RE-301 question...

Just curious for any of you who use the 210/301/etc... how noisy is this unit? Being an analog/tape unit, is there some inherent white noise, his, shhhhhhh, sound?

I've never played one, just curious. Alot of today's pedal are silent, but I imagine some of the old gear is NOT...?

I own a 301. I purchased it about 7 years ago from the original owner. He used it a few times in his home studio but for the most part it sat around unused. When I recieved the unit, it still surprisinly not only had the original tape but had life left to the tape. I myself have giged with the 301 as well as used it in the studio a handfull of times. Call me crazy but after seven years of owning it I still have yet to change tape. I know you can find them on ebay and there is a re-issue tape company out of Australia, but I just haven't changed it yet. So to answer your question, my unit is a little noisy when idle and not playing. You basically hear a small amount of tape hiss. I can't say if they all do that or if it is because my tape is so old? But in my experiences playing vintage amps over the years and vintage pedals or tape units like the 301, one of the drawbacks to great sounding vintage tone is that they can be a little noisy, but at least for me in my experiences with recording and live tone, I find the noisyness to be almost unoticable to the average non musician listener and the benefts of having the killer vintage tone outways any type of small noise that may occur. Put it this way, would you rather have a new cadillac with a quit as can be engine or would you rather have a 59 convertible cadillac where the engine slightly ticks at stop lights but as soon as you gas it, it goes away. Just my two cents the 59 is going to turn heads and get you more compliments than a newer car or digital echo.

ruger9 wrote:

Just curious for any of you who use the 210/301/etc... how noisy is this unit? Being an analog/tape unit, is there some inherent white noise, his, shhhhhhh, sound?

I've never played one, just curious. Alot of today's pedal are silent, but I imagine some of the old gear is NOT...?

The 301 is slightly less noisy than the 201, but both have hiss. I mean
its a mechanical multi-effects unit that is all analog.
The guitar runs into the units pre-amp and then through
the effects. Whether or not the chorus, tape delay or reverb unit
are "turned on", they are not true bypassed. heck the whole thing
is a monster of analog components, wiring harnesses,mechanical tape
heads, preamp, recovery amp,transformers..
Its art, beauty and function!! ( I've had many many of these and they all cost money to keep up and STILL are a pain in the ass if you
use them every time you fire up your amp)

but for the money, get a fulltone TTE, if you really want great tape delay.. I know Setzer uses the re-301 live and the whole special preamp thing.. BUT most of the time on his recordings you are listening to an echoplex..why? because its tape echo sounds the best and his producer likes the echoplex...just remember we're talking about the tape echo effect.

FWIW.. take a look inside the RE-301.. you can almost smell the lithium grease and aging tolex! hear the SSSSSSSSsssssssssssss of the tape sliding past the tape heads and pinch roller!

The reason I asked...

I just got a Lovepedal Echo Baby. It's another "digital sim of tape delay". But it's the BEST one I've heard. AND it has an onboard preamp/level control.

Good:
it's tiny, it has only 1 knob (outside): delay time. It has adjustable modulation. Once it's set for a nice, dreamy, slightly modulated "Sleepwalk", you can dial it back to minimum time for the PERFECT slapback, without having to re-adjust any of the other controls. Very easy to use, if the only thing you need to change is delay time.

Bad:
It has a repeat control, and a mix control, in addition to the aforementioned level control, but they are trimmers INSIDE the box. Holes have been drilled in the bottom of the case, but still... I'd prefer all my knobs OUTSIDE, thank you very much.

Anyway, the thing sounds better (for the Setzer-tape thing) than the AD-999, Dan-Echo, Echo Park, Reel Echo, RE-20, and everything else I've tried. BUT IT HAS HISS. Not alot, but I'm anal about that stuff... my pedalboard is pretty much SILENT. So, to keep things in perspective, I was wondering how much hiss I'd be putting up with on a RE-301.

Interestingly, I sent it back to Lovepedal to see if they could reduce the hiss, and they did, by putting a 470pf cap on the output, but it cuts the highs a tad and the delay lost some of it's "tape-ness". So I removed it, and I'm back to a really awesome delay, that I use ONLY for my 'billy stuff (so I don't need to mess with repeats & mix), and a hiss that, for now, I'll live with.

PGS demo:
http://www.proguitarshop.com/product.php?ProductID=1698&CategoryID=308

ruger9 wrote:

The reason I asked...

I just got a Lovepedal Echo Baby. It's another "digital sim of tape delay". But it's the BEST one I've heard. AND it has an onboard preamp/level control.

Good:
it's tiny, it has only 1 knob (outside): delay time. It has adjustable modulation. Once it's set for a nice, dreamy, slightly modulated "Sleepwalk", you can dial it back to minimum time for the PERFECT slapback, without having to re-adjust any of the other controls. Very easy to use, if the only thing you need to change is delay time.

Bad:
It has a repeat control, and a mix control, in addition to the aforementioned level control, but they are trimmers INSIDE the box. Holes have been drilled in the bottom of the case, but still... I'd prefer all my knobs OUTSIDE, thank you very much.

