, we love ours, but unless you're willing to fork out some $$$ for our time AND vast expertise, we can't afford to waste all day answering all the email we get. Sorry. In a better world, we'd be rich, idle, and would be happy to do it for free. Honest.

2. Regarding repairs: yes, we still repair almost every type of tape echo and have replacement tapes for most, but at the very least, understand this:

a. It will cost you USD $25-30 at least to ship it to us each way, so that's $60. We require $50 to go over your machine, do a basic cleaning, and write up an estimate on the rest of the work. In the end, to restore a machine will cost $150 min. - usually at least $200-300 - some times as much as $500 with parts - to fix it. If you're a typical musician - meaning like us, you have no money - please don't waste your and our time asking, OK?

b. Shipping has been a huge problem. Costs have gone through the roof, and we're pretty sure that shipping a 20-30 year old tape echo unit via UPS Ground both ways will almost always result in it being in worse shape than when you sent it. Three clients of ours in the last year have opt'ed for UPS 2nd Day Air and between that and excellent packaging (double-boxing at least) we've had good luck, but then the shipping costs go up to $100-150 back-n-forth.

3. No, right now we don't have parts. We're trying to sell what units we have and be done with it. If we can't, we'll have parts, and when we do, we'll advertise them with prices. Meanwhile, don't ask. We'd rather sell working units and get out of this business, because we'd make 3x more money pumping gas down the street at the gas station. Seriously.

4. We do have tapes. Just ask or order. But not many left.

5. We will work on a unit, if you have the dosh ($$$) to spend shipping it, paying for parts, and insuring it, and if it gets messed up, you go after UPS/FedEx/USPS, not us. Let them pay both of us for breaking it, OK? But good luck collecting.

6. NO, WE DO NOT AND HAVE NOT HAD A REPLACEMENT MOTOR SINCE JULY 2007. And Roland hasn't made one since end of 2004. Basically, unless we can find broken units to part out, we will likely not have any replacement motors in the future, and if we do, they'll be $200-300 depending on condition, maybe more. FullTone is making a tape echo now, and although we think it sucks compared to any of the Roland models - although the current Roland digital version, the RC-20, totally sucks compared to the FullTone... anyway, you can spend a lot of money buying one of those and replacement tapes from them if you want.

Lastly, if we can't fix your tape echo, what do we recommend?

a. Sell us your broken one. No, you won't get a lot of $$$, but some $$$ is better than it collecting dust, yeah?

b. The FullTone Tape Echo uses real tape, but it blows. Granted, it's so much better than the Line 6 DL-4 and Roland RC-20 it's not worth comparing, but it still sucks - the worst AceTone we've owned still blows away the FullTone piece of crap - not to mention the VERY expensive replacement tape carts they need.

c. We recommend, if you can't afford a real Tape Echo, the DanElectro DTE. Out of all of the digital effects, we thinks it's the closest. And we've owned and own dozens of tape echoes and all the current ones. We stick with our RE-301, RE-501, our AceTone Pro 20, and the DanElectro. The rest are shite. Avoid Univox and FullTone because cart-based effects suck (why buy replacement carts unless you're made of money?)

Over-Rated Current Models:

• FullTone Tape Echo
• Roland RE-201 - we've been getting $600-700 for these, and you know what? They're not that great. Any AceTone model will be $300-400, sound as good, and require much less work. And any later Roland mode, except the SRE-555.
• Roland SRE-555 - we see RE-501's sell for $450-600 on Ebay, and an SRE-555 for $900-$1000. They're the same fookin' unit except the 555 is in a rack-mount box but the 501 has rack-mount brackets on the back, so you can rack either one. Otherwise they're the same exact unit. People who buy an SRE-555 are morons.

Under-Rated Older Models:

• The AceTone lineup, which is just a Roland name-brand, and while not as complex as an RE-201 or later, is also more simple and has a great slapback and analog sound. The EP 10 or the EP 20 Pro are just great. We love our EP 20 Pro and frankly we're in the process of selling off all our RE-201's (three total) because we think the AceTone EP 20 Pro sounds better and is so much less work to maintain.
• DanElectro's DTE digital pedal - it's digital, it doesn't sound the same, but it's the best of the bunch. If you don't want to deal with tapes, go with this one.

Roland RE-Series Motor SOLD

The Roland RE-series Tape Echo motor we had has been sold. Inquiries will be ignored, as we will post should another become available. Thank you.

Roland RE-series Parts: Non-Existent

We've known for over a year that Roland ceased production of ALL RE-series Space / Chorus tape echo parts around the very start of 2005 and that pretty much all parts have been unavailable for two years or more. But someone wrote us to say they stopped making other parts, such as tape heads, even longer ago. We haven't been able to verify this but just pass it on as potential information:

"Many years ago when Roland was still supplying replacement heads I ordered a set and at that time removed the playback heads (record head was no longer available at that time). I still have the playback heads that were about 5 yeas old then. The replacements have been in the unit for about 22 years. So I have been planning on reinstalling the orginal playback heads given that they have substantially less hours on them."

So parts from a used system is about the only thing one will find for repairs, sad to say.

Roland Tape Echo DC Brushless Motors

NOTE: WE HAVE NO MOTORS LEFT FOR SALE. We are looking to buy new or used motors, please contact us if you have one or more for sale.

DO NOT CONTACT US HOPING TO BUY PARTS.

