Now here's one of the effects that helped define what rock music sounds Like. From a distinctly strange hallway reverb, to southern-fried slapback, or Up to 600ms of repeating delays, and endless sound on sound feedback loops:
The Maestro Echoplex was one of the earliest, and neatest effects generators there will ever be. A long tape cassette runs in a loop over recording and play-back heads. The space you set between these points determines the length of the delay time.
The original Echoplex had a vacuum tube in it, and was a dark, grayish green color. This was followed in time by solid state designs with more control knobs and recording indicator lights. Which.brings us to a conceptual, and artistic fork in the road. Some people like the solid state models better because they are a bit quieter. Others like the tube model better because it adds "bite" to the sound of picked notes & a little more distortion. It is even more organic and real sounding than the solid state model. However, we're talking real fine points here folks. The tube version has a higher white noise output. Not to mention that they're very old, and expensive etc. Don't forget that tapes need to be changed regularly, because they turn when ever the machine is on, and the constant wear on the tape heads, and repeated re-recording degrades sound quality.
Also the tape heads need to be cleaned repeatedly: figure two, or three times a night, in a dusty club or rehearsal hall. If you don't clean the heads, the sound degrades and the hissing increases. Before long you will reach for the Q-tips
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