How to Change the Tape Loop on a Roland Space Echo RE-201 

Our pleasure.

It could be to do with the tapes you bought, unfortunately not all tapes are made equal and some can cause issues for RE-201s. The other possibility is that in fiddling around with the unit to change the tape, you could have knocked something back into place. It is unlikely but has been known to happen and obviously if this is the case, there is a chance of it being knocked back out again.

@@Soundgas thanks to pay attention! I will test with another tapes. All the best!

Yes the pinch roller should move. Could be one of several issues.

Hi Matt - good question, and one that we will be adding to our tape echo FAQ section on the site at some point. Doctor Huw our tech said that i's most likely to be either pinch roller pressure adjustment is needed, or it's quite possible the roller has seized. What you need to do is lift the roller away from the capstan and see if it will turn freely. If it doesn't then the bearing inside has gone. You can get a new roller and instructions on how to fit it from Shane at echofix.com

We use 99% isopropyl alcohol. We would recommend tapes of around 2m in length for Roland Echoes.

No problem. Head to our site for a lot more tips and tricks with Roland echoes...

Muffled sound. Should sound pretty crisp. Also don’t forget to demagnetize the heads if it hasn’t been done for a while.

It is: our techs have spent a good deal of time with these machines - probably more than anyone else on the planet. We've found that shorter loops are far more reliable and less prone to jamming/tangling. Tape life of our loops is still very long indeed (I'm running a couple of machines with loops that are over a year old).

@@Soundgas Thanks for the reply. But, to me, it would seem more logical that a shorter tape loop would wear out faster since the tape splice would pass thru the machine more often than a longer loop? Overall tape thickness would also be a factor in this, and the quality of the tape splice (alignment and thickness). If Roland engineers who designed this tape echo machine calculated that a longer loop was necessary and/or better, I'd be inclined to rely on their judgment first.

@@AlainHubert completely understandable reply. Around a hundred machines a year pass through our hands - I suspect there are few people in the world who know these machines as deeply as our team. We restore and align them to perform beyond Roland factory spec (Roland was mass-manufacturing and Space Echoes were extremely profitable - designed to be quickly set up by relatively unskilled workers). We spent a great deal of time and money tracking down the exact same tape stock as Roland used and then finding better splice tape (try an original RT-1L and you’ll really hear the splice - our splices are almost imperceptible). I’m an echo fanatic and personally run five Roland machines - I’ve been using Space echoes for around 40 years - and I’ve never heard machines sound better that the ones we produce. And I’ve not had a snarled tape from one of our loops ever. Of course you may dismiss this as hype or biased opinion, but if you do try our loops and are unhappy for any reason, you can return them for a full refund.

@@Soundgas That's a great sales pitch, I must admit. And thank you for providing replacement parts for that fantastic machine.