Adapter - turning tape recorder into tape echo

[jacobsteel]

Got some really nice tape heads, a piece of aluminum rail, and had some perspex lids laying around. So, I made an adapter to add sliding tape heads to different tape recorders without having to drill in them…

Here’s how I made the sliding-tape-head-add-on:

DIY Tape Echo - Nagra III tape delay, add-on-head adapter (with TA7668 Tape head preamp)

First test-run (sorry for uneven, low volume, I was experimenting with feedback)

Tape delay adapter - Nagra III tape echo with three delay times

While a decent microphone amplifier CAN work to amplify tape heads a dedicated op amp circuit (e.g. in the range of recovery amp for spring reverbs) - a tape head amplifier produces better results.
I’m using a playback version board of the TA7668. Several different boards are available for <SEK100 / < USD10 / < EUR10

TA7668 Datasheet(PDF)

And here’s a link to a tape echo I made from a cassette tape deck (and an earlier version of the sliding-head-add-on:

DIY tape delay/echo from a fleamarket cassette deck

I love tape echoes, but they’re getting really expensive. Here’s how to build one that actually sounds comparable to a Roland RE201 (if you start with a good tape deck and put some time in aligning the heads well). An added bonus is that you get Dolby and can insert any number of pedals in the feedback loop (e.g. a limiting pedal gives you infinite feedback without infinite overdrive distortion… ) [tape-delay-info] Quite a straightforward build: Two mono heads mounted side by side replace …