Multi-Head Tape Delays: Roland RE-201, RE-20 & Strymon Volante – That Pedal Show

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey look who's that pillar so down here Mik here hello just I get lost in that what a nice way to begin ok so I was thinking about doing the beginning in German okay I don't know why couldn't argh Makia Dani yeah yeah yeah there was obviously a reason for it I was thinking about Dan Drive earlier that's what it was okay yeah yeah yeah I know there's a thing on line that goes through this sound of German language compared out the language and I crankin bargain which is ambulance that's basically my yeah Krankenhaus is a hospital oh really yeah very cranky yeah anyway after that little tangent no other German connections here I don't think we recently did a video no what I was just thinking about Dan Drive okay Dan Koerner who makes Dan Drive pedals we did a video a few weeks back now maybe some months back it was pre covert lockdown okay as you can see we are still broadly social distancing if I cuff directly at you we have this yeah that's that's what it is that's what that is yeah okay it does help a bit actually yeah there is a bit of a nasty slap back into here okay but that is better than the cross the phasors film yeah well okay interesting how about that for a tangent we did a video a few months back on single head tape echoes I was in love with the full tone tube tape echo based off the old well descended from the Echoplex EP 2 and EP 3 hmm tube and solid state echos and there's something very magical about the sound of tape oh boy when we done shows on it in the past so it seemed only right one of the one of the main comments thank you for your comments by the way we read it we read I would say everyone everyone and we have just want to as many as we possibly can so thank you for your comments please keep them coming one of the main comments off after that video was where the Strymon Volante yes and we politely pointed out that we were doing single head units in that video and we will follow up with a multi head unit which is what this is so Dan what's the difference between a single head and a multi head tape delay unit it's not a joke so if you look at the single head in relation to someone let's say the ep-3 you've got your record head which records the sound of the guitar onto the tape and then you've got your playback head and the distance between the record head in the playback head and the time it takes to the sound to go from the record head to the playback head that is your delay that's the delay that's it if you call up if you call up Google and search for a maestro Echoplex ep-3 you'll see a slider thingy on the top and that's what you're doing you're physically and moving the playback head as you move that playback head further away the delay time gets longer yeah and vice-versa now that's what we call a single head tape recorder these are multi head so they've got multiple playback heads so if you imagine that you've got so there's three in the arrow 201 we've got three playback heads and they're all that a you know a distance part so the sound hits the first playback head quicker so the first playback head is a shorter delay yep second flavor it has slightly longer the playback head longer again okay actually let's demonstrate outcomes you have to strive in Volante okay I can I can work this well enough to make that happen okay so yeah so here's in a normal delay pedal right you've essentially got one repeat you've got one playback head yeah so here's the sound of the amps today we're using Dan's matchless HTC 30 and my two rock classic Judeo signature reverb special I forgot the name in the apps today classic reverb signature [Music] oops that's good so that's a lady yep I said what this is head - very good very good okay so the flood has got four possible playback heads and so and then you can do combinations of them stuff you put on one and three okay and now two and four so in actual fact the the if you look at the overall time the the delay time has changed but if you break it down to like bars yeah it's it's the same I think so we'll get on to talk about this but the the ratio the difference between the spacing of the subsequent heads is what's called the ratio isn't it exactly at the moment I think they're equally spaced so I think two is twice as long as one three is twice as long as two and four is twice as long as three I think is the way it works right you can look those up in the manuals if you put all I just keep the keen-eyed among you will notice I just changed the Volante from drum to tape mode and so if you give us that again down okay yeah so they're not they're not equally spaced and then what the really interesting bit comes when you turn the repeats the feedback repeats on for each of those heads sure you go from this very cool so just to clarify that when we did the single head show you basically get that exactly exactly just one rupee so hopefully that explains the difference between a single head in the multi head tape machine beautiful so the next question is what's the most renowned multi-head tape machine in our world right now well it's the fairy 201 yep it's absolute classic which is this one here space echo yes so what's happening is we're recording onto tape and that has been played back on the playback heads do what's interesting about the re 201 done tell me it was born the same year as me really yeah Wow 1974 well good good year it was a good year for re 201 so this this is this is not sure I think this is 76 or 77 ma quite sure but yeah it's a very good knit got this from our good friends at sound gasps yeah completely reconditioned