Your videos remind me of why I fell in love with electronic music. I've been having a hard time finding these warm and floating moments that your music brings to life. Thank you.
Yeahhhh. Watching the pitch shifting portion, I am sitting here listening in awe and then laughing out loud when I see his face saying "This is.... Beautiful" hahaha cuz it's like ... those moments that all of us EA folks are working towards.
Hainbach - I don't know if you read messages on old videos, but thank you! I wanted to give you a tip that you might have discovered already: Inserted into the feedback chain, using a delay pedal with feedback at zero, and a 100% wet, you can set *any* delay time you want and still get the classic tape echo sound. You're not bound to the "built-in" delay time of the distance between record and playhead.
I've been meaning to leave a comment: I have an old Marantz and I did what you described! I knew from the instructions in my old reel to reel that it could be a tape echo, but it's a lot easier to use the Marantz. Thank you so much for the tutorial. I also have a pile of different tapes to use, the crappiest ones are the best.
That loop was gorgeous - just made me think of all these films where a girl tiptoes through the forest and gets more and more lost that time dissolves until you find her just huddled under a tree.
I really like this technique. I recently acquired a Marantz PMD222 and tried it out. I was using stereo 1/8th inch - 1/4 inch converters with an RCA - 1/8th inch cable, and realized you need to use only the right channel on the RCA cables when you do this or you hear nothing from the Marantz. Took me a while to figure that out, but once I did, the real tape delay sounded amazing. This is always the funny part about trying to explore, little details can sideline your efforts for a while, but the reward is worth it. In any case, thanks Hainbach, you are always inspiring and teaching the best ideas. Fun!
For stereo recorders, you can use the channels in series. The playback head of channel 1 feeds into input of channel 2, and then monitor channel 2's playback head. Get double the time, and also double the hiss. :-)
The Marantz PMD430 is the equivalent stereo 3 head model. But I think it's actually better to use two separate mono tape machines, as the wow and flutter, drop outs, etc. will be different for each unit.
used that trick for my first professional commission in... 1977. For a sci-fi music festival in Montpellier. I used my first (and then only) synth, a duophonic Korg 800DV and an Akai GX-210D tape recorder deck with a DIY mixing box (just two sliding pots for L and R feedback plus two three ways switches to send the L and R play signal either to the L and R or L and L or R and L or R and R (or no fdbck in 0 position) back to the recording heads... With the many possibilities of alternating and cross switching the original stereo signals from the 800DV (basically a double 700s), I was able to record in one take quite a complex multichannel ambient loop and rhythm track....
If the pmd-222 in this video has a trim pot for the tape speed (i’ve got a sony tcm-5000ev that does, accessed through the battery compartment) the trim pot could be removed and replaced with an external pot and larger knob to control the speed of the tape while it’s recording. I’ve done this using a small flat head screwdriver to adjust the pot while recording. I would then also assume an LFO could be applied to the same contacts but replace the trim pot with a jack for the CV.
just thought i should share: you make a tape echo like this with virtually any audio interface and any daw. i'm using reaper, a similar old cassette recorder, and a tascam us-1800. any interface with monitor outputs or balanced outputs should work. basically, you have one track on the daw sending out to the interface's output to the tape recorder (i have a separate box to convert this signal from balanced to line level, in my case). hit record on the cassettte machine. send the recorder's output to an input on your interface. then, on the channels that you have the recorder sending to in your daw, send back to the same interface's output to start your feedback loop. the send volume from this channel controls the feedback. and like someone below said, a delay plugin with one tap and 100% wet will let you dial in a precise delay time. you can even automate delay times in your daw: much more adaptable, reactive, and tweakable than even the most advanced tape echo units. hope this makes sense!!!
I don’t even mess with all that lol. I set up a tape delay plugin that I like and put the track I want delay on in loop mode. Then I record that track to tape for awhile and go get a drink. When I get back then I have all the material I need for whatever tape delays I want on the track. Even cooler, sometimes I change the track later but still keep the same delay. Weird effect to have an echo without an exact source.
A Sony TCM-5000EV also does the trick. It has speed control, but stock only works in playback mode, like the Marantz. The service manual (available online) does show that it should not be too hard to have speed control on record mode though. Great video, it shows you can use often discarded analog equipment to make modern music, if you put the time into it.
Decided to purchase a PMD 201, and got it for 80 USD! Needed a bulkier cassette recorder anyways, and this one is in decent condition. Thanks for the inspiration, as I've been meaning to get into cassette for many years and am finally taking the plunge. ♥♥♥
Oh the Marantz! Much love! Never used it for tape echo tho. I preferred the cleaner sound from 1/4" for that. Great for fiction. The Nagra in the background there would probably work very well for it. I remember "discovering" tape echo by accident back in the 90's. Such fond memories!
I imagine all that people back then imagining that one day we will have such a perfect digital sound and effects to work with, and for now we have to stick with this analog erratic, quality loss tape thing. If you would be seeing this video in 1984 you would say "This guy is crazy??" Well, when I transitioned from tape to cd I could hear genuinely how crispy and good sounding music could be and accessible for everyone in this world. Now we love and appreciate the nostalgia of analog old crap sound we always wanted to get rid off. HIRONIC WORLD THIS is!!