Since Roland first started making its RE-series Space / Chorus Echo analog tape units, they used DC Brushless Motors. It's worth reading about them because it explains why the motors in these (and many) tape echoes tend to work or not work, and little in-between. We recommend reading the whole article, but some key points:

• Tape echo motors are Reluctance Motors.
• An electronically controlled commutation system, instead of a mechanical commutation system.
• The controller performs the same power distribution found in a brushed DC motor, but using a solid-state circuit.
• Several advantages over brushed DC motors, including higher efficiency and reliability, longer lifetime (no brush erosion), elimination of ionizing sparks from the commutator, and overall reduction of noise and electromagnetic interference (EMI).
• The maximum power that can be applied to a BLDC motor is exceptionally high, limited almost exclusively by heat.
• BLDC motors require complex electronic speed controllers to run.
• Sayama/Pioneer motors used by Roland are "inrunner" types, although these means less torque, but pulling tape doesn't require a lot of torque.

We still have a refurbished motor for sale, and if you read the above Wikipedia entry, you'll understand why we're confident it will work fine for many, many years to come. Please contact us at info@sound-o-mat.com if you're interested in buying it.

The Roland RE-3 Digital Space Echo

Back in the late 80's, we believe 1988 to be exact, Roland unveiled its first digital version of the analog tape Space Echo series with digital reverb - an amazing, unique unit in a class all by itself, unlike any other echo or reverb unit (especially both combined.) They didn't sell well, and few were sent to the U.S. (it was mostly sold in Japan) so they're very rare and hard-to-find, although they do pop up 1-2 times a year on Ebay.

This was Roland's first real attempt to create a digital version of its earlier models of it famous RE-series tape echoes - the RE-101, RE-150, RE-201 Space Echoes. No attempt at the "Sound-on-Sound" effect, due to limited memory, nor built-in Chorus like the RE-301, RE-501 and SRE-555 Chorus Echoes. It fails dismally at creating a sound anything like an RE-201, which is what it was supposed to model, but while not succeeding at that, they instead created a very unique guitar-oriented echo/reverb effects unit that has a place of its very own, a sound unlike anything else, and is very much a compliment to one or more of the analog tape echoes, sounding very clean but lush, bright, and as thick and dense to as straight-forward as an echo unit as you could ever want.

Some of this has to do with the ability to turn off the "warmth" effect, and the fairly high digital fidelity for a late 1980's unit: 16 bit linear A/D conversion at 32KHz. The direct line input handles 10Hz-30KHz range, which is used for processing, although the effects limit the output to 20Hz-12Khz. 12Khz is fairly high and fine for vocals and guitar - most tape echoes are lucky if they can get output above 5-6Khz freq. range out. The 12Khz limit is from Low Pass Filters, perhaps because the effects algorithms create artifacts in the freq. range above that, but both output channels have a LPF set at 12Khz. The delay time is 10-300ms, decent enough for a delay, and the reverb time is quite impressive for a unit from this era: up to 5 seconds (5000 ms) which allows for long, slowly degrading tails of sound that can just be played out.

Most of the people who bought this most likely figured it would be nice to replace a big RE-201 or other analog tape echo with a single 1 RU (rack unit) effect box that would never require cleaning, tape replacement, etc. but none of the classic sounds the RE-201 and such were known for could be made with this box. It just didn't sound the same at all, not even close. Interesting, getting this to self-oscillate is much easier than the RE-201 and early tape echoes, and you can get some pretty weird spacey or just crazy noise sounds out of this if you turn things up too much, like the Repeat & Intensity for the echo.

So the unit was a complete flop, hated by most of the people looking for a version of the RE-201 that was smaller, better built, and required zero maintenance, vs. really a lot if a real tape echo is properly kept up. They ended up in pawn shops and music instrument stores gathering dust, until they were sold off for cheap to just get rid of them. Those who bought them at this point were mostly curious, and esp. the 5 second reverb was an amazing effect unto itself, not even considering the echo effects.

Slowly but surely, this became a "secret weapon" in many guitarists' rigs. It's probably the closest thing to "instant shoegaze" in one effects unit, and one of those units people never sell once they get one, and don't talk about because of its unique sound. People who had never owned a tape echo and took this unit as its own thing found they were able to really make some amazing sounds and it will never be known how much this effect box had on shaping the whole British 90's guitar sound that took over the synth-pop era from the early MTV days.

You can read more about it at Sonic State esp. about "those luscious Space Echo sounds" and truly infinite repeat that doesn't degrade, a major difference between the analog models that some disliked but many found could be very useful and musical. If they fix the database error, you can also read about it at http://www.effectsdatabase.com/reviews/1174/, and here's a great quote from a long-time owner from 2003 that I think sums it up well:

"I have both an RE-201 and an RE-3. The RE-3 is a great and weird box. It does not sound like the 201. It does not sound like anything else on the planet. The reverb setting is dark and warbly and strange. I bought it on ebay accidently 10 years ago (before I knew the difference) I still use it!"

You can read a bit about this unit (compared to the tape versions) at http://www.interruptor.ch/cgi-bin/discus/messages/1/395.html#POST1713. It is absolutely true this unit does NOT sound like any analog tape echo, but its failure to do that made it a magic device with its own extremely unique sound, esp. for 90's UK music, like shoegaze. Instant Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), for example. Nothing on Harmony Central or GuitarGeek about it - it never shows up in rig listings, in part because of how rare it is, but also because it's one of those units that players will try to keep secret as part of their rig so people can't easily copy their sound.