Anyway, the thing sounds better (for the Setzer-tape thing) than the AD-999, Dan-Echo, Echo Park, Reel Echo, RE-20, and everything else I've tried. BUT IT HAS HISS. Not alot, but I'm anal about that stuff... my pedalboard is pretty much SILENT. So, to keep things in perspective, I was wondering how much hiss I'd be putting up with on a RE-301.

Interestingly, I sent it back to Lovepedal to see if they could reduce the hiss, and they did, by putting a 470pf cap on the output, but it cuts the highs a tad and the delay lost some of it's "tape-ness". So I removed it, and I'm back to a really awesome delay, that I use ONLY for my 'billy stuff (so I don't need to mess with repeats & mix), and a hiss that, for now, I'll live with.

PGS demo:
http://www.proguitarshop.com/product.php?ProductID=1698&CategoryID=308

what about putting it in the fx loop of your TIM pedal?

I've got a Timmy, not a TIM, and either way, it would still add the hiss. When I'm playing my Hot Rod, the delay is an "always on" pedal, so...

ruger9 wrote:

I've got a Timmy, not a TIM, and either way, it would still add the hiss. When I'm playing my Hot Rod, the delay is an "always on" pedal, so...

share with me your entire pedal chain from your hands to your speakers... (kinda sounds weird huh?)

HR w/TVJ Classics
Spectraflex cable
Lovepedal Echo Baby
3ft. Spectraflex cable
Amp (Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 - AC30 variant)

It's definitely the pedal that has hiss- I isolated it to the only pedal in the chain, and I tried powering it with 2 different power supplies. The filtering the guy at Lovepedal added basically just cut some highs, which cut some hiss, but it also messed with the tone more than I liked, so I removed it. The hiss is either in the circuit design, or maybe in the delay chips? I don't know enough about it. There aren't a tone of people that own these- they're brand new- so trying to get a consensus on how much hiss is "normal" didn't really work out.

ruger9 wrote:

HR w/TVJ Classics
Spectraflex cable
Lovepedal Echo Baby
3ft. Spectraflex cable
Amp (Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 - AC30 variant)

It's definitely the pedal that has hiss- I isolated it to the only pedal in the chain, and I tried powering it with 2 different power supplies. The filtering the guy at Lovepedal added basically just cut some highs, which cut some hiss, but it also messed with the tone more than I liked, so I removed it. The hiss is either in the circuit design, or maybe in the delay chips? I don't know enough about it. There aren't a tone of people that own these- they're brand new- so trying to get a consensus on how much hiss is "normal" didn't really work out.

a million dollar question.. will you open it and send a pict of the
circuit board? something inside me is guessing they may have used
analog tone circuitry but the rest is digital. kinda what Trex does..
if the digi chips is not top notch... voila "HISSSssss"

That's kind of what I'm suspecting, TV. Altho I expect Lovepedal to use good chips... I even sent it back to him, and he heard the hiss, but never mentioned replacing the chip, he only added some high frequency filtering, which of course messed with the tone.

Here's a pic, but it's SO small, I don't know if you'll be able to tell anything or not... my digital camera is a Cybershot, but it doesn't do close-up well...

I can see a PT2399 chip in there... is that the delay chip?

ruger9 wrote:

That's kind of what I'm suspecting, TV. Altho I expect Lovepedal to use good chips... I even sent it back to him, and he heard the hiss, but never mentioned replacing the chip, he only added some high frequency filtering, which of course messed with the tone.

Here's a pic, but it's SO small, I don't know if you'll be able to tell anything or not... my digital camera is a Cybershot, but it doesn't do close-up well...

I can see a PT2399 chip in there... is that the delay chip?

well for one,the delay chip from Princeton tech (PT2399) is a digital chip with 44kB of integrated memory..supposedly very warm for a digi chip...

BUT there is that other gargantuan processor thing in there... oooweeee

Low res digit chips are starting to be used for delay pedals and some of these companies
lie by saying they have an analog delay pedal that is only partially analog.


thanks for sharing, even if its a blurry picture it still tells you what youre dealing with and
that hisss told on it before it was even opened!

My Trex replica hissed a bit as did my SIB mr echo.. both pulled the same stunt... Trex is just
better at it with their Burr Brown components..
Though I'll take a DL4 ANYday over these hybrids... nothing comes close tonally

I love my Echo Park, the analog model (which is supposedly of a DMM) is quite good, but I don't like the tape model much (which is supposedly of an EP). Digital, it's well... digital. Good for U2 stuff.

For that rockabilly/tape thing, the Echo Baby really sounds great... better than my AD999, except for the hiss.

ruger9 wrote:

I love my Echo Park, the analog model (which is supposedly of a DMM) is quite good, but I don't like the tape model much (which is supposedly of an EP). Digital, it's well... digital. Good for U2 stuff.

For that rockabilly/tape thing, the Echo Baby really sounds great... better than my AD999, except for the hiss.

man..you aint kiddin! a little tim with the symmetrical clip engaged, a swash of vibrato and
the DL4 layin' down these

TV-

Just an update. I talked to the builer (Sean) on the phone, and he's convinced I got a bum unit. He's sending me a new one to A/B with the original one, to verify it's a bum unit & not a problem with the circuit... because if I've discovered a circuit problem, he wants to fix it with all subsequent untis.

So, big +1 for LovePedal customer service!