Shoot, I own one of those Marantz PMD-222 with its original case and lanyard strap! Kinda cool seeing what you did with it. All these years I thought it was just a common ol' tape recorder that had a neat slow-speed function.
When I first saw this a few months back I was inspired so I found a PMD221 for $35 ( I know what a deal) and get this working using just a bastl dude. Thanks for the inspiration Hainbach, you're pretty cool.
Thanks for this. I have a Marantz 222 that I purchased more than twenty years ago that I use for q&d practice analysis. Looking forward to using this a tape echo.
When I was at WDOM we used to take a boom box and tune it to the radio frequency and set the volume just so in order to get reverberation. That was fun.
We used to mess around with tape decks in the mid 70s to create effects as we couldn't afford WEM copicats etc. It was in the early new wave music days. I had a deck where I had messed around with the heads and not only did it echo but gave ghost sounds from the other channel and reverse notes. It was hard to use live as it wasn't that reliable for a gig so my ideas weren't adopted by the band I auditioned with briefly.
Activating the vari-speed while recording is very easy on the 222. One needs only cut one pcb trace and add one jumper wire. But diy deck mods is another thing all together.
Any hints on how to find the trace to cut and where to jump on marantz 221? Or 222? I’m a noob. If you could dumb it down even further I’d be forever grateful :)
If you were to split the output from the tape deck and put it on channel 3 and four. Pan one hard left and one hard right you could easily emulate a stereo echo. Instead of just having it on the right channel only. Add a resonance, hpf or lpf put that onto a modulator or arpeggiator into the feedback loop to filter out any frequencies you don't want to hear and making them modulate. Just thought I'd share that with you.
This kind of reminds me of an album called Discrete Music by Brian Eno, but he used an EMS Synthi AKS and a reel to reel tape recorder plus a 31 band eq to create it.
Was able to get this working with a Boss BX80 mixer, since my four track died. Interesting that routing the output of the tape player and then using the effect / aux on that track didn't quite work the same but it's still fun. Guessing that the four track handles that audio a bit differently. Cheers.
I believe the high frequency noise is the bias tone building up through feedback. Cutting around 12k can reduce that if it becomes overpowering, as can reducing the tape speed during recording (which reduces high-frequency bandwidth of the tape). Also there is a simple mod to make the varispeed knob work during record; IIRC it involves no more than a trace cut and a jumper.
after watching a bunsh of your videos - beside your amazing freakish ways to make music - i know of what reminds me this sound very often : the "deru - 1979" album. when you didnt heard it before, i think you like it very much
I know this is a really old video, but I was doing some reading and discovered it's possible to fix the biggest flaw of this machine - There's a really, really easy mod you can do to it to make the varispeed knob work during recording, not just playback. Basically the potentiometer has two wipers, one set at 50% permanently and one that moves with the knob. If you break the trace of the fixed wiper on the pcb and solder a little bridge from the normal wiper to where the fixed wiper goes, you can make it so that the normal wiper is used during recording. That has the effect of being able to modify the speed regardless of the mode of operation, so you can have much finer control over delay time.
I bet the disabling of the pitch control during recording is done by a couple contacts on the long slider switch that gets moved when RECORD is pressed. You may be able to simply scrape off a segment of the trace from one of the pins of that switch, so the pitch control no longer knows it's supposed to step aside, optionally with a switch somewhere to turn this capacity back on if you wish to use the recorder as originally intended. You may also be able to replace the speed knob's potentiometer with a higher value to get more variance in pitch as well.
I bought a 222 to use as a donor to fix a marantz stereo portable.... different board, different everything. so I did what you've done here. it's not too hard to modify the 222 so that the varispeed works in record.
exactly that- I wish I could post a pic here. I'm sitting right next to a studer 810 that I use for digitising 1/4" tapes, & the reel that's on it says "echo tapes- various", mostly at 3.75ips because on a revox A77 this yields a good delay time for syncopated echoes with 'berlin school'-type sequencer lines. I also used an old valve ferrograph machine which has its heads further apart. that's how I learned tape-delay, on that machine. the procedure is described in the ferrograph manual, & they put the heads exactly 1.875" apart, so that the delay time is 1 second at the lowest speed, or half a second at 3.75ips, a bit longer than on the revox. we didn't have varispeed on these decks. so the tape that's on the studer is a collection of the tapes from many sessions, spliced together. the tapes were used many times, so the recordings have a crunchy quality to them, which is also good. sometimes these tapes were themselves the basis for overdubs, other times they were just used for the effects buss & then (by some miracle) left over after the session, for the interesting bits to be spliced together & saved. I see you have a timeline there- me too, among many other electronic delays. the patch I use in mine is one I made to sound like the ferrograph on its lowest speed.
Lovely guide... I got a nagra deck that I REAALLY want to try this out with...just need to find a pair for it. 😱😉 so with an open reel to reel I could just route the tape a little longer distance between the write and read head for a longer delay?