Ace-Tone Tape Loop for EC-20 or EC-10

We have a single tape loop for an Ace-Tone EC-10 or EC-20 Echo Chamber analog tape echo. It's a short loop, and might require some adjustment of the tension bar in both models, but that's easy to do. Please contact us at info@sound-o-mat.com for info and purchase. USD $20 plus shipping.

The Underrated and Underappreciated Ace-Tone EC-XX Tape Echoes

As Maestro's Echoplex and several Italian companies' tape echoes began to carve out a new market in guitar and/or vocal effects, Roland had a go at making a tape echo to compete with them, based on the Italian designs, but more or less built like an Echoplex sans tubes/valves, providing pure "echo" sounds, and even some major delay with the last playback head mounted at the end of the tape loop, right before the erase/write tape head.

We've only been restoring Ace-Tones since 2006 but we've come to appreciate their particular sound and what they're great for. But first a little background.

"Ace-Tone" was, we believe but are not sure, a separate company that Roland bought out in the early '70's. They made band-equalizers and perhaps some synths, and Roland used them as sort of their "test bed" company / name where they would roll out a new product and throw the Ace-Tone name on it, to see if there was a market and if the products were what musicians were looking for, and if so, they'd bring the product into the Roland line. The main use of the "Ace-Tone" line was several different synthesizers Roland tried to put out but didn't find much of a market for. In fact, most of the Ace-Tone products were failures, often poorly designed and/or built, but we really think that Roland got it damned right with the Ace-Tone EC-xx Echo Chamber series.

We're fairly sure that Ace-Tone did not product a tape echo unit until Roland bought them, and put out three units that were more or less simpler, solid-state versions of the Echoplexes and other analog tape echoes that were in the market at the time. No tubes so no tube-amp sound but no doubt the thinking was that tubes were expensive, made the unit fragile, and most amps back then had tubes already, if you wanted that sound.

The first Ace-Tone Echo Chamber, the EC-1 (for "Echo Chamber") was a prototype and we don't believe something that was ever on the market - if so, it's rare and there weren't many made. The first full-production unit released and mass-produced weren't not sure of: the Ace-Tone EC-20 has a limited number of buttons in the "mode selector" instead of a knob, and seems much more limited than the Ace-Tone EC-10 "Professional" Echo Chamber. We believe the EC-10 came out first and the EC-20 was meant to be a lower-end, less expensive "entry level" unit, whereas the EC-20 was the "Professional", full-featured model. We have one of each we bought in almost mint condition and have restored and are offering for sale.

The EC-10 pictured below we bought in January 2007, and was a good deal bought from the original owner who had used it little at all before it sat around collecting dust, and probably has less than 80 hour of total use on it, if that, we've put 20-30 hours on it at most. And although it lacks a number of the features that made the Roland RE-series so popular, esp. the infamous RE-201, it's a solid unit that has its own character and provides that rockabilly / country "slapback echo" sound that many people use an RE-201 for.

Neither of the units have a reverb, and the echo pattern selections are more limited on the EC-20, but it has four playback heads, with three in series after the erase/record tape head, which provide three different echoes based on the button selected ("1", "2", "3") as well as a cascade echo that's quite rich and can really give you a nice slapback-type echo that's more than just a single echo (button "1,2,3"). Its last setting (button "4") turns on the playback tape head that's positioned right before the erase/record head, so it gives full play to the loop and on slow speeds can provide around 2+ seconds before an echo, up to somewhat under a second when the speed it turned up.

The EC-10 has a "Selection Knob" with 11 settings, which gives you pretty much all the combinations of playback heads, individually or in combinations. This makes it a more diverse unit, but we can't say that the 11 modes vs. 5 modes doesn't make too much of a difference, since there's about six modes that we think are really worth using on the EC-10 or -20.

The other effect settings are simple and also useful for the high/low levels input and output plugs are the "effect depth" which lets you blend the signal through the unit from completely dry to wet. The other effect we thing makes these units stand out as a tape echo as great as the RE-201 is the "treble boost" switch. The RE-201 is notorious for really taking out a lot of the high end of the sound, due to the reverb, even if off, and the tape itself. The RE-201 and later models just tend to put focus the low end of guitar or vocals run through them and cut the highs, and the treble boost controls (and bass too) on the RE-series barely work at all, having little or no effect on the signal, at least on all the RE-201's we've ever used. They seem set to work for both guitar and vocals, but trying to do both means they do neither well, and are mediocre and not very helpful, even on the later RE-301/501/555 models.

The treble boost on the Ace-Tone EC-10/20, though, is solid, and really carries the high-end of the guitar or vocal sound through the unit and into the echoes (if used) and can even add a bit of treble boost if your effects rig kills off your high end and/or if you're looking for a "brighter" sound. It just sounds cleaner, has more high-end, and doesn't sound as "dark" or muted as the RE-series echoes do.

If we had to compare the two, the RE-201's longer tape loop doesn't actually give nearly as long as echo delay as the "button 4" setting on the EC-20 or the two modes on the EC-10 Professional that turn on the only the last head, since that playback head is at the end of a shorter loop, but still much longer than the furthest RE-201 head. You can get all the slapback sounds out of an EC-10 or EC-20 as you can out of an RE-201, and the cascading (button "1,2,3", or modes 5-10 on the EC-20) effects is similar to some popular settings on the RE-201, which just bypass or add reverb.

