Hello everybody! Can you suggest a pedal that would be as similar in sound as possible to the Roland Space Echo RE-201!

Hello everybody! Can you suggest a pedal that would be as similar in sound as possible to the Roland Space Echo RE-201!

roland chorus echo? Not a pedal but you get a space echo with the treble and bass controls, a juno-like chorus and the space echo small tank spring reverb all in a convenient 50lb unit for about $1200 US, a veritable bargain LOL.... love mine, I honestly used to gig with it 15 years ago.... then my best friend had it, now its back in my studio. You can;t beat it with a stick. Nothing actually sounds the same. I've owned many tape echoes and still have a weird little univox too, but to me the roland was the most professional piece of kit and the loose spool of tape lends a magical randomness that's hard to describe.

Otherwise the space echo setting on the TC flashbacks ain't shabby, strymon's a bit better at it, but its not head and shoulders, just a biscuit.... when I want a sound like this at a gig I use the flashback x4 and its close enough and also has a passable memory man sort of sound and DM2.... the tube echoplex is a bit lacking, or is it meant to be a copicat? Can't remember, but the majority of the sounds are good and a little tweaking via the toneprint software can make them outstanding plus they have tap tempo? YEAH

But a real moving tape it is not...

The best option is probably the RE-20 Space Echo, Boss' own compact digital emulation.

This pedal is not at all similar in sound to the Roland Space Echo... Isn't that right?..

This pedal is not at all similar in sound to the Roland Space Echo... Isn't that right?..

Yes and no. It's by Boss, a Roland company, so they probably have a mint condition unit in the archives to reference and get impulse responses from. However, the RE-20 is a digital pedal rather than an analogue tape unit.

I haven't used either one, so I can't give you an opinion. I do know that Johnny Greenwood uses an RE-20 live instead of hauling Radiohead's vintage RE-201.

This pedal is not at all similar in sound to the Roland Space Echo... Isn't that right?..

it sounds very cool.... but it kinda is its own thing a lot of the time, it ahs all the features. Other emulations don't have the multi ehads or the sound on sound or the spring reverb. Does it sound right? I'll let you decide but if you need all the functionality its a better choice than a TC or Strymon. Most people don't use all the functions of their space echoes and chorus echoes though. They can be really overwhelming, really.

I think Boss Giga Delay has the close vibe/features to it.

I'm telling you, just get one of these babies.... you'll have a great time keeping it running and lifting it around. They're not getting any cheaper and your money will only be worth less and less at this rate of global inflation. The magical properties of these cranky electromechanical boat anchors is truly worth it. Another otion if you just want tape echo with multi heads is the Multivox version which is a better unit for just echo. I ahd this thing up and running yesterday for a mixdown and there's really nothing like them today.

Ain’t nothing like the real thing (baby)

mmhmmmm, but they're a hassle now that they're getting old. ok, they were always a hassle.... and they weigh a ton. I can't believe I used to gig mine. I just picked it up yesterday to get it into my mix position and wire it up to my console when i took the picture above and I'm pretty sure I got a hernia.

for sure, I'll never gig it again, it honestly functions better with line level signals anyway

okay, so I just looked up 301s, 501s and 555s like mine which were more fully featured but used to trade for less.... I take my 1200 estimate back, looks like they've more than double the last few years. Get the strymon capistan, ebebebeb.

I was thrilled when I got El Cap. Gave me the ability to create those gradually deteriorating tones that i always wished I could get when I had my Space Echo.

mine's pretty hifi, I keep fresh tapes around and its always been maintained. My buddy had it for awhile and he tore it down and replaced the pinch rollers and recapped it and stuff, so deteriorating bad echoplex tones are not its thing anymore. It has that natural tape shrinkage where a copy of a copy is less full than the original, but the fidelity is pretty good for a dictaphone tape until you start overloading it and saturating the bandwidth.

there's a lot of this on the used market if you look it up. there's this japan one I was eyeing a few months ago tbh.

I remember when Eventide came out with their first rack mounted digital delay. And then Boss started making the affordable DD series pedals. Digital delay was and still is awesome. As is analog. And the tape delays are great, too. Fortunate to have all these great options.

I've been using a lexicon PCM41 since they went up for sale used after the 42 came out and I really like TC's digital delays, no gripes with digital delay. Its really a golden age of cools tuff, most old stuff can be serviced or is still going strong these days because of tank like build quality and new stuff can be fragile but the prices reflect that versus in our day where things were expensive, really expensive or.... y'know, alesis?

I wodner if the OP ahs considered something less purpose built too, like an HX effects? I thought the models on that thing sounded pretty good across the baord (pun intended) when I tried it before covid. The tapes were pretty decent and you also get things like the biphase, ADA flanger.... they sound pretty nice.

there's a lot of this on the used market if you look it up. there's this japan one I was eyeing a few months ago tbh.

tbh I would not pay anything like current asking prices for one of these... its a sinkhole of time and money, which is probably why my oldest friend gave it back to me! every time you fire it up you want to open the top and make sure nothing looks displaced and the tape looks like it won't tangle or catch, then you turn it on and make sure its behaving and then you cross your fingers. And that's on a serviced one with good motors, fresh tape and new pinch rollers etc

for a while these were getting sold broken and the flood of them on the vintage market is guys who bought them up, fixed them up and now can't find buyers because they won't budge on their prices because if they come down too far they won't turn a profit. There's a lot of fiddly mechanical parts that go out and they add up.