by if you want an re tour when you live in the UK or if you live anywhere but especially if you live in the UK sound gas is the place to buy it yeah um a little disclaimer to say there are other multi-head tape echoes out there some very famous italian and english ones things like me at sea when's watkins all that kind of stuff yes all awesome and we should do that in the future today we're not really talking about that we're talking about specifically the re 201 why it sounds so great and the products in the market that have that bring the game yes and they are the Strymon Volante mm-hmm which because of the color of it and because it was marketed primarily as a drum thing you think is an echo extol but it also has the multi head tape setting as well mhm as a studio one as well as three modes and of course the good old re 20 space second for your boss yes which has been out for years and years and years and years I think it was if not the first one of the first twin pedals that they overdid yeah and it's just been I was talking to Matt who's the European product manager for boss for UK product manager for boss and he was saying it's just been a steady steady seller rights there all those years I'm really really popular so this essentially takes the re re 201 models it digitally and shoves it in a pedal so it ought to sound pretty similar okay and then for good measure then for good measure we have the echo fix this is a multi head you know real tape echo it's sort of heavily inspired by the era - oh you don't say yeah yeah oh boy shame in Australia okay like yep and that's the one that I gig with he's really cool Shane he's really yet he's really cool chained I know lots of Shane's yeah it's a really popular name in it is it too popular here it's very popular in Australia Australia yeah actually I don't know in English Shane so Shane Richie Shane Warne yeah Barry Shane Shane oh okay so what do you want to start I think well the big question is does the re 20 sound like the 201 isn't it yep okay cool now just to explain we do have the re 20 in stereo mode but we won't pan the amps until we get still we stop start talking about stereo so the the re 201 is mono only mm-hmm whereas the re 20 can do stereo you're essentially hearing it in mono because the amps are going to be panned down the middle when we get to the stereo bit will pan the amps left and right and you'll hear it's stereo and glorious it will be too cool right um I should put this down okay down I'm assuming that these map that yes can you go to number one then yep so we've got a number one on here yep okay so here is the tower [Music] [Applause] [Music] way darker sounding way darker the tape unit yeah I've tried to compensate a little bit here by turning the trouble down in the base up one cool thing about both the re 20 an ero re 201 is you have bass and treble controls on the repeats let's let's just hit it with a buffer so and see if that makes any difference [Music] ah yes of course so okay it's been a while since I've used this so the it's got quite a low input impedance yeah so you do need to hit it with low input impedance and so let's do that on top and back do the comparison again then with the Gladio on and we'll go between the 201 and the 20 and just all see how much difference there is now okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] so interestingly they re 20 seems to bring it back a little but is there an input gain on the area 20 there is okay just give it love [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so interestingly the re 20 now sounds darker yeah right I just found the trouble right okay we don't need to keep doing that all day lesson number one if you've got an old cranky thing that's got really low input impedance it's got a low input impedance you need yeah and if you hit it with a buffer that'll sort that out we don't really want to get into this now but if you run lots and lots of pedals in your chain and it sounds dark that's why putting a buffer after your OverDrive's brightens everything up cool right let's try just arbitrarily go to number 5 can you okay [Music] right let's go to one of the other settings then go to 8 now we bring in the reverb yes so stick your reverb up a bit as well okay so there's a small tank reverb yells into this proper spring Reaper Spring River [Music] [Applause] [Music] Reverb sound very different reverb sound very different yeah yeah tell you what though that's okay this standard sounds really good good it does sound like the space okay yeah yeah let me have a mmm let me find a patch that works [Music] you you you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so good so what we were doing there is we were setting it just before the point complete isolation have complete oscillation because I think that's where the two for me there's two magic things about the 201 one is that oscillation and two is the natural chorus effect so let's listen to the chorusing effect or lack thereof with a single long repeat on the 201 cool so if I go back to three and if you can give us some love I got I'm gonna change to a guitar that does have home canceling pickups oh yes otherwise we'll get a load of extra hum on top of what the - Oh one's already doing yes it's not quite nope like forward [Music] yeah yeah but it's it's because it's like the flattery of the tape it's not smooth its angular yeah and it kind of reminds me of that of the ce-1 yeah sort of angular modulation let's hear that in the in this then [Music] you [Music] there's more artificial filtering going on with the repeats yeah the accuser more or less in the middle but you can definitely hear some artificial