The EC-10/20's lacks reverb as said, but they're just very "bright", light-hearted sounding units that we think have been really under-rated and overlooked over the years. We're not sure if it's because they're older, they don't have as many knobs and switches and settings on the front panel, but after the last half-year, we'd rather play with an EC-10/20 than an RE-201 we're sure, since there's lots of other places in an effects chain or with your amp to add reverb. Since reverb is easy to throw in the chain somewhere, we think the EC-10 is the younger, happier sounding little brother to the darker, moodier RE-201 and other RE-series Space / Chorus echoes. We'll even go so far as to say it does the rockabilly / country "slapback" echo better than the RE-201, if you're looking for the really old sound, like that of Elvis' original guitarist on his early albums, "Screamin'" Scotty Moore, although he didn't use an Ace-Tone.

The Ace-Tone EC-10 Professional Echo Chamber pictured is completely restored, with a new tape, heads cleaned and practically new, everything demagnetized, and the pinch roller cleaned with proper rubber cleaner and it can be locked away from the motor spindle (also properly cleaned with capstan cleaner and demag'ed) so you can change the tape. The lights work and this baby comes almost new, and even has that "new car smell" as if it was just taken new out of the box.

Here's some photos of this beauty, which was sold in Autumn 2007, unfortunately. We didn't have a choice and hope to be in a position to get another Ace-Tone EP-10 some time soon.

Close up of the controls on the EC-10 Professional.

Another shot of the EC-10 Pro controls, input and output plugs.

A third view of the controls and in/out plugs, from an angle.

The unit lid open, showing the power cable storage, tape heads and loop.

Close up of the tape loop, tape heads, pinch roller w/motor and tape tensioner arm.

A wider shot of the tape loop chamber, with the pinch roller locked off to help with tape replacement.

Close up of the pinch roller and tape motor spindle, with the roller locked off, and also a great view of the spring-loaded tape tensioner arm. Note the two-prong ungrounded plug, something that didn't appear on Roland tape echoes until the last RE-201 revisions and later models.

A top-down shot of the pinch roll, motor spindle & tensioner arm.

Side show with cooling vent which lies where the side feet are mounted.

Backside view, with an opening to allow cooling and an XLR output plug with its own gain control.

Close up of the XLR balanced "Line Out" plug with -20db to -70db gain control knob.

The serial number tag, will run off 50Hz or 60Hz A/C at 117V which covers many countries, runs perfectly off U.S. power. Uses a two prong plug, ungrounded but no signs (or sounds) of hum or any kind of feedback.

Roland Space / Chorus Echoes for Various Countries

So, Roland being as large a company as it is, and looking to pare down the parts and expensive of tape echo units, rather than making them operate over various differences in AC "domestic" plugs for their main markets: Japan (and Asia), the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, decided instead to release units built specifically for those countries, rather than have them adjustable as some of the Ace-Tone units that were made before Roland bought them were, such as the Ace-Tone EC-20 we've decided to sell, since we've an EC-10 we're keeping - at least right now, the choice continues to waiver between the two.

What does this mean? It means that the RE-101 to RE-501/SRE-555's were made for one of the four markets above (there may be more, but those are the four we've run into, so while we think it's covering everything, we don't claim its definitive, please mail us if you have or have used a Roland RE-series Space / Chorus Echo that was made for another country than the four above.

An important note, quoting from Wikipedia on A/C Domestic Plugs:

It is a common misconception that the purpose of the earth connection is to take fault currents safely to earth. The primary purpose of the earthing system is to cause a fuse to blow or a breaker or a residual-current device (RCD) to trip to automatically disconnect the power supply to any device or cable which develops a wiring fault.

Here's what each country's "domestic" A/C ("alternating current") plugs are spec'ed for. We were going to make a chart, but we think it's just easier to go to the Wikipedia entry on AC Power Plugs and look up the country your Roland RE echo was made for.

In short (pun intended), the point of this whole entry is that you can't just get plug adapter that changes the plug size or number of prongs or what have you - we learned a very expensive and important lesson that a Roland tape echo built for the U.K. has every circuit, voltage converter, and other parts of the power system built to expect 220-240V (220V nominal) 50Hz A/C power, and if you hit it with too much or too little (such as U.S. 115V @ 60Hz) you will smoke and fry the entire system. Later RE-201s after the first run, and all RE-301s, 501s and 555's have fuses, but they didn't blow in time to help, since the voltage was less, but the 60Hz power seemed to smoke up quite a few parts on the U.K. RE-201 system before we could unplug it. The only scent we've smelled that was worse is that of burning flesh, quite frankly.

So if you have a unit from say, Korea, like we were recently contacted about, it is really best to buy a power conversion system that will take a normal U.S. A/C three-prong plug output and convert it to the 220-240V 50Hz power that the unit expects.

The converters aren't cheap, and we haven't used many, but we have read good things about the "Lashen" (spelling?) brand as we recall. But no matter the expense, it will be much cheaper than trying to rewire and convert an entire unit's power system to use U.S. spec'ed A/C power instead - you would end up having to replace almost every electrical component in the system.

This is a reason we're really come to appreciate the Ace-Tone echoes we've been restoring and playing with this past year. They don't have anywhere near the options and settings of a Roland, and the tape loop is very short, but they're extremely well-built and made to work in almost all the major countries.

So here's a review of discussion we had with someone on the subject, about the RE-201 he had bought in Korea.

Cam Stretch wrote:

I've been searching for a power solution for my Space Echo that I purchased
while in Korea. I collected my gear when I returned home after two years,
plugged it in only to find that the Space Echo needed more juice! Do you
have any power converter suggestions that would be reasonably portable? Can
I actually swap out the old converter and up the power handling?

