Echomatic attempt - progress report

[camp tapes]

Just tried a metal cassette and its a noticeably better sound than the XLII I was using before. Picked one up on ebay. They aren't exactly cheap (I paid $10 for 1), but you can find them there.

[Strategy]

Yeah I was in my friend's record shop Saturday and they actually had two new old stock metal tapes mixed in with a huge stack of new old stock type I types. It really does sound significantly better.

I bought two, one that I can use to make loop tapes for the delay (I also use loop tapes in my four track to do tape loop ambient music), but another one also for just using as a 'master' for four track recording.

Strategy

[camp tapes]

Are you able to make a loop without a dead spot on the slice? I haven't been totally happy with any of my loops yet.

I've been doing some fun stuff with cassettes lately:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDbaaogH0fV/?taken-by=scttcmpbll
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBQanWTn0VZ/?taken-by=scttcmpbll
https://www.instagram.com/p/8d8terH0XH/?taken-by=scttcmpbll

[bluebunny]

Are you able to make a loop without a dead spot on the slice? I haven't been totally happy with any of my loops yet.

Are you using a 45^o splice?

[Strategy]

My loops are often erratic but I find it often imparts some interesting wobble/chorusing. I am working now on creating a better loop...each one is different. Use a super, super sharp blade, and try to prevent the tape from flipping around.

Your cassette synth is really interesting to me, have you seen Steven Litt's Crudlab MIDI Cassette synth? I would love to buy one if I could as I think some of the DIY science might be beyond me.

The frippertronics thing is fascinating to me would you be willing to share any documentation on how you did that? (PM me?)

Most of my tape work was documented on this album, http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20550-noise-tape-self/
I use a four track so I can get four loops per tape. I use a four track that has separate outputs per track so I can run each channel through effects. My next experiment will be to find a way to disengage the erase head for sound on sound effects. I'm hesitant to do any permanent hacks on my nice four track as I also use it for conventional multi track recording.

Strategy

[camp tapes]

Reeaaally like those Strategy tracks you linked. Very beautiful. Have you heard the new Deru record? Not sure if he's using loops or what.

My cassette synths control the walkman motor, just like the crudlab version, only he's using an arduino to control it via midi. He's also got a few other bells and whistles in there. I'm working on a final version of my cassette synth which will incorporate the tunable buttons, as well as a pitch ribbon and a pressure sensitive volume control. The idea is to get the articulation of the Ondes Martenot, usuing the cassette as the sound source. Basically a mono Mellotron + Ondes Martenot + lofi sampler.

[camp tapes]

My next experiment will be to find a way to disengage the erase head for sound on sound effects.
Strategy

The erase head should have 8 wires connected to it, 2 for each track. You could either disconnect one of the wires for each track and connect them to 4 external switches, or connect all 4 wires to a 4PST switch to turn off the erase head for all tracks at once.

[Strategy]

I'll probably try and pick up a cheaper, smaller four track for the switching experiment! thanks for the tips!

[Graåal]

Hi Strategy and congratulation for your work !
Can you please explain a bit more how you modded the PMD 221 ? I've just open my 222 and it seems to be the same pitch circuit but I don't understand what you've done. What do you mean by "Jumper Cut" ?

[Strategy]

I will post a magnified image. "Jumper" and "Cut" refer to two different things you must do. One arrow indicates a trace to cut and another arrow indicates two points that need to be jumpered together. What this does is rewires the switching related to "record" so that when you press record, it still allows pitch control to be active. These points are hard to see because it's so small. It's very high resolution so if you follow the image link to flickr you can download the full size version and zoom in a lot of detail. But later this week when i get time I'll also post a close-up here.
Strategy

[Graåal]

Oh ok, I get it now. In fact I can't have a bigger size for the integrated picture on the site, but I found the pic on Flickr and it's well more precise now. As soon as I have some time I'll try to do the same.

Did you dig into the increased range of pitch pot to reach very slow delays ? I've read on the gearslutz post that you link that you need to change the resistor in order to do that but it's not really documented.

[Strategy]

I just tweaked one of the trimpots to increase pitch range, and its working well. I wish it had a little more range, but I'm taking a break from hacking on this thing more.

[ndstudio]

@Strategy Can you post a high quality image of the result pcb for getting the pitch to work while recording? I cant seem to find much "visual" reference online about doing this mod.

[Strategy]

I'm going out of town but will post larger hi-res graphics of the trace cuts/jumper.
Also due to the almost weekly emails about this project I'll probably assemble an official PDF doc that brings together all of the suggested mods, Echomatic Docs, notes and such into one document. But I won't be able to do any of this for a week or so yet
thanks for your patience
Strategy

[ndstudio]

I'm going out of town but will post larger hi-res graphics of the trace cuts/jumper.
Also due to the almost weekly emails about this project I'll probably assemble an official PDF doc that brings together all of the suggested mods, Echomatic Docs, notes and such into one document. But I won't be able to do any of this for a week or so yet
thanks for your patience
Strategy

Thanks Strategy for replying so fast! That would be really really really helpful and much appreciated, ( can I buy you a drink for the trouble?  ) It seems that the information for this mod isn't very well presented in terms of steps and execution, those of us who are new/green to this modding biz need a little hand holding until we can get the gist of it.
Thanks again!!

[bamboombaps]

just snagged myself a bust up old 430, v interested in the detail of this mod

[msullivan]

I tried finding a higher res link of the photo on flikr but couldn't, could anyone send me a link to a clearer picture of the mod? Also wondering if you ever got around to putting a pdf/guide together.


Matt

[Strategy]

Haven't gotten to it yet... Have been in work overdrive since summer (including 5 weeks with basically no days off)
Getting to the end of our rough season and planning lots of time off between next week and the holidays, will make it a priority.
Strategy

[hairofthedog]

How to mod the internal record switch functions on the Marantz PMD221 so that "pitch" control remains active even if Record and Play are activated:

I too would love to see a clearer picture of the mod disabling the pitch pot bypass. Between which solder points is the jumper supposed to be?

Want to do it myself, but I'm really new at this and troubleshooting/reading PCB layouts is a thing I'm not that good at yet.

[Passaloutre]

Does this have to be a three-head tape deck? Could I do it with a regular walkman-type deck that has input and output?