filtering in the repeats that doesn't have yeah go to volte head setting a sec try number nine the longer the lights on [Music] [Music] it's pretty good I mean the fidelity in that the chewiness of it the warmth means has be saying warmth and fidelity in the same sentence is borderline paradoxical but or contradictory anyway mm-hmm but it has both yeah definitely you know that the preamp this you know that whole type thing it's a special sounding device it is yeah it is well sound really good but try and do some proper playing at some point during the video rather than just because it's a bit difficult isn't it to do that yeah all right then before we move on to the Volante sure we have a quick listen to the echo fit yes sure we've done this before actually so I'm not sure how in-depth we need to go but yeah so okay I'll just that last sound that we had I think the echo fix is a bit different if I go to the kamati head on the XFX do you have some trying mate okay [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] Safiye here that in comparison soon it's quieter it just sounds like newer and more together but it still has that [Music] [Applause] [Music] so it's much less modulation it's just sort of more together cleaner I think we noted it last time we compared them but the echo fix more clarity yeah more Headroom yep brighter sounding whether that's anything to do with the buffer and the input and all that sure in any case either of those things all of those things could be positive or negative to pick on that absolutely look at them today because they're not the old two I once got this kind of chewy yes in insert vintage or the imagined yes that's yeah all that stuff definitely analog gloriousness gloriousness chewiness whatever you want to call it and the echo fix is just cleaner and newer sounding yeah it might be because it's cleaner and newer yeah exactly okay so shall we move on to the Volante let's have a dig into the Volante so we've looked at the Volante briefly concentrating on the drum sounds predominantly we did before yup so let's have a look at the tape sounds and as we alluded at the top of the video there it's got four heads that you can configure in different ways with various tone and aging controls and like the two like the re 20 it is able to go stereo and one really cool thing about this is that you can send the any head you want left and right right to any degree all right so let's kick off in there like ostensibly in mono so you're hearing but the same thing in both ears and just go through some of the features okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] man that sounds awesome what I did there as Dan was playing panned the head two and four into the into the right side whichever that one ends up being I have in fact let's have a listen okay head one is in the matchless and I think head three should be in a machinist as well and heard two in to rock and had four in it zero so that's another piece a this will just be one of good [Music] right let's evenly space them evenly space them turn the reverb off give us one skank that is unreal now let's say you really like the sound of head one but you it's a bit loud for you I think by head pressing and holding this it will go to half [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] ah ah that is very special I love that move on [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Man Alive that's awesome what a massive sound that is when obviously we added the Cali 76 in there just to give those clean what do you say done what do you say the Kelly 76 the compressor they have a drive the the IRA job for you clean sound sorry my mind has been blown as absolutely amazing sound amazing sound just cool call me that sound up again what do we have on the cloudy idea home yeah just put the re 20 on a set cut the are we 20 [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Wow pretty epic it's quite amazing it's pretty epic okay so what we gonna say then multi-head tape echo really really great fun actually you know what for all the hassle of that it sounds amazing I'd take the Volante I really would yeah yeah I know what I'm I think I'm there with you the thing is the vlog that stereo thing with the Volante yeah is really great yeah boy I'm I'm coming to that conclusion you know because thats does sound incredible sounds happy it probably doesn't her I mean I think we concluded this when we did it before but it you know it doesn't have that out-and-out vintage chewy awesome gorgeous analog thing that the 201 has and if you want that you know if you want to do Setzer all the other people down the years who've got that absolutely bang-on demo1 sound totally you've got to have the 201 but I think the functionality that it brings the Edit ability and just even the mechanics and the wear so you can dial in the amount of brokenness yeah I think it's really killer and it does a whole bunch of other stuff as well so yeah that's ice it's spectacular well shall we do the Lego board yes so what we did in the single head tape echo episode sorry it's really hot in here today for it is long it's unusually warm it's good nearly 30 degrees in the UK which is highly unusual 30 degrees centigrade which is about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit it's like early winter in Brisbane yeah Dan made we said okay what's happening in a tape delay then what's actually happening in there to give you that lovely sound dan put together a Frankenstein board of all the bits that happen guess what he's only gone and done it again back in the room okay here we go the Lego builds a blop Duplo version of a multi head delay right would I be right