We're quite surprised he didn't fry it, but since the voltage in the U.S. is
half of what it expected, hopefully it didn't do any permanent damage. We replied:

You would need to find a power converter that converts U.S. power plugs and ratings to whatever they use in Korea. Swapping converters is very risky, since the circuits aren't made to handle U.S. power ratings, and there are separate ones for the motor and the signal effects circuit boards, just for starters.

A converter that takes U.S. power and converts to Korean ratings/plug style
is the way to go, and a search of the Web should turn something like that up,
but we can't recommend anything right now, sorry.

Cam wrote back:

Thanks for the recomendations. I have a RE-201 with a Japanese plug on it! I do have a plug a adaptor but I guess I need something that will handle a power conversion rather then just a plug conversion.

Absolutely correct!! So we replied:

Yes, definitely, DO NOT buy just an adaptor, because the standard power voltage, cycles, etc. are different, and plugging it into a U.S. source will cook most of the circuits and voltage converters! Trust us, we've smoked one ourselves, a very expensive mistake!

The old Ace-Tone tape echoes, at least the EC-20 model and later, before
Roland bought them out, used to come with a converter plug on the back that
allow you to switch the voltage (117V works in the U.S.) and had a power
conditioner inside that would regulate the cycles on the A/C power between
50-60Hz to whatever is used internally. It's one of the things we've grown to
love about the Ace-Tones before Roland bought them out - they don't offer
anywhere near the number of options and features, and the tape loop is short,
but they have a great tone, they really keep the high-end sound without
muffling it at all (in fact, the EC-20 has a "Treble" switch to boost the
high-end frequencies from a guitar.)

So whatever you do, if your tape echo was made to run off the power of a
different country, you want a power converter, not adapter.
You'll probably spend USD $80-200 depending but it's worth it if you have a
clean tape echo in very good (VG) or better shape.

We'll be working on a Watkins Copicat soon so we'll have more info on our blog
about this whole subject when we get to that!

We also hope to do more of a writeup on dismissing our concept of "Version 1", "v2" and "v3" RE-201's but just list the changes made over the years. We don't think now, after working on over three dozen RE-201's, that Roland made a couple of major revisions, but was instead constantly revising the design of the unit, so we will just try to compile a list of all the differences, such as the evolution of the power plug from a wide-base two-prong to a smaller one with a one wider prong (for proper polarity) to the three-prong grounded plugs used in the later RE-301's and all RE-501's and SRE-555's.

We hope you'll find this info helpful, and that future entries as we gather photos and research info for our book will also come in handy.

Sticking Tape on RE-301 Chorus Echo Tape Heads

Following up our entry with photos of a pristine looking but in need of a major cleaning and restoring job of an RE-301 we received from its original owner, we also have footage of a brand-new tape loop sticking to the tape heads themselves due to the wear on the heads from the old tape not only pulling loose then tight repeatedly, but not staying in the tape guide path and so moving below the normal line and wearing a very slight but very important and difficult to clear up groove in the tape heads that, along with how worn they were and in need of a very thorough cleaning, was causing the tape to stick to the heads or get "caught" in the guides by being in the grooves/slots of those but being pulled down by the worn groove in heads - even enough to complete stop the tape. That and the tape itself just sticking to the record/erase or one of the two trailing playback heads.

Here are the videos of tape sticking to worn tape heads on an RE-301 hosted on YouTube with lousy focus and narration - hey, you get what you way for:

RE-301 Space Echo tape sticking to playback head problem video #1:

RE-301 Space Echo tape sticking to playback head problem video #2:

Restoring a Pristine Roland RE-301 Chorus Tape Echo

So we just recently finished a great restoration job on a pristine RE-301. It was sent by the original owner and honestly, we have never seen an RE-301 that was this nice - it looked like it was fresh out of the box - but the problem was that while it looked fantastic, the motor was pretty much dead, although we were able to fix it so that it kinda works, but lacks the torque for an RE-301 - it'll probably be fine on an early RE-201 or earlier unit, and the tape had really worn the tape heads due to bad tensioning, etc. It took a lot more work that we originally estimated, but we've been sitting on the last new M-502E-B02 Pioneer motor, so we got the owner's go-ahead and put it in this baby, since it only seemed fair to put a new motor in a unit that was so nice - now it's pretty much as close to "new, out of the box" as you can get. So here's some photos of going through to clean the pots, plugs and replace the motor.

We'll have another entry that shows video of the tape sticking through the heads, which through a lot of cleaning and adjustment we were able to solve. That should be the posting right after this one.

So onward to some photos of restoring a pristine-looking but a very worn RE-301 that required a lot of cleaning, lubrication, resurfacing, a new tape, etc. That's the one downside of these analog wonders: they do require, like a pet, a lot of attention and maintenance to properly care for them.