Yes you can! You just have to build a contraption for that, as the distance between read and write head is pretty close. But open reels often have very slow speeds available also.
Wow, what a great video. I have put the process into use already. As noted below you can route things into themselves on a stereo deck... you can also use two decks if you have them for longer times and more distortions. This is fantastic. I love your videos very much -- keep making them!
Thanks for the tips and ideas! I've really appreciated the classic Roland echo units but they're a bit pricey. I'll be adding a similar Marantz to my home studio soon. Cheers.
Just FYI, I was thinking about this and you don't really (I don't think) need the Fostex / four track for this. A different mixer or even record two tracks to a DAW could be roughly the same. Sadly my Fostex died so I'm thinking of other options. Cheers.
Hola, excelente demostración. Quiero preguntarte si para hacer que funcione como eco de cinta hay que tener activado el modo, Tape o Surce? Muchas gracias y saludos desde Uruguay!!! feliz año nuevo.
great success doing this with my old Teac X300 R2R, routing implemented using Bitwig rather than a hardware mixer and using the Line in level on the R2R to ride the feedback, cleaner results than I imagined but some great artifacts when switching from high to low tape speed. Makes me want something with more speeds and crappier quality now! Thanks for this one sir, much appreciated as always :)
I'm trying to figure out how to convert my walkman to vari-speed, but now after watching this video I'm definitely interested in trying this also. Can you explain this process a little more?
Hello "What", if you're trying to modify a cassette player/recorder to have variable speed, there is a pretty straightforward method. This method requires a soldering iron, rosin core solder, wires, de-soldering wick(DIYable with pine sap and twisted copper wire) a potentiometer(500 ohm, 1k, or 5k** linear taper or "type B"), and patience. **(5k is too high a value for linear response but it will work) Of course, this modification is performed at your own risk. Your machine may become unusable in the process of modification. Electronic circuits are very delicate. NOTE: on smaller machines like a walkman, you will end up with a potentiometer on the outside of the device. suggestions are given in "MOUNTING POTENTIOMETER." ______DO NOT ATTEMPT ON NON-BATTERY OPERATED MACHINES______ IDENTIFYING YOUR MACHINE'S TRIMMER First, you'll need to look at the back of the motor that drives the capstan (usually that's the only motor). There might be a small hole on the back of the motor. if you see a hole in the back of the motor, congratulations! you'll need to take the metal cover off the back of the motor. don't worry, this won't expose any mechanical parts of the motor. skip to "TAKING APART MOTOR" If you don't have a motor with a hole in the back, there is still hope for your machine. find where the wires of the motor reach the PCB and look for a "trimmer pot." these vary in appearance but are pretty easy to spot. If you have a trimmer on the PCB board, skip to "REPLACING TRIMMER" TAKING APART MOTOR the back of your motor should have a "crimped" rim to hold the metal cover on. this part can be destructive if you don't have good tools, so if you're not ready to possibly damage your machine, consider picking up a cheap tape player from a thrift store to practice on! Using pliers, you can bend back the crimp until the plate can be popped off. failing that, you may need to bend the plate itself. Once you have the plate off, you will probably see a piece of circuit board with the solder points face up. You should see a hole in the PCB and a little slot inside that can be turned with a flathead. That's the trimmer. We need to remove this circuit board so that we can take the trimmer out. The PCB is held in place by the two motor terminals. Identifying these can be tricky, but if you look for large solder blobs that's a good place to start. using de-soldering wick, remove all the solder from the motor terminals. your PCB may need more points de-soldered, but by gently wiggling the board you can find where these points are. make note of how the board went in to the motor, take a picture or something. putting it in backwards would not be good. you should now have access to the trimmer. REPLACING TRIMMER The trimmer has three terminals. your potentiometer has three corresponding terminals. The trimmer should have two legs on the bottom and one on the top. the top terminal is equivalent to the potentiometer's middle terminal, the left and right terminals of the trimmer correspond to the potentiometer's, respectively. using de-soldering wick, remove the solder from the trimmer terminals. Take out the trimmer and take note of it's value. if your potentiometer's value is larger than the trimmer, you will get a higher range. you don't want a potentiometer with a shorter range. insert a wire into each hole and solder into place. solder wires to the potentiometer. REPLACING MOTOR PCB you should be able to reinstall the PCB and solder it into place without any problems. make sure there is sufficient solder on any connections you de-soldered earlier. TESTING Your device should not be plugged into the wall. Battery operation only! Before putting the case back together, insert a tape and test your speed modification. if the motor is not spinning, recheck your solder connections. if your motor is only playing a fast speed and the potentiometer has little or no effect, you may need to use a higher value potentiometer. if the player is very slow except for the last few degrees when turning the potentiometer, the value you are using is likely too high. if you encounter additional problems, you can contact me and I can try to assist. MOUNTING POTENTIOMETER if the housing of your device will allow it, you can mount the potentiometer by drilling a hole in the housing where there is PLENTY OF EMPTY SPACE BEHIND IT. if your device is too small to accommodate a panel mounted pot, you can use a break out box. Any small box will work, even a small altoids tin. the goal is to keep things as low profile and portable as possible.
