Full Tone Tube Tape Echo
You know it, I know it, we all heard it, the beautiful warm lush delay that come from Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, the Beatles, those oldies we used to listen as we grow up. They used to call those sound echo remember? The make of these delay back in the time were created by echo chamber, echo metal plate, hence the term echoplex and such.
I spent enough time with guitar players to know that it is all about the echo unit that you own to give your sound a little edge over the other guys. During the time that I was in the studio to see Ronan make a record that I saw what he can do with a tape delay unit.
So I join the herd of people searching on Ebay for those vintage tape delay FX boxes and I found many. Being a true gear slutz, I actually played with most of them. The most popular ones you find these days are the Roland unit such as 201, 301, and so on. These units give wonderful sound but they are unbalance and often very noisy. It is hard to find them in good condition and they are notorious for breaking down and hard to find analog tape replacement. The only one of the Roland unit actually come with XLR balance input is the 500's series unit, but they also hard to find.
That was all cool until I came across the Full Tone Tube Tape Echo unit. Now this changes everything, including the rules. The Full Tone is built like a M1 tank and it is so quiet. There's plenty of tape supply for this one. I went onto Full Tone website and found that this box is used by many today fame guitarist. I am not a guitar player but I did route a guitar track out into this box to see what it does. Lush, warm, solid, and quiet!
Although this thing was made for guitar, I did tried it out with a vocal track...NICE! It is cool fx and all but do not ditch your TC2290 just yet.
I'd emailed my friends Roger in LA about how it compares to the Echoplex of the old days, and this is what he sent me for the spec,
Why a Tape Echo?
If you ask that then you have never played a healthy Echoplex! No delay, rackmount or pedal, analog or digital, can replicate the natural, warm and shimmery (slightly "chorused") tones of an old Echoplex. Unless you've experienced it you don't know what you're missing.
Yeah, but they're noisy and unreliable!
Yes, they certainly WERE....but the Fulltone TubeTapeEcho (TTE) is dead-quiet, and Fulltone has completely re-vamped both the electronics, the tape transport path, and even the tape cartridge itself to the point of near-overkill. The TTE produces less noise than most delay pedals.
How much delay time?
From a quick slapback to over 1 second.
Why tubes?
Because they sound so good.....the enhancement to your basic tone is something you will not want to play without once you feel it, and you'll never again have to worry about signal loss due to long cables and too many pedals on your pedalboard.
What makes the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo better?
1.) DC Motor - The big AC motors of yesteryear were noisy and inefficient, so Fulltone replaced them with servo-controlled high-torque DC motors. Not only are they quieter, but they are more stable and 1/4 the size, allowing for a smaller overall housing.
2.) Tubes (this means clean...real clean) - The TTE uses (2)12AX7 tubes (for the Record and Playback sections) with 150 volts DC and supply the filaments with 12 volts DC to reduce the hum further. The erase function uses one 12AT7.
3.) Handwired audio path (no shit!), and world-famous Fulltone Made-in-USA Craftsmanship. No PCB-mounted Tubes or Jacks in this thing.
4.) Stereo outputs! - How many times have you longed for a delay between channels in the studio or on stage?
5.) Better Tape Heads - The TTE has proprietary Fulltone Erase, Record, and Playback heads that not only have better frequency response than the oldies, but are designed to last well into your retirement.
6.) Fulltone ETC-1 Tape cartridge - Fulltone couldn't find a decent tape cartridge (and neither could we), so they made one themselves! The ETC-1 tape cart is a direct replacement for all Echoplexes, but it is loaded it with vastly superior tape. The ETC-1 not only sounds MUCH better, but also is not prone to shedding as are the tape carts made by others. If your tape cartridge leaves brown dust on the heads, rollers and top of the chassis, Martha Stewart would surely agree that this is NOT "a good thing". That 'build-up' is what creates distance between the tape and tape heads causing degradation of the echo-repeats. It also causes the pinch-roller to slip against the capstan, which leads to wildly out-of-tune echo-repeats. That brown dust is a clear indication of your tape (and your tone) disintegrating before your eyes. No more loading tape with your bare hand.
7.) Nickel-Plated Steel Parts - because Fulltone insists that their products last for years while looking great!
8.) Echo Tone Control - The TTE has a full-range Echo Sound, but you can alter it to sound as vintage as you like with the 'Tone Control', affecting only the repeats.
9.) It's Smaller - Old Echoplex EP-2's have that cool side-compartment, but this made them larger. Fulltone put that storage place into a Heavy duty (wood-reinforced) Cordura Nylon Gig-Bag (included). This allows for a very compact, stout unit that can sit on your amp, in your pedalboard, or off to the side without taking up too much precious real estate.