Here's the RE-301 opened up, with the electronics unit set outside the case, with two cables still connected back to the spring reverb tank that is attached to the bottom of the case. You can see how complex the circuit boards are - the one mounted above the motor is designed only to regulate the power and handle the rate & intensity controls for the motor, and little else:

This is a shot of the cleaned and lubed rubber pinch roller, which is disengaged from holding the tape against the motor spindle (also called "capstan" but Roland uses that term for the roller that provides tension and straight path as the tape enters the tape head area. The opening with the threaded post with two nuts is the adjustment for how far the pinch roller moves, allowing one to adjust how tight the pinch roller is held against the tape and motor spindle. Too tight causes tape wear and can even slow the motor down and wear it as it tries to spin faster but can't - but too loose and the tape will slip, which is far worse, as it can cause the dreaded "wobbling" sound and is also very bad for the condition of the tape loop:

Here's a closeup of the pinch roller adjustment arm:

Here's the circuit board, mounted above the motor in the RE-301/501 and SRE-555 which controls the power supply to the motor, and handles the rate and intensity controls:

Removing the circuit board from two mounting arms to expose the motor for replacement. You can also see the electronic solenoid that engages the pinch roller against the tape loop when the power is turned on, and the voltage transformer that's needed to provide power to the motor:

Here's the inspection sticker, which you can get to when you remove the motor on an RE-301. The names are signed with Japanese stamps, and you can see this is an RE-301, S/N 867560.

A photo of the old motor which explains a mystery. The new motor is also the same exact model: Type M-502E-B02, which was used in later RE-201's and all the RE-301/501's and SRE-555's we've ever seen, 24 volts, which is what the power supply converter is for, and the unique Lot No. info which is unique to each motor. This old one is "Lot 9, G14".

The mystery this motor cleared up is why Roland switched from having the motors manufactured for them by a company called Sayama but switched to Pioneer-made motors, like the new one we put in this unit. As you can see from this photo, for awhile it was called "Sayama-Pioneer" and some research on the Web shows that indeed, Pioneer bought out the Sayama company, and while the motors were probably made in the same factory by the same employees, and were even the same design, Pioneer added its name after the buyout and eventually replaced the "Sayama" name with just "Pioneer" after a couple of years. The Sayama logo on the left stayed on the labels for years after the name was changed to Pioneer only, and if you can't read well, these are DC BRUSHLESS MOTORs.

Here's a photo of the label on the new ("NOS" - "New/Old Stock") replacement motor, perhaps the last one sold by Roland before they discontinued selling parts, and you can see that the name was changed to "Pioneer" although the Sayama logo remains on the left side, and it's the same exact model as the old one: Type M-502E-B02, 24 volts of course, and the new one's unique Lot No. is "5K1". Pioneer, we're guessing, must have changed the system/format used to mark each unit. We're not sure if it's just a serial number or if it has information "encoded" in it - unlikely that it does, since it's so short, so it's probably just a serial number - the motor made after this one was undoubtedly stamped "5K2".

Sliding in a brand-new motor, mounted on a squarish semi-box that holds it, fitting it in where the previous motor resided - a tight squeeze:

A shot of the main unit sitting outside the case, with two cables still attached and leading back to the spring reverb tank that's mounted on the bottom of the black particle board wood case:

A surrealistic photo of the complex circuit boards in the RE-301 (as compared to earlier models) and all the plugs and pots for the many controls on an RE-301 front panel: each needs to be cleaned, tested, and possibly adjusted - boring but necessary work.

Close-up: voltage regulator to the left, the motor power/control circuit board in the middle, and two black cables coming up from the motor, semi-hidden below, that plug into the circuit board. As you can see, the Roland tape echo motors are far more complex than those found in most reel-to-reel 1/4" tape decks. One set of wires in a black cable is dedicated just to providing a constant, stable power supply to the motor, regardless of what speed it is operating at, and the other provides independent controls to determine how fast the motor should spin. Many motors simple control their speed by raising and lower the power supply, but this design, while much more complex and expensive, provides a far more stable and consistent motor speed.

The "Folded Line Reverberation Device" made by O.C. Electronics, "Manufactured by beautiful girls in Milton, Wis." (Wisconsin, USA) "... under controlled atmospheric conditions." Well, you can tell the company and vast majority of their customers are men. Then again, anything manufactured by "beautiful women" is undoubtedly vastly superior. And the "controlled atmosphere conditions" comment is a joke as well - spring reverbs are hardly high-tech science. Note the model is a "Type 60" which is the only model of the Folded Line series we've ever found in Roland tape echoes.

The unit put back together, awaiting a new tape - we have another blog entry that shows tape threading and are writing one about loading tape, with an empty but spotless clean tape chamber:

Here's a shot of the re-assembled and cleaned up RE-301 with a new motor inside. Little did we know there were many, many more hours of testing, lubing and cleaning ahead of us as we ran into the problem of the tape sticking, but we kept turning the unit on to test it while reassembling it, and after taking this photo were were able to run the unit for an hour with any problems, including the tape heads and guard heating up, which the owner had mentioned as a major problem.

Assembled unit, running the tape for testing and to stretch it out - it takes about 5-6 hours of play for a new tape loop to be fully stretched and "conditioned", according to the Roland RT-1L tape spec sheets, so we like to run them for a few hours to start to work them in and make sure the unit isn't going to have any "sticking" problems, which this one did.

That's the end of our little photo tour - we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we did making it. We can't say the same about fixing the tape sticking problems but ultimately the machine is currently sitting quietly in a box waiting to be returned to its original owner, who's been very patient as we've worked on this over a 2+ week period. Thanks Dave!

Properly Threading Tape on RE-201 and later Roland Tape Echoes

This Article is Under Rewrite

We have found that different RE-series models must be threaded differently, and that if a motor is weaker (less torque) than when it was new, it is often better to thread a tape so that there's less tension from the posts found in the tape chamber.

Today we started working on the most pristine, beautiful, like new Roland RE-301 we've ever seen - the total opposite of our RE-301, which is missing all sorts of stuff and has been beat to crap and gigged heavily - but then again, we bought it for $40 so we can't complain.