Hi Hainbach ... I have owned a Roberts C9950 for many years and it still works fine . The only thing that bugs me is the 1/4 speed function ..it works , but the quality is awful at this speed ..I would love it to be able to record at half speed ( which certainly would be useful ..for recording full soccer games for eg ) I can live without the 1/4 speed function ...Have you any ideas how I could modify it ( perhaps using the same switch ) Could I do it with a resistor or something ...Would really love your help ...Cheers
The Sony TCM-5000EV is similar to the Marantz PMD221 and PMD222. It's not too difficult to modify these things so that the speed can be varied while recording. But note that these portable model were popular among journalists, etc. for many years, so they may be very heavily used and worn out.
Wouldn’t it be possible to pull the tape out between the record and play head, let it spin around something, feed it back to the play head and make it a longer delay in this way? Or am I missing something here?
Beautiful. I subbed right away. I just got my hands on a marantz 221. Would anyone be so kind as to explain to a noob which trace needs to be cut, to enable vari-speed during recording. Through reading blogs it’s still a little foggy to me.
Simple mod to make varispeed usable on record/delay. Like stupid easy. Just replace a resistor with a pot and you have much more control with the pot over speed.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Always the people who don't ask for a subscription who get mine by nature of the quality. Thanks for pursuing authenticity and quality!
this comment made me go back and subscribe. and i NEVER subscribe
Thank you both very much! Its heartening to read something like this right after cleaning up troll comments.
Agreed. I am sick of people shoving there shit down my throat. Not to mention "WAATS UP GAIZZ!".
Agreed.
Ryan Thomas could never slow it down like that with digital without it sounding unpleasantly metallic and grainy
Your videos remind me of why I fell in love with electronic music. I've been having a hard time finding these warm and floating moments that your music brings to life. Thank you.
Yeahhhh. Watching the pitch shifting portion, I am sitting here listening in awe and then laughing out loud when I see his face saying "This is.... Beautiful" hahaha cuz it's like ... those moments that all of us EA folks are working towards.
Hainbach - I don't know if you read messages on old videos, but thank you! I wanted to give you a tip that you might have discovered already: Inserted into the feedback chain, using a delay pedal with feedback at zero, and a 100% wet, you can set *any* delay time you want and still get the classic tape echo sound. You're not bound to the "built-in" delay time of the distance between record and playhead.
Nice! Old dub trick: add a band-pass filter (hi cut + low cut) into the feedback loop to tame wild frequencies
True! And phasers, and a spring reverb. I love dub.
How do I do it?
in ableton, simply get an Equalizer, or get a Hardware eq, or use the EQ on your mixing console… 1000 possibilities (:
@@Hainbach I see you with spring reverbs on your desk often, but can't ever find one for sale or a brand name. Where are they available?
I cannot believe how good that snippet of the 38 second sound bite is... you inspire me to continue my passion for analog electronic wizardry
this guy's voice and narration brings me peace. great video
This is definitely a Good Ear Therapy 👍🏻
I've been meaning to leave a comment: I have an old Marantz and I did what you described! I knew from the instructions in my old reel to reel that it could be a tape echo, but it's a lot easier to use the Marantz. Thank you so much for the tutorial. I also have a pile of different tapes to use, the crappiest ones are the best.
That loop was gorgeous - just made me think of all these films where a girl tiptoes through the forest and gets more and more lost that time dissolves until you find her just huddled under a tree.
I really like this technique. I recently acquired a Marantz PMD222 and tried it out. I was using stereo 1/8th inch - 1/4 inch converters with an RCA - 1/8th inch cable, and realized you need to use only the right channel on the RCA cables when you do this or you hear nothing from the Marantz. Took me a while to figure that out, but once I did, the real tape delay sounded amazing. This is always the funny part about trying to explore, little details can sideline your efforts for a while, but the reward is worth it. In any case, thanks Hainbach, you are always inspiring and teaching the best ideas. Fun!
For stereo recorders, you can use the channels in series. The playback head of channel 1 feeds into input of channel 2, and then monitor channel 2's playback head. Get double the time, and also double the hiss. :-)
Nice! I have to try that with my M15. Though the way its patched right now that might be a tad difficult.
The Marantz PMD430 is the equivalent stereo 3 head model. But I think it's actually better to use two separate mono tape machines, as the wow and flutter, drop outs, etc. will be different for each unit.
used that trick for my first professional commission in... 1977. For a sci-fi music festival in Montpellier. I used my first (and then only) synth, a duophonic Korg 800DV and an Akai GX-210D tape recorder deck with a DIY mixing box (just two sliding pots for L and R feedback plus two three ways switches to send the L and R play signal either to the L and R or L and L or R and L or R and R (or no fdbck in 0 position) back to the recording heads... With the many possibilities of alternating and cross switching the original stereo signals from the 800DV (basically a double 700s), I was able to record in one take quite a complex multichannel ambient loop and rhythm track....
