space echo hell

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:22 pm

Yeah I think my unit I in good condition. Oh and how soft should the rubber on my pinch roller be about?

Darlington Pair · Post by **Darlington Pair** » Tue Jan 08, 2013 6:31 am

echotonecd wrote:Yeah I think my unit I in good condition. Oh and how soft should the rubber on my pinch roller be about?

If I remember correctly there is a great explanation here http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/ you can also get new rollers or yours refurbished.

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:23 pm

Thanks darlington for posting ill read that over soon. Ok so to joninc and darlington I emailed grs and They sent me a pretty extensive email. Apparently they used to supply Roland when they were shirt. Ill follow up when the loops come in. Joninc how's the space echo?

analogstudio7 · Post by **analogstudio7** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 8:03 pm

I know this is a semi-old post, but...

After reading these space echo posts and reading about the tape loops from GRS, I decided to try one. Got in in yesterday and put it on today. Man... It's da bomb! Sounds great! Lots of impressive feedback on their ebay store on this. First thing I noticed was that the tape is pretty substantial feeling, the other tape i've been using from the UK and Greece are pretty limp and thinner. So it loaded really easy. I have messed up a few tapes in the past trying to load my space echo before. The new tape sounds great and seems to work even better now after running the tape for a few hour or so. Been playing it all day long. One thing I did that really helped out was to adjust the long spring arm on the machine that presses the felt pad against the tape. Messed with it a while and found a sweet spot. Had been running thinner tape from the UK that squeeked a lot and would jam so I had to adjust it to run this thicker tape. But all is good now with the new tape and the tension adjustment. Just thought i'd chime in with my findings. been thru the space echo hell to!

Cheers

Greg

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 10:29 pm

i had the same effect. pop the grs tape in and adjust the felty thing and bam. great loops! sometime i get a kind of sharp scraping distorted sound on my echoes like 3- 4 delays in. i wonder how to smooth that out. maybe a new felt on the arm?

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:15 pm

got my space echo back from my tech today.

it's marginally better.

he recapped the power supply and a bunch of other caps.

here's the strange thing: i notice that the machine is producing a fair bit of hiss with all the inputs turned down and the reverb and echo turned all the way off.

what causes this?

frick.

tell me about this GRS tape. did you get the 4 meter loop or 1 meter?

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 5:25 pm

i got the mm loop, it works and sounds great to be honest. im eventually going to do a cap job myself. i think your biggest problem was not adjusting the felt arm which was my problem at first. def go grs they're great.get the 4 meter loop its just the length. i got like 4 1 meter loops and was like shit i shoulda gotten the 4 meter.

Darlington Pair · Post by **Darlington Pair** » Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:15 pm

joninc wrote:got my space echo back from my tech today.

it's marginally better.

he recapped the power supply and a bunch of other caps.

here's the strange thing: i notice that the machine is producing a fair bit of hiss with all the inputs turned down and the reverb and echo turned all the way off.

what causes this?

frick.

tell me about this GRS tape. did you get the 4 meter loop or 1 meter?

Yeah, they hiss. Of course I'm not there to hear yours to judge. There are a lot of transistors in there that are quite noisy by today's standards, the input has miserably low input impedance and the output impedance changes depending on the output pad switch.

Things I did to (not completely) clean mine up.

1. Recap the power supply with bigger and better caps, big supply caps bypassed with ceramics, pretty common clean power supply stuff. Sounds like you're good enough there.

2. Ditch the bandpass filter on the instrument input and replace it with a JFET, I went all out and did a Jack Orman Mini-Booster as my front end in my RE-101, and copied some stuff from the Boss FA-1 in my 501 because it already is pretty close. Google "Billy Zoom space echo mod" I'm pretty sure you can do his version with radio shack parts. The input is going to be WAY brighter now, see step 4.

3. Find which signal transistors are noisiest and replace them with something more modern, like a 2n5088 or something, it really doesn't any real difference in the sound.