That said, unfortunately this unit has major wear on the tape heads, especially the erase/record head - on the RE-301 Chorus Echoes, they added the "Sound-On-Sound" function, which basically allows you to turn off the erase function of that head so you can record over what's already on the tape, layering on top of the existing recording, hence "sound-on-sound". Anyway, because the felt lined tension bar that holds the tape against the capstan roller wasn't tight, the felt was worn and had no "grab", nor did the roller under the top of the capstan (hence the name) have any grab, it was smooth as ice, and the pinch roller pushing the tape against the motor spindle was slipping a bit too... all these factors led to the tape coming loose against the heads, and not coming into contact at all with them, and when it did, it was moving up and down, the completely height of the heads, not following a very straight track.

The results? Massive wear on the erase/record head, and on the first two playback heads, and bad wear on the other two playback heads, and a problem where if the unit was run for 1.5 hours (according to the owner, who bought this baby new) the tape head guard would get hot. We quickly determined by running it that the tape moving against the heads and then way, back and forth, all the while also moving up and down, well, it was creating a ton of friction that made the erase/record head pretty warm after only running it ten minutes. We knew a thorough cleaning would get everything back into shape, although we're concerned the heads are beyond saving, and that because of the wear, they'll destroy the new tape, and it'll still create a lot of friction since the wear path isn't regular.

So we're writing this post to explain the important things to avoid this problem where the tape literally wears the heads and makes even the guard hot to the touch:

1. Tapes need to be replaced once a year, unless you play a lot, then 2 or even 3 times a year.
2. The capstan roller itself spins underneath the cap, and shouldn't be smooth, it should be bare metal so it "grabs" the tape, and combined with the felt-lined tension bar, holds the tape firmly against the tape heads - not too tight, which is actually hard to do unless the roller doesn't spin, but definitely not too loose!
3. Obviously, the pinch roller needs to be clean and also have enough "grab" to hold and push the tape against the motor spindle, which also should be cleaned and not too smooth, so it pulls the tape firmly and consistently.
4. And of course, everything spoken about above, and the tape heads, should be cleaned and demagnetized, at least twice as often as the tape is changed, unless you like the "dirty" sound.

We've found that none of the Roland tape echoes we work on have the tape properly threaded through the chamber, so this time we took some photos to show where the tape should have been going, around the three posts. It wasn't going around two and was on the wrong side of the other, which is one of the reasons that the tape was coming loose and not even touching the record/erase head at times.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, and we get sick of typing, here's some photos showing where the tape should go in Roland RE-201 and later model tape echoes:

Under Construction

New Photos Coming Soon!

So whenever you install a new tape in your machine, make sure you get it going around these post correctly! It's a minor detail but very important in ensuring proper tape tension and getting the longest life out of each tape loop and the tape heads as well.

Differences between a Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Later Models

Recently we were contacted by someone who owned a Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo and had bought a heavily used RE-201 Space Echo, and was wondering what could be wrong with it. Our belief is that the RE-201 simply doesn't do certain things that the later models, the RE-301/501 and SRE-555 do, such as "sound-on-sound", the chorus effect, and what people know as "self-oscillation". Here's his original question:

I recently got an RE-201 (in wooden homemade box!!) Need some overall cleaning of the pots etc... but there was one big problem! I couldnt get it to oscillate!! (infinite repeat/sci fi drones....) I cleaned the tape heads with alcohol and inserted a tape loop from my RE-301 (Which I know works!) it helped a little bit, but not enough! I got a couple more echoes, but not infinite ones. Any suggestions?? Any bias pot that needs tweaking? Do i need a new recording tape head? [...] (By the way: the RE-201 is a lot noisier that my 301, is that common??)

We forgot to answer his last question, which is "yes, the RE-201 is definitely a lot noisier than an RE-301 or later model, just like an RE-101/150 is a lot noisier than an RE-201". The later the model and version, the better sounding they became, as Roland continually redesigned the units - in fact, we're hoping to put together a page showing how many different things were changed in the RE-201 from when it first came out to when it last went out-of-production.

This was our response about the lack of "self-oscillation":

There's really no way to diagnose that problem without looking at the unit itself, because there's so many things that can cause that problem: not enough power to the tape heads, either the record and/or playback heads, problems with the power supply, a bias pot adjustment, a bad capacitor in the chain from the power supply to the control circuit, the repeat pots, etc.

Of course, you do realize that the RE-201 does NOT have "Sound-On-Sound" capabilities, and so they won't ever do self-oscillation, nor truly infinite repeats, although you should be able to get many repeats out of the unit if the intensity is turned all the way up. So the problem might just be that you're used to think you can do with an RE-301 that you can't do with an RE-201 (which is why we have a 301 and 501 in our own studio.)

The RE-201 owner wrote back:

Thanks!!! Very useful! OK, just to make things clearer: on the RE-301 I switch the "sound on sound" OFF, I turn the intensity knob all the way up, and, even with no input the unit will start "copying" the noise over and over again, which builds up to a complete noise/ drone/sci-fi chaos sound over a second or two ( depending on the echo setting). This is what I want. So you are saying that this can't be done with a 201?

To which we replied, unfortunately:

Yup, basically the RE-201 wasn't made in such a way that the intensity could be turned up enough to self-oscillate. We've never looked into why that is, and if it might be possible to adjust a bias pot or trim or such, but we're pretty sure the caps in the circuit would all have to be replaced to take a much bigger power load, like the 301 and later version have.