This video made me want to cry at points. Some of those sounds were so beautiful.
In the 80s we had an 8 track echo. It was a pain in the arse.
The passion with which you approach your craft is inspiring. Thank you.
If the pmd-222 in this video has a trim pot for the tape speed (i’ve got a sony tcm-5000ev that does, accessed through the battery compartment) the trim pot could be removed and replaced with an external pot and larger knob to control the speed of the tape while it’s recording. I’ve done this using a small flat head screwdriver to adjust the pot while recording.
I would then also assume an LFO could be applied to the same contacts but replace the trim pot with a jack for the CV.
Such joy in the art is contagious! Thank you!
just thought i should share: you make a tape echo like this with virtually any audio interface and any daw. i'm using reaper, a similar old cassette recorder, and a tascam us-1800. any interface with monitor outputs or balanced outputs should work. basically, you have one track on the daw sending out to the interface's output to the tape recorder (i have a separate box to convert this signal from balanced to line level, in my case). hit record on the cassettte machine. send the recorder's output to an input on your interface. then, on the channels that you have the recorder sending to in your daw, send back to the same interface's output to start your feedback loop. the send volume from this channel controls the feedback. and like someone below said, a delay plugin with one tap and 100% wet will let you dial in a precise delay time. you can even automate delay times in your daw: much more adaptable, reactive, and tweakable than even the most advanced tape echo units. hope this makes sense!!!
I don’t even mess with all that lol. I set up a tape delay plugin that I like and put the track I want delay on in loop mode. Then I record that track to tape for awhile and go get a drink. When I get back then I have all the material I need for whatever tape delays I want on the track. Even cooler, sometimes I change the track later but still keep the same delay. Weird effect to have an echo without an exact source.
A Sony TCM-5000EV also does the trick. It has speed control, but stock only works in playback mode, like the Marantz. The service manual (available online) does show that it should not be too hard to have speed control on record mode though. Great video, it shows you can use often discarded analog equipment to make modern music, if you put the time into it.
Decided to purchase a PMD 201, and got it for 80 USD! Needed a bulkier cassette recorder anyways, and this one is in decent condition. Thanks for the inspiration, as I've been meaning to get into cassette for many years and am finally taking the plunge. ♥♥♥
Oh the Marantz! Much love! Never used it for tape echo tho. I preferred the cleaner sound from 1/4" for that. Great for fiction. The Nagra in the background there would probably work very well for it. I remember "discovering" tape echo by accident back in the 90's. Such fond memories!
Hinterbandkontrolle! That sounds like the name of a Kraftwerk album!
I imagine all that people back then imagining that one day we will have such a perfect digital sound and effects to work with, and for now we have to stick with this analog erratic, quality loss tape thing. If you would be seeing this video in 1984 you would say "This guy is crazy??"
Well, when I transitioned from tape to cd I could hear genuinely how crispy and good sounding music could be and accessible for everyone in this world.
Now we love and appreciate the nostalgia of analog old crap sound we always wanted to get rid off.
HIRONIC WORLD THIS is!!
BEAUTIFUL! Thank you, Mr Hainbach! May this be a time of discovery and creativity. Best wishes.
Shoot, I own one of those Marantz PMD-222 with its original case and lanyard strap! Kinda cool seeing what you did with it.
All these years I thought it was just a common ol' tape recorder that had a neat slow-speed function.
So much oxenfree vibes im loving it
I am so happy this channel exists!
Good lord my friend. Every time I watch your videos, Its like a whats what of equipment that I wish I could afford.
I assembled much of thisover the course of 25 years, and often cheaply. It helps that I have no hobbies and everything is a busi Ness expense.
@@Hainbach
That is beautiful! I have an old vacuum tube powered wire recorder I want to turn into a lo-fi echo. This is a great way to start. Thanks!!
The lovely , otherworldly sound of tape ( or a binson !). Great ✨
When I first saw this a few months back I was inspired so I found a PMD221 for $35 ( I know what a deal) and get this working using just a bastl dude. Thanks for the inspiration Hainbach, you're pretty cool.
amateur here, thank you for this - you're doing god's work
We used to do that with a reel to reel early 80’s, new subscriber. Very cool 😎
Thanks for this. I have a Marantz 222 that I purchased more than twenty years ago that I use for q&d practice analysis. Looking forward to using this a tape echo.
When I was at WDOM we used to take a boom box and tune it to the radio frequency and set the volume just so in order to get reverberation. That was fun.
This is actually less noisy and wobbly than my Echocord Mini. Sounds very nice!
this is a really good video and i know im 5 years late but you look exactly like john green
'beauty is there' enough said. Thanks
We used to mess around with tape decks in the mid 70s to create effects as we couldn't afford WEM copicats etc. It was in the early new wave music days. I had a deck where I had messed around with the heads and not only did it echo but gave ghost sounds from the other channel and reverse notes. It was hard to use live as it wasn't that reliable for a gig so my ideas weren't adopted by the band I auditioned with briefly.