Are you happy now? My verdict, buy it!
Duy
I spent enough time with guitar players to know that it is all about the echo unit that you own to give your sound a little edge over the other guys. During the time that I was in the studio to see Ronan make a record that I saw what he can do with a tape delay unit.
So I join the herd of people searching on Ebay for those vintage tape delay FX boxes and I found many. Being a true gear slutz, I actually played with most of them. The most popular ones you find these days are the Roland unit such as 201, 301, and so on. These units give wonderful sound but they are unbalance and often very noisy. It is hard to find them in good condition and they are notorious for breaking down and hard to find analog tape replacement. The only one of the Roland unit actually come with XLR balance input is the 500's series unit, but they also hard to find.
That was all cool until I came across the Full Tone Tube Tape Echo unit. Now this changes everything, including the rules. The Full Tone is built like a M1 tank and it is so quiet. There's plenty of tape supply for this one. I went onto Full Tone website and found that this box is used by many today fame guitarist. I am not a guitar player but I did route a guitar track out into this box to see what it does. Lush, warm, solid, and quiet!
Although this thing was made for guitar, I did tried it out with a vocal track...NICE! It is cool fx and all but do not ditch your TC2290 just yet.
I'd emailed my friends Roger in LA about how it compares to the Echoplex of the old days, and this is what he sent me for the spec,
Why a Tape Echo?
If you ask that then you have never played a healthy Echoplex! No delay, rackmount or pedal, analog or digital, can replicate the natural, warm and shimmery (slightly "chorused") tones of an old Echoplex. Unless you've experienced it you don't know what you're missing.
Yeah, but they're noisy and unreliable!
Yes, they certainly WERE....but the Fulltone TubeTapeEcho (TTE) is dead-quiet, and Fulltone has completely re-vamped both the electronics, the tape transport path, and even the tape cartridge itself to the point of near-overkill. The TTE produces less noise than most delay pedals.
How much delay time?
From a quick slapback to over 1 second.
Why tubes?
Because they sound so good.....the enhancement to your basic tone is something you will not want to play without once you feel it, and you'll never again have to worry about signal loss due to long cables and too many pedals on your pedalboard.
What makes the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo better?
1.) DC Motor - The big AC motors of yesteryear were noisy and inefficient, so Fulltone replaced them with servo-controlled high-torque DC motors. Not only are they quieter, but they are more stable and 1/4 the size, allowing for a smaller overall housing.
2.) Tubes (this means clean...real clean) - The TTE uses (2)12AX7 tubes (for the Record and Playback sections) with 150 volts DC and supply the filaments with 12 volts DC to reduce the hum further. The erase function uses one 12AT7.
3.) Handwired audio path (no shit!), and world-famous Fulltone Made-in-USA Craftsmanship. No PCB-mounted Tubes or Jacks in this thing.
4.) Stereo outputs! - How many times have you longed for a delay between channels in the studio or on stage?
5.) Better Tape Heads - The TTE has proprietary Fulltone Erase, Record, and Playback heads that not only have better frequency response than the oldies, but are designed to last well into your retirement.
6.) Fulltone ETC-1 Tape cartridge - Fulltone couldn't find a decent tape cartridge (and neither could we), so they made one themselves! The ETC-1 tape cart is a direct replacement for all Echoplexes, but it is loaded it with vastly superior tape. The ETC-1 not only sounds MUCH better, but also is not prone to shedding as are the tape carts made by others. If your tape cartridge leaves brown dust on the heads, rollers and top of the chassis, Martha Stewart would surely agree that this is NOT "a good thing". That 'build-up' is what creates distance between the tape and tape heads causing degradation of the echo-repeats. It also causes the pinch-roller to slip against the capstan, which leads to wildly out-of-tune echo-repeats. That brown dust is a clear indication of your tape (and your tone) disintegrating before your eyes. No more loading tape with your bare hand.
7.) Nickel-Plated Steel Parts - because Fulltone insists that their products last for years while looking great!
8.) Echo Tone Control - The TTE has a full-range Echo Sound, but you can alter it to sound as vintage as you like with the 'Tone Control', affecting only the repeats.
9.) It's Smaller - Old Echoplex EP-2's have that cool side-compartment, but this made them larger. Fulltone put that storage place into a Heavy duty (wood-reinforced) Cordura Nylon Gig-Bag (included). This allows for a very compact, stout unit that can sit on your amp, in your pedalboard, or off to the side without taking up too much precious real estate.
Are you happy now? My verdict, buy it!
Duy
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