I have owned two different RE-201 units, the first was a 1970s era one, that I had in the 1980s, and the second was from the late 1980s. I owned that one from 1989 until the early 2000s, so I am very familiar with the soundJust checking, do you mean better sounding or more accurate to the hardware? I would think RE-201s are likely to vary a fair bit with different tape ages etc.
I actually think there are multiple Space Echo and tape delay plugins that are significantly better than the Roland Cloud plugin. I own them
I'd hoped that Roland had done a 501(?) the chorus echo rather than just the plain space echo but I suspect I'd be in a minority.
I have also owned multiple tape delays made by other people and had a tape delay setup for a long time in the late 1980s and early 1990s that was two of the same model of reel to reel machines with a mixer in-between.
The RE-201 was special because it was built like a tank and was very durable for gigging. From a mechanical standpoint it had one recording head and three playback heads with and additional spring reverb tank
One thing about the RE-201 which was why it was so popular was that it was built to be as transparent as possible when it came to the audio signal path and the tape transport system. There was very little noise, there was no mojo in the preamps, and there really no wow or flutter with the tape unless your unit was working incorrectly. The spring reverb was a bit noisy but again nothing really special about it
As a result when it comes to emulating it as a plugin the most important part is the tape simulation part. You want a plugin that does a great job with that and that has additional controls to simulate old worn out tapes, and defective units with bad transports
The thing to remember is in the 1970s and 1980s tape was not unique and we spent all our energy trying to make it not sound like tape. We didn't want hiss, we didn't want wow and flutter. Everything people want with tape in 2024 we didn't want in back then
So it's really not hard to nail the sound of the RE-201 as it didn't actually have a sound outside of the tape itself and then really only if the tape itself was old, or if your particular unit was not functioning properly
That's the reason I like the SSL X-Echo so much as it emulates not only a good tape delay, but also the mojo of SSL preamps and saturation circuits in the signal path
Statistics: Posted by IvyBirds — Fri Nov 01, 2024 7:15 am