Activating the vari-speed while recording is very easy on the 222. One needs only cut one pcb trace and add one jumper wire. But diy deck mods is another thing all together.
Any hints on how to find the trace to cut and where to jump on marantz 221? Or 222? I’m a noob. If you could dumb it down even further I’d be forever grateful :)
You're covering all the right topics! Are you checking my search history?
At some point, certain musical minds evolve in the same direction I have found. :-)
Tried it and loved it!! The only thing to consider is that the hiss from the echo would come from speaker (since its paned)
Great video, it opens an entire world of possibilities in cuddling sounds instead of harsh and bitter.
Thanks a lot!
Still enjoying this!
If you were to split the output from the tape deck and put it on channel 3 and four. Pan one hard left and one hard right you could easily emulate a stereo echo. Instead of just having it on the right channel only. Add a resonance, hpf or lpf put that onto a modulator or arpeggiator into the feedback loop to filter out any frequencies you don't want to hear and making them modulate. Just thought I'd share that with you.
I think he knows that. He uses the paning to make the effect more obvious to us listeners and actually cherishes the dirt that gets introduced.
Hainbach! I JUST bought a Marantz PMD420! I really wanted a stereo machine but unfortunately, because it has only two heads
Wow that is so cool man. Good for you.
This kind of reminds me of an album called Discrete Music by Brian Eno, but he used an EMS Synthi AKS and a reel to reel tape recorder plus a 31 band eq to create it.
Forever a fav!
I'm starting to realize you're a beautifully creative bastard. Your shit is dope.
Was able to get this working with a Boss BX80 mixer, since my four track died. Interesting that routing the output of the tape player and then using the effect / aux on that track didn't quite work the same but it's still fun. Guessing that the four track handles that audio a bit differently. Cheers.
Well there it went, my chance of ever finding an affordable 3-head deck, goddamnit Hainbach lol
Ha, in today’s video I talk about that!
I believe the high frequency noise is the bias tone building up through feedback. Cutting around 12k can reduce that if it becomes overpowering, as can reducing the tape speed during recording (which reduces high-frequency bandwidth of the tape).
Also there is a simple mod to make the varispeed knob work during record; IIRC it involves no more than a trace cut and a jumper.
Thank you for the explanation! The HF noise on the Marantz is something I enjoy a lot on it.
Using really cheap tape might help too.
10:24 sounds like a lost Jean Michel-Jarre track. Great music, and great video!
after watching a bunsh of your videos - beside your amazing freakish ways to make music - i know of what reminds me this sound very often : the "deru - 1979" album. when you didnt heard it before, i think you like it very much
I've done this by accident too, with a normal akai tape deck. I felt like a crazy genius scientist. Never did bother to recreate it, sadly
Instant Aphex Twin vibes
Wait until I make a video on the Quadraverb 😊
Me too
Already wanted one of these, but now I HAVE to have one.
I know this is a really old video, but I was doing some reading and discovered it's possible to fix the biggest flaw of this machine - There's a really, really easy mod you can do to it to make the varispeed knob work during recording, not just playback.
Basically the potentiometer has two wipers, one set at 50% permanently and one that moves with the knob. If you break the trace of the fixed wiper on the pcb and solder a little bridge from the normal wiper to where the fixed wiper goes, you can make it so that the normal wiper is used during recording. That has the effect of being able to modify the speed regardless of the mode of operation, so you can have much finer control over delay time.
i added vayspeed to uher report monitors for echos, its very easy because those units motors are dc controled
this was so neat to watch, gave me a thrill. Thanks for helping me wrap my brain around the basics
I bet the disabling of the pitch control during recording is done by a couple contacts on the long slider switch that gets moved when RECORD is pressed. You may be able to simply scrape off a segment of the trace from one of the pins of that switch, so the pitch control no longer knows it's supposed to step aside, optionally with a switch somewhere to turn this capacity back on if you wish to use the recorder as originally intended. You may also be able to replace the speed knob's potentiometer with a higher value to get more variance in pitch as well.
Yea,it's a really analog feel.Great
That Telefunken is beautiful! Well done!
This is quite enchanting in it's simplicity. I'd love to give it a try!
Danke! Wunderschöne Musik und sehr hilfreiche Videos! ❤
I just found your channel. Yeah and yesterday I bought a bandrecorder Peer to Peer. great tip thank you.
I bought a 222 to use as a donor to fix a marantz stereo portable.... different board, different everything. so I did what you've done here. it's not too hard to modify the 222 so that the varispeed works in record.
also, old 'echo tapes' from revox A77s often yield surreal alternate mixes of the pieces we were recording at the time.