in saying we've got two heads we have two heads we have two heads I simply couldn't fit a third on there no but right all the we have all the essential ingredients so at the moment we've just got the two amps on okay so if you just play that for us beautiful so a bypassed straight to the two amplifiers now first thing we got to do is we're going to go into a preamp because that's what would happen if you hit the front of the 201 as soon as you guys the 201 you go into a preamp so we've got the broadcast okay for it's sort of fun the Neve type thing okay so if I turn this on and you'll notice the gains are really low this is just to give us a nice signal to go into the rest of the system all right so there's our pre-op sound okay so now what we're going to do we're going to have a it's going to turn the reverb off in the amp for a second okay so that we can you can clearly good show any reverb that might be happening on the board good shot beautiful be higher than Anne's wine glass sphere that's very Charlie hey so who's been on the source the way that the way the signal works is this after the preamp we go into the water box all right and one side of the water box is gonna give us our dry signal and then we're gonna be a mix in the circuit from what did the delay the delay building blocks so you basically got two signals one is just the guitar going straight through yep and one is the affected sound exactly so that sound a lot dry through that sound load try through and then at the end they get mixed together and both go through the reverb imagine if we had a diagram down right imagine as if I'm magic okay so this is where it gets a little bit complicated when we come out of the send to go into the the rest of the signal to do the Delaine what we need to do there are two signals that join together at this send and I'll show you I'll show that in a second so basically half of the send is going to go into the summing up flyer and that comes out of that into this the Union it's basically like a telephonic cell a to a limiter and we're using this just to give it a little bit of the character of tape right all right so tape compressions just a bit of tape compression and it's a very special thing so I'm going to do now I'm gonna turn this on yep right and I'm going to we're gonna go all the way over okay so now we just have the B side of the signal so we're coming out we're summing together in this little something out the fire and if you can play that for a second [Music] okay that does include the broadcast thing everything the broadcast is going to for the school you guys exactly go through everything right so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to compress that a little bit all right okay so if you prefer that for a second [Music] yeah quite quite a bit [Music] you [Music] now this is a limiter as opposed to a compressor all right so it's got a it's got a line it reaches before it there's less compressing so we're gonna imagine that's the tape yeah right now we're gonna go from that and we're gonna go into the flashback now we've got the kill dry turned off so it's got killed right turned on which means when we hit the flashback there's no direct signal so this is mimicking when we record our signal to tape it's gonna travel along and then come back on the playback head so it's a playback here so this is the playback head yep all right so when I turn this on you aren't a very direct signal and you'll just get the delayed sound [Music] it's so hard to play with only a delayed signal yeah so so that's basically what's happening inside the tape machine yep records there's a you know take some takes a while to get back to the playback head and so that's basically having a type signal you got your direct signal and then you've got your delay signal that gets isn't you have that okay then we've got our second playback head right alright so there you go that's just second playback head is impossible to play so um in terms of delay time the second one's a bit longer oh so we can if when we alter the delights on the second one we are then moving the playback head away from the first one so if I increase the playback the time yeah this one I decrease it mmm so the two notes you're hearing there are the flashback and then the boss exactly yep so you're in flashback and then you're hearing the boss yes and there's Jack during one repeating exactly so is that here as that seed is going back hits the first yeah um play the head and then the second play the head cool all right right right now from there we've got our vibrato and this is going to be mimicking the movement that we get from the tape we're gonna try and make it as subtle as possible which is quite tricky with my brother because it only goes so slow so I forgot the right and depth as slow as possible [Music] you [Music] yeah [Music] so awesome that's that modulation just to make the point apology service is too simplistic but in a tape machine there's no physical you know there's no effect going on it is purely the machine not functioning properly or the tape having stretched yeah it's the it's the you know the physical properties of the tape and the motor and all that stuff the cap stands just exactly if not it's not a perfect replica a replica of the original signal because it's got a a go to the tape yeah you know and then it's there's that movement so the vibrato pedal I do we should get a bit slow anyway that's mimicking that now on the arataura ones we've got a top the bass and treble frequencies that we can manipulate so we've got the RC booster right for the game turned down so now if I turn this on [Music] so now we can affect the bass and treble