Well analog tape delay is the "original" form of delay that was used creatively.

A standard analog tape recorder has three heads : a play head, a record head and an eraser head. The thing is, they are not at the same physical position. The record head records first, then the play head reads what was just recorded (I'm not talking about the professional tape recorders which have special sync heads to be able to do punch in punch outs). So basically, if you would listen to what you send to the recorder (the musician playing live for example), and together with the output of the tape recorder (in repro mode, meaning you listen from the play head), you would hear the recorded sound a little later.

Now, in a mix, when you wanted a simple tap as a delay, it was easy to do, you connected an aux send to the tape recorder, and returned the tape recorder output to a free channel (or an aux return). When you wanted a sound to have a singly echo for example, you just opened the corresponding aux.

This delay is fix, and determined mainly by the spacing between the heads, and the speed at which the tape is spinning.
One day, some guys experimented, and pretty crazy stuff happened. They figured out that for changing the delay time, you just needed to lengthen the distance between the record and play head. In the early day's this was done with microphone stands! They just passed the tape through two or three mic stands (used as guides), and then back to the tape recorder.
If you want more than one tap, it's simple, you just manage to get the delay back to the record head. Simplest method is to open the corresponding aux on the channel you returned the tape output too, but be careful for nasty feedback... Up to this day, the SSL 4000 consoles still have a SPIN button on their aux returns, dedicated to adjust delay feedback. Some fun stuff can be done by eq'ing the return channel, to make a delay go towards a certain note for example.

Later on, you could find dedicated tape delays with several play heads, one for each tap.

But what's so special about tape delay? First, the tape speed is not always constant, so the delays will change accordingly. But most important, the tape you record to doesn't have a linear response. It will color the sound. Caracteristic here is usually a little loss of high frequency on each tap.
You could say it's easy to recreate with digital/plugin delays. But tape is more erratic in its behaviour, so it still has a rather unique sound.

The most well known tape delays are the Watkins Copycat (I actually used one last Sunday, and damn it's funny), and the Roland Space Echo, which functions with cassettes.

BTW, if you ever find the TC 2290 for a decent price, don't hesitate. It's been an industry standard in pro studio's for years (if I think about it, I haven't seen any major studio yet that doesn't have it...). But it's pricetag is usually beyond the budget of a home studyist.

Last edited by Dj Thy on Sep-23-2004 at 19:39