Can you tell me more about that? You mean A77 used as echoes and the tape has a weird mix of the original?
exactly that- I wish I could post a pic here. I'm sitting right next to a studer 810 that I use for digitising 1/4" tapes, & the reel that's on it says "echo tapes- various", mostly at 3.75ips because on a revox A77 this yields a good delay time for syncopated echoes with 'berlin school'-type sequencer lines. I also used an old valve ferrograph machine which has its heads further apart. that's how I learned tape-delay, on that machine. the procedure is described in the ferrograph manual, & they put the heads exactly 1.875" apart, so that the delay time is 1 second at the lowest speed, or half a second at 3.75ips, a bit longer than on the revox. we didn't have varispeed on these decks.
so the tape that's on the studer is a collection of the tapes from many sessions, spliced together. the tapes were used many times, so the recordings have a crunchy quality to them, which is also good. sometimes these tapes were themselves the basis for overdubs, other times they were just used for the effects buss & then (by some miracle) left over after the session, for the interesting bits to be spliced together & saved. I see you have a timeline there- me too, among many other electronic delays. the patch I use in mine is one I made to sound like the ferrograph on its lowest speed.
As I am on the spectrum of autism I just love these weird sounds...
This is fascinating - thank you for detailing the process.
Beautiful music.
Lovely guide... I got a nagra deck that I REAALLY want to try this out with...just need to find a pair for it. 😱😉 so with an open reel to reel I could just route the tape a little longer distance between the write and read head for a longer delay?
Yes you can! You just have to build a contraption for that, as the distance between read and write head is pretty close. But open reels often have very slow speeds available also.
HAINBACH the nagra e that i got sadly hasnt got varispeed. 😬 But its red!👍🤪
Wow, what a great video. I have put the process into use already. As noted below you can route things into themselves on a stereo deck... you can also use two decks if you have them for longer times and more distortions. This is fantastic. I love your videos very much -- keep making them!
If you make a stack of stereo decks please make a video. Would love to see/hear that!
GRACIAS
May try and do something like this on the effects loop with my guitar.
Thanks for the tips and ideas! I've really appreciated the classic Roland echo units but they're a bit pricey. I'll be adding a similar Marantz to my home studio soon. Cheers.
Just FYI, I was thinking about this and you don't really (I don't think) need the Fostex / four track for this. A different mixer or even record two tracks to a DAW could be roughly the same. Sadly my Fostex died so I'm thinking of other options. Cheers.
your videos are always a great source of inspiration. thanks for sharing what you do
Thank you Chris! Its both fun and a lot of work to make them, have no plans of stopping anytime time soon.
i have an echolette made in Germany still works great
I'm glad I now know how to pronounce 'UHER' correctly. I have a reporter 4000 too. Gruss von England.
Intriguing method! And such beautiful sounds and lively layers.
Hola, excelente demostración. Quiero preguntarte si para hacer que funcione como eco de cinta hay que tener activado el modo, Tape o Surce?
Muchas gracias y saludos desde Uruguay!!! feliz año nuevo.
great success doing this with my old Teac X300 R2R, routing implemented using Bitwig rather than a hardware mixer and using the Line in level on the R2R to ride the feedback, cleaner results than I imagined but some great artifacts when switching from high to low tape speed. Makes me want something with more speeds and crappier quality now! Thanks for this one sir, much appreciated as always :)
I would love to hear this technique used in a destruction loop as well :)
Love this thank you
Just stick a pot on the live to the motor and you have vari-speed.
I'm trying to figure out how to convert my walkman to vari-speed, but now after watching this video I'm definitely interested in trying this also. Can you explain this process a little more?
Hello "What", if you're trying to modify a cassette player/recorder to have variable speed, there is a pretty straightforward method. This method requires a soldering iron, rosin core solder, wires, de-soldering wick(DIYable with pine sap and twisted copper wire) a potentiometer(500 ohm, 1k, or 5k** linear taper or "type B"), and patience.
**(5k is too high a value for linear response but it will work)
Of course, this modification is performed at your own risk. Your machine may become unusable in the process of modification. Electronic circuits are very delicate.
NOTE: on smaller machines like a walkman, you will end up with a potentiometer on the outside of the device. suggestions are given in "MOUNTING POTENTIOMETER."
______DO NOT ATTEMPT ON NON-BATTERY OPERATED MACHINES______
IDENTIFYING YOUR MACHINE'S TRIMMER
First, you'll need to look at the back of the motor that drives the capstan (usually that's the only motor). There might be a small hole on the back of the motor. if you see a hole in the back of the motor, congratulations! you'll need to take the metal cover off the back of the motor. don't worry, this won't expose any mechanical parts of the motor. skip to "TAKING APART MOTOR"
If you don't have a motor with a hole in the back, there is still hope for your machine. find where the wires of the motor reach the PCB and look for a "trimmer pot." these vary in appearance but are pretty easy to spot. If you have a trimmer on the PCB board, skip to "REPLACING TRIMMER"
TAKING APART MOTOR
the back of your motor should have a "crimped" rim to hold the metal cover on. this part can be destructive if you don't have good tools, so if you're not ready to possibly damage your machine, consider picking up a cheap tape player from a thrift store to practice on! Using pliers, you can bend back the crimp until the plate can be popped off. failing that, you may need to bend the plate itself. Once you have the plate off, you will probably see a piece of circuit board with the solder points face up. You should see a hole in the PCB and a little slot inside that can be turned with a flathead. That's the trimmer. We need to remove this circuit board so that we can take the trimmer out. The PCB is held in place by the two motor terminals. Identifying these can be tricky, but if you look for large solder blobs that's a good place to start. using de-soldering wick, remove all the solder from the motor terminals. your PCB may need more points de-soldered, but by gently wiggling the board you can find where these points are. make note of how the board went in to the motor, take a picture or something. putting it in backwards would not be good. you should now have access to the trimmer.