4. Add an output buffer made from a fast/hifi opamp and low pass filtering to taste. The brighter input and low pass output makes a poor man's pre-emphasis/de-emphasis circuit that helps with noise but doesn't require hacking in a Compander.

5. Skip 1-4 and buy a 501 or 555, they have a noise reduction compander in them and are considerably quieter. That said, I still prefer my 101 on guitar and my 501 on voice.

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:07 pm

Darlington Pair wrote: Yeah, they hiss. Of course I'm not there to hear yours to judge. There are a lot of transistors in there that are quite noisy by today's standards, the input has miserably low input impedance and the output impedance changes depending on the output pad switch.

Things I did to (not completely) clean mine up.

1. Recap the power supply with bigger and better caps, big supply caps bypassed with ceramics, pretty common clean power supply stuff. Sounds like you're good enough there.

2. Ditch the bandpass filter on the instrument input and replace it with a JFET, I went all out and did a Jack Orman Mini-Booster as my front end in my RE-101, and copied some stuff from the Boss FA-1 in my 501 because it already is pretty close. Google "Billy Zoom space echo mod" I'm pretty sure you can do his version with radio shack parts. The input is going to be WAY brighter now, see step 4.

3. Find which signal transistors are noisiest and replace them with something more modern, like a 2n5088 or something, it really doesn't any real difference in the sound.

4. Add an output buffer made from a fast/hifi opamp and low pass filtering to taste. The brighter input and low pass output makes a poor man's pre-emphasis/de-emphasis circuit that helps with noise but doesn't require hacking in a Compander.

5. Skip 1-4 and buy a 501 or 555, they have a noise reduction compander in them and are considerably quieter. That said, I still prefer my 101 on guitar and my 501 on voice.

the billy zoom mod seems easy and advice on execution for a new diy'r. i have decent experience with soldering BYOC pedals.

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:33 pm

so yours hisses too - even when ALL THE INPUTS ARE COMPLETELY OFF and the ECHO and REVERB levels are COMPLETELY OFF?

sorry, don't mean to yell... just going crazy trying to get this thing restored...

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:38 pm

no i guess i got lucky, mine sounds fairly well or maybe im just not ocd about it. can you just take a video recording of your unit and post it to youtube i think an opinion will be better formulated after getting some real time insight.

Darlington Pair · Post by **Darlington Pair** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:28 pm

joninc wrote:so yours hisses too - even when ALL THE INPUTS ARE COMPLETELY OFF and the ECHO and REVERB levels are COMPLETELY OFF?

sorry, don't mean to yell... just going crazy trying to get this thing restored...

Yeah, they're kinda noisy even with everything off. There are a couple of gain stages in between the input and output even with everything off. The input transistor alone is going to add a lot of noise because it's always running at full gain and you just attenuate the signal going into it, three inputs with three noisy mixer resistors at full gain=Hiss. Part of what I did with mine was replace the instrument input with the Mu-amp and then used a lower noise/lower gain transistor in place of the input. I think I used a BC141, I'm pretty fond of those being that I've used them to tame old Kustom amp hiss too.

I wouldn't say that they are really any more noisy than any other piece of decent guitar gear of the same vintage, maybe yours is more noisy and has a problem... it's not really in front of me to judge.

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:49 pm

it seems noisier than it used to be and on my echoplex there's no hiss until you turn up the echo...

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:01 pm

update:

got the space echo back. seems a little quieter now.

replaced the tape with GRS 1 meter loop.

the quality of the echos is much clearer/cleaner now but i am now getting some
wow and flutter (slight pitch bending).

i have never had that issue before.

so, i am adjusting the felt tensioner a bit and i can't seem to make the pitch bending stop.

i don't think my motor is gummed up - it spins freely when you test it.

what now?

echotonecd · Post by **echotonecd** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 10:01 am

How do you like the grs in comparison to other tapes you've tryed? Also I think it's just a flaw of the design that it warbles but that's what makes it pretty and grabs your ear imo. How intense is te warble?

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