Completely Unique Tape Delay Simulator

I have here a delay circuit that is completely unique in a number of ways.  It was designed by Josh at 1776 effects which is where I bought the printed circuit board for the project.

There are two independent delay circuits in this box, each with their own time controls.  The rotary switch with 3 positions labelled re-201, ep3, and binson represent 3 different popular tape delay units and provide different ways of routing the delays and your signal through the pedal.

EP-3 is a standard delay- only "delay 2" controls the this mode.  It is a fantastic sounding tape emulation and really has a wonderful flavor where the repeats progressively get a bit of the lows rolled off with each repeat.  This delay doesnt get washed out easily like a boss dd3 or something, it stays present in the mix but doesnt overbear your dry signal.

from josh's build document... All rights to him
Re-201 Mode

This simulates the dual rhythmic repeats of an RE-201 Space Echo. To best utilize this mode, Delay 1’s time should be shorter than Delay 2’s time. Once you get the hang of it you can find the rhythmic sweet spots pretty quick.

Binson Mode-

This simulates just one of the many cool things about the Binson Echorec. You can get one long repeat and then subsequent repeats of that note are repeated faster.  "delay 1" controls the length of the first repeat and delay 2 controls the time of the consecutive short repeats.  I'd describe it as a single long repeat followed by a bunch of slapback echoes- the repeats knob controls how many repeats you get with the 2nd shorter delay.  Very very cool!

Multiplex Delay

The next super awesome feature is the modulation.  I will be adding a standard deluxe memory man chorus/vibrato modulation with controls for speed and depth.  You can choose to add this modulation to either delay 1 or delay 2 or neither.  It is a beautiful sounding optical controlled modulation.  glorious from subtle chorus detune to full on pitch bending

But the super awesome feature has to do with that extra footswitch on the left.  When you step on that footswitch and hold it down the repeats of the delay speed up continually, causing a moving pitch effect where the repeats start getting higher pitched and faster.  When you let go the repeats slow back down to your selected delay time and the pitch moves back down slowly towards the original pitch and delay time.  This simulates a tape machine that needs a bit of service or new tape.  The variations in tape speed are what caused the original tape echo units to have "modulation" or that chorusy effect.  It wasnt a fixed chorus modulation (like I describe above) it was constantly "wow and fluttering" going up and down.  This gives a wonderful effect of motion and the user interaction is super fun.  You can do all sorts of tricks with it.  Like hold down the footswitch for a couple seconds- then play a chord and let go- the repeats will start higher pitched and step down in pitch with each passing repeat.  Turning the Repeats knob up allows you to get some super cool lo-fi looping effects.  The 'ramp up and ramp down' speeds are dependent on your mode and delay settings, so there are a ton of different sounds available on tap.  I did have controls for setting how fast the ramp up would move and how fast the ramp down would go back down.  But they just didnt work well in the circuit- too much control over the ramp up speed and it became difficult to get a moderate sound and the ramp down control didnt really change the speed all that much.  I opted for adding an extra pcb with a standard type of modulation instead.  Because as cool as the moving modulation is, i love me some deluxe memory man modulation.  The moving modulation only effects the second delay circuit too.  so with my additional modulation board you can get a fixed modulation on delay 1 with the moving ramp modulation on delay 2.  Sweeeeetttt.....

Holes in top of enclosure for future modulation
speed and depth potentiometers

There is not another delay with these features.  not a one!

Standard features of super high quality components included- I used a burr brown op275 opamp for this just to keep the noise as low as possible on longer delay times.  These are found in the mad professor deep blue delay and is one of the reasons that simple little pedal is so popular.  The little yellow tantalum caps are key to pt2399 delays imo.  And I hand select each pt2399 chip for the best sound and lowest noise.  I also modified the original circuit a little bit.  I applied just a tad more filtering on the delay repeats to make them a bit warmer- sounds more like a tube tape echo to me now- stock version is too bright for my tastes.  Not a huge deviation from the schematic, but noticeable yes.  I also changed a couple caps to make the progressive low cut filtering a little slower.  The stock version repeats get into a pretty thin low end less territory a little too quickly for my tastes.  Video demo coming in the next few days!