REPLACING TRIMMER
The trimmer has three terminals. your potentiometer has three corresponding terminals. The trimmer should have two legs on the bottom and one on the top. the top terminal is equivalent to the potentiometer's middle terminal, the left and right terminals of the trimmer correspond to the potentiometer's, respectively. using de-soldering wick, remove the solder from the trimmer terminals. Take out the trimmer and take note of it's value. if your potentiometer's value is larger than the trimmer, you will get a higher range. you don't want a potentiometer with a shorter range. insert a wire into each hole and solder into place. solder wires to the potentiometer.
REPLACING MOTOR PCB
you should be able to reinstall the PCB and solder it into place without any problems. make sure there is sufficient solder on any connections you de-soldered earlier.
TESTING
Your device should not be plugged into the wall. Battery operation only!
Before putting the case back together, insert a tape and test your speed modification. if the motor is not spinning, recheck your solder connections. if your motor is only playing a fast speed and the potentiometer has little or no effect, you may need to use a higher value potentiometer. if the player is very slow except for the last few degrees when turning the potentiometer, the value you are using is likely too high. if you encounter additional problems, you can contact me and I can try to assist.
MOUNTING POTENTIOMETER
if the housing of your device will allow it, you can mount the potentiometer by drilling a hole in the housing where there is PLENTY OF EMPTY SPACE BEHIND IT. if your device is too small to accommodate a panel mounted pot, you can use a break out box. Any small box will work, even a small altoids tin. the goal is to keep things as low profile and portable as possible.
Thank you, Raccoon Eating Cacti...
@@museum1401 update if you're invested in this, I found that a 1k linear taper pot works excellent.
@@RaccoonEatingCacti Awesome... Yes, I'm planning to mod an old 4-track cassette. Very helpful stuff - thanks :)
mind blown! the feedback is ethereal ❤️🧘🏼♀️😃🌈
Hi Hainbach ...
I have owned a Roberts C9950 for many years and it still works fine . The only thing that bugs me is the 1/4 speed function ..it works , but the quality is awful at this speed ..I would love it to be able to record at half speed ( which certainly would be useful ..for recording full soccer games for eg ) I can live without the 1/4 speed function ...Have you any ideas how I could modify it ( perhaps using the same switch ) Could I do it with a resistor or something ...Would really love your help ...Cheers
The Sony TCM-5000EV is similar to the Marantz PMD221 and PMD222. It's not too difficult to modify these things so that the speed can be varied while recording. But note that these portable model were popular among journalists, etc. for many years, so they may be very heavily used and worn out.
acreil what is the difference between a 221 and 222 ?
The 222 has a balanced XLR microphone input. I think that's about it. I think the 221 is a little less cramped inside.
Got it thx! I got a 221 awhile back (wanted a 430 but kept losing auctions) and didn’t know the difference from the 222.
I figure it's better to have 2 or 3 mono recorders so you can do real time tape flanging. And they're cheaper than the stereo models anyway.
What about some kind of voltage controller/variac? To speed up/slow down the tape? And a low pass filter for hiss.
Wow, that's really beautiful!
wow. I happen to have a Marantz with three heads and it has pitch control so the motor speed can already be changed.
But not in record mode
Very nice video Do you think you can acive same thing with a Marantz, SD-275 is double casete player and kinda have same features
So cool, and so simple! Thanks Hainbach! I love your channel!
(hey, have you ever thought about hacking an old cassette player/recorder with a speed control?)
Have one or two of those 😃
@@Hainbach are they hard to make?
Beautiful
cant stand the red marker against the paper sound but every other sound you make is terrific!
Ah I know that feeling. Chalk on a wet blackboard is that for me.
Wouldn’t it be possible to pull the tape out between the record and play head, let it spin around something, feed it back to the play head and make it a longer delay in this way? Or am I missing something here?
Beautiful. I subbed right away.
I just got my hands on a marantz 221. Would anyone be so kind as to explain to a noob which trace needs to be cut, to enable vari-speed during recording. Through reading blogs it’s still a little foggy to me.
I am the wrong one to ask- opening these up is advanced level electronics.
This sounds like it would be on the Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind soundtrack!
Simple mod to make varispeed usable on record/delay. Like stupid easy. Just replace a resistor with a pot and you have much more control with the pot over speed.
so, so beautiful
Sounds beautiful.
Thank you for your help...but mostly for your gorgeous work.
No one:
Captions: "Hi am Honda good to have you back"
Good brand tho
I love german accents- I had a professor from berlin and he was just the nicest dude- heinbach’s reminds me of him
I think that noise might just be tape hiss. If you have one, try it on a tape machine with Dolby noise reduction and see if it makes any difference