We've fixed and sold dozens of 201's and only one of them ever self-
oscillated, and that needed to be fixed, because that's all it did

So there you have it - if you want a Roland tape echo to self-oscillate, you need to get a Chorus Echo model or it won't work.

The Roland RE-201: Three Versions

So, as we continue to work on Roland RE-201 Space Echo tape echo units, we've finally decided two things:

1. Roland continually improved the model as it was produced over the years, so really it's difficult to define any one version vs. another. In a link to a page on our Web site, we'll slowly add photos to show the evolution of the RE-201 from early to later models.

2. We have decided that there were three different versions based on some of the biggest changes made to the units. We'll talk about how we decide the three versions here.

So obviously, when the Roland RE-201 was introduced in 197? that was the first version. The DC brushless variable-speed motor was made by a Japanese company called Sansui for Roland, and differed from most in that the speed is not at all varied by increasing or decreasing the power, but instead by a separate control circuit, which made the effects, for their time, the most stable of all these units, because the motors were really the very best engineering for that time period. These units had flimsy switches, so bad that they even started putting replacement ones in with the cleaning gear, and were not grounded and had a two-prong plug.

The second version we've decided is when they changed the unit to a grounded system, which really helped reduce humm and other unwanted sounds caused by inconsistent power. They also beefed up the power supply.

The third version was when Roland went to two separate circuit boards, one to control the speed of the motor, and the other to handle the rest of the sound signal. This separated any interference between the control for the mechanical system and the circuitry that handled the sound. They switched to motors made by Pioneer in Japan, which in the RE-301 and later units plugged into the motor control circuit board rather than being soldered, to make replacing the motor easier.

So as time goes on, we hope to document all the changes, including the many different spring reverb tanks (all dry) used in the unit, and how they made it easier to service and replace parts in later models.

Roland RE-201 (and related) Parts Available!

We just purchased a Roland RE-201 in fairly good shape that had a constant speed, totally incorrect motor in it. We will be parting this unit out, and we also have an NOS RE-201 v3 or RE-301/501 or SRE-555 motor for sale or install.

So if you're looking for any parts, please feel free to drop us a line at info@sound-o-mat.com with what you're looking for and we can send you a price. Hurry, because we'll be used parts ourselves for other units we're restoring.

Again, we have a full RE-201 except a motor for parts, and an NOS motor for sale ($300) or to replace in a unit (it would be worth it for a 301/501/555 unit.) Get them while the getting is good!

Roland Tape Echo Motors

Recently, we were contacted by someone who'd found our blog and entries about tape echoes, in particular the Roland RE-series, who was looking for some advice about the motor in his RE-201.

Having also had a recent client who had brought us an RE-201 where someone had replaced the motor (or possibly stolen it) with an incorrect, constant-speed motor, we decided it would be worthwhile to do a writeup on the motors used by the Roland Corp. in their original Ace-Tone tape echoes (circa 1973-1978, but we are confirming the dates) and the later Roland RE-series, which started with the very rare, unreleased RE-100, and the first official product, the RE-101, and ran through to the RE-501 and rack-mount SRE-555 models, until Roland stopped making all parts in 2005 and discontinued all technical service & support for their analog tape echo line at the end of 2006.

Here's the original question, excerpted, that we received, asking about "how to oil the motor", which we were extremely dismayed to hear and quickly responded to. Morgan wrote:

Hi,

I stumbled on your blog while I was looking for help [....] I've got a RE-150 that I picked up recently, and have been doing my best to restore to health. I've managed to replace the reed spring and felt pads, and may eventually get the pinch roller resurfaced, but I am not sure how to go about oiling the motor. A lot of the sources I've used for info have said that it's important to do, but none said how. I've got some decent sewing machine oil that should work, but since the motor itself is sealed, I am not sure of the best approach to getting the oil into it. Any hints?

We wrote back immediately, and are still hoping Morgan will help us by sending us photos of the interior of his RE-150 if he opens it again, as well as the exterior, but most important, where the completely mistaken belief that any of the Ace-Tone or Roland tape echo units have motors that require oil. We would like to strongly dispell this myth if at all possible. In brief, all Roland-made tape echos have used DC ("Direct Current") brushless variable speed motors, which are hermetically sealed ("air tight") and not only do not require oil, the motor can and will be damaged by the introduction of oil. Here's what we wrote back to Morgan:

The key thing is the type of motor, which you should be able to determine by opening it up and looking for a label on it. If it's a Sanasui (early models) or a Pioneer (later) motor, which were made for Roland for the RE-series tape echoes, then they are hermitically sealed DC brushless motors.

After we wrote this, we did some research on photos of older units we have worked on, and at the time of this writing are in the process of restoring two Ace-Tone tape echoes, an EP-20 which we are almost finished with and are loathe to sell at this point, since we've found while it does not offer much delay nor a variety of types of echoes, we were surprised at the interesting characteristics and sound of this unit, which brings out a lot of treble. We're also working on an EP-10, both of which will be as close to new as you'll get when we're finished. Both of those units have hermetically-sealed brushless DC motors, so we feel we can state that unless someone replaced a motor in a Roland tape echo unit with a different type of motor, they were all made with this type, which does not require oil and should never be opened up.

We went on to ask:

If it's not a DC brushless motor of some sort, or not one of the makes above, we'd really appreciate it if you could take and send some digital pictures of it to us, and if it's not brushless, we can rese