Echolette, Binson EchoRec

[Martin Czech]

> >It is said, that Edge (U2 gitarist) uses such an old delay, or even an
> >echolette magneto-mechanical delay for his typical delay based rythm
> >playing, you know what I mean. He is driving his sound eng. mad, because
> >it is so noisy, but no way, he claims it has a specific sound as the
> >echo fades away, and also if overdriven....
> 
> Finally, a memtion of the magnetic-mechanical echo machines. To make a long
> story short, I'm looking for one for two years now.
> 
> Does anyone: 1) have one for sale - any condidtion or 2) have
> service/theory documentation or 3) know of a source for replacement parts?
> 
> I've a friend in town with one each Echorec and Echolette; both need
> repairs sorely. Like, what to use for the (metal?) tape??? 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
When I was young (;->) i bought a little book "Electronic Effects
for musicians", you know this 2 transistor circuits, LC-Filter bongos
etc. Very disappointing.  Today it looks abit differnt, why not use these
bongos as low fi percussion, why not build the simple Leslie-Rotor, and
there is a instruction for doing an echolette, too. Simply a aluminum
disk, 5mm thick, diameter, say 10cm.  Now, slay a cassette and glue the
tape to the disk edge, of course the ends not with 90 degrees angle but
45 degrees, to avoid pops or klicks. This is an awfull job to do, and you
need the right glue that doesn't dissolve the tape. You need a motor,
some tape recorder heads (replacement parts) and preamp electronics
(I think National have some app notes about that). And a motor. That's it.

I have no experience with tape technology, ie. hf erease, bias and all
this stuff, so I never tryed this.

If you want, I could dig this book out , and scan the interesting parts.


m.c.