What is a tape delay?
Tape Delay simulates the sound of vintage tape echo machines. It can run at a free rate or can be synchronized with the project tempo. The effect is equipped with a highpass and lowpass filter in the feedback loop, making it easy to create authentic dub echo effects.
How did tape delay work?
The tape-recorded audio (at the Record head) then takes a few milliseconds to travel to the Playback Head. This causes a slight “delay” of audio of the tape signal from the original “real-time” audio, and when combined in parallel with the original input signal, produces that iconic echo effect.
What is a tape echo?
If you have ever owned a modern delay pedal or multi-effects unit, you are probably already familiar with the term Tape Echo. This term refers to the type of delay created by spools of magnetic tape in vintage effects units. They were the first ever Delay units and the direct ancestor to today’s compact delay pedals.
How long is a tape delay?
The radio station WKAP in Allentown, Pennsylvania, introduced a tape delay system consisting of an external playback head, which was spaced far enough away from the record head to produce a six-second delay. A system of rollers guided the tape over the playback head before it wound up on the take up reel.
Are echo and delay the same thing?
Delays are separate copies of an original signal that reoccur within milliseconds of each other. Echoes are sounds that are delayed far enough in time so that you hear each as a distinct copy of the original sound.
How can I delay my tape at home?
The basic idea is that with a three-head recorder (erase, record, play) the distance between the record and play heads creates a delay and you increase this delay by slowing down the recorder’s motor. You combine the output from the recorder with the dry signal from your input and, viola, tape delay.
Is there a difference between delay and echo?