of the repeats that gives us out our EQ on the repeat Suzuki as we would can you just turn them down and turn them up then the bass and treble so you can hear it [Music] see basically got your high-pass and low-pass filters yep more or less yes Valley that but it's most enough so right now this sits that from here this is where it gets interesting from here we split the signal right right which is what that first time thing is doing which is what the first time ding is doing that is splitting the signal now one side of that signal is going into the volume control here and this is our repeat knob so basically what's happening is we've got this loop we've got em here and we're going back into the summing amplifier which then goes back into the compressor yep right and this is a variable resistor alright and it's going to let so much of that signal flow through so the more that the more signal I get through the more repeats that we'll get okay so what I'm gonna do with it there's our that you can signal we just have to the to public heads now I'm going to increase the signal [Music] [Laughter] [Music] what is it filtering off because you've changed the EQ in the RC toaster what happens is as the signal goes through the process again it is affected again by every single stage very cool so with the EQ and the you know is it it basically goes to the whole cycle again yeah and so degrades as it goes around okay so we still haven't got our dry signal yet that's just the wet yeah right so what we're gonna do now is going to introduce our dry signal okay and then we're gonna start blending this sound on top of our dry signal yeah so the draw we have a dry signal and this whole circuit is happening in parallel to the dry signal okay come over here I'm gonna turn this on so the dry signal is going to stay the same level yeah now we're gonna blend this circuit on top of the dry signal [Music] [Applause] mmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] so if I'm understanding it right now we've got our two parallel signal yes this is your delay mix yes this is the repeats yes and these are your time yes and then at the end of all that the sinner goes out into the small spring reverb yeah okay there it is so there it is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you must be very proud one my place that actually I think it sounds really really good I think it's only appropriate that you play us out for here for the end of the show okay that was fascinating it was really amazing to get a good listen to the re 20 against the 201 ja 20 stands up really well I think in terms of fidelity is definitely not there with the re to a woman but it is exceptionally good yeah and certainly compared with a hassle factor of carrying a nari 201 around yeah I mean how many gigs have we done with it now five yes how many times has it broken down twice well actually no it broke down on the second gig and then after that we had the yeah the trial again a ladder gate but still yeah they do if you keep them service and everything they they work great but you do need to keep the service yeah yeah I mean they're all pieces of machinery now suits me Wendy when they made these cuz you know when when the original tape machines came out they were super vulnerable so they made these to be reliable you know and they have proven to be really reliable for a long time doesn't the bessel tape yeah yeah yeah yep an old man Yoshi was on the line there he was they can't see that boss building to our ones the current president of boss was building them incredible a big I think as a big it is amazing so 201 sorry the re 20 Valley for money sounds really good kind of a no-brainer in that respect isn't it yeah plus all the controls match the re 201 so happy days the Volante is something different that is really special it's a sonic step-up and an functionality step up from the the re 20 idea it's anything wrong with saying that and it was really great to hear that this is killer I mean it's mono right its Mon are we doing daily I mean I could I could put in I could do that I could put the different delays in two different sides well yeah okay for another day but I can definitely do that okay that'll be fun all right shall we draw this one to a close then sure I think you should place okay before I go thank you so much for watching please subscribe if you haven't subscribed also a massive thank you to our preferred retailers in the UK and Europe is Anders's music of Guilford in Surrey and in Australia would be peddle Empire Brisbane Queensland and also please check the links in the description below yes please do that click the ones for sweetwater buy stuff and down and I can build the gold Kong shaped mansion indeed yeah trowel yes anyone that's guys do not builders massive thank you on this car did that pebble show still calm and purchased merchandise and t-shirts and Madison and hats and yeah please go there yep where we put the fun in no refund that will mortally offend Katherine ah so who gets up in the morning for customer service she does so yeah we put the fern in fun haha and also a message thank you help patrons patreon thank you yeah thank you guys really appreciate it okay um I grabbed your cat you need this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: That Pedal Show

Views: 72,776

Rating: 4.9299884 out of 5

Keywords: Space Echo, Tape echo, RE-201, RE-20, Strymon Volante, Echo Fix EF-X2, Multi head tape echo, multi-head tape delay, RE-201 vs RE-20, RE201 vs RE20, Volante vs RE20, EchoFix, Best tape delay, vintage Strat, vintage Tele

Id: xS2ZWpLxkzQ

Length: 59min 35sec (3575 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020