Dusk Audio has released Tape Echo 2, a free three-head tape delay and spring reverb plugin that models the tape transport, record and playback chain, tape aging, regeneration, and mechanical behavior of a tape echo.
Tape Echo 2 is a free, unofficial copy of the Roland Space Echo that they say is modeled from the record head through the output amplifier. Its three playback heads share a single ‘motor’, with their positions determined by fixed mechanical ratios. Changing the Repeat Rate therefore changes the timing of all active heads together, with motor inertia producing a glide between speeds.
The plugin also models tape saturation, wow, flutter, hiss, level variation, tape splice dropouts and self-oscillation. A spring reverb uses three unequal modeled springs, and 12 modes provide different combinations of the three playback heads and reverb.
Features:
- Three playback heads driven by a single modeled motor
- Twelve echo modes covering individual heads, multiple-head combinations and spring reverb
- Head 1 delay range of approximately 70 to 178 ms
- Heads 2 and 3 use fixed mechanical ratios relative to Head 1
- Combined multi-head modes produce rhythmic repeat patterns
- Motor inertia produces gradual changes in repeat speed
- Eleven host-tempo synchronization note divisions
- Tempo synchronization respects the physical range of the modeled tape transport
- Three Tape Age conditions: New, Used and Old
- Tape Age simultaneously affects wow, scrape flutter, hiss and playback-level variation
- Modeled tape saturation and record/playback chain
- Regeneration control ranging from a single repeat through cascading repeats and self-oscillation
- Self-oscillation is modeled through tape saturation, record-chain compression and tape-flux behavior
- Spring reverb modeled with three unequal springs
- Two allpass diffusers create a denser spring-reverb tail
- Twelve echo/reverb routing modes
- Record Input switch can mute the tape feed while leaving the spring reverb active
- Independent Echo and Reverb volume controls
- Independent Echo and Reverb panning
- Bass and Treble controls for the echo return
- Dry/wet Mix control
- Record-path VU meter with analog-style ballistics
- Peak indicator referenced to digital full scale
- Automatic tape splice dropout as the modeled tape join passes the heads
- 13 factory presets
- Resizable interface
- Full parameter automation support
- Supports sample rates from 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz
- Linux support with VST3, LV2 and CLAP formats
- Windows support with VST3 and CLAP formats
- macOS support with VST3, AU, LV2 and CLAP formats
- Requires a 64-bit DAW supporting a compatible plugin format
- Open-source software released under the GPL-3.0-or-later license
Pricing & Availability:
Tape Echo 2 is available now as a free download. Dusk Audio states that all of its plugins are free and open source. Version 1.0.0 supports Linux, Windows and macOS in the plugin formats listed above.
Nice, I wonder how this one perform compared to the more premium paid software emulations… (UAD) (Arturia)…etc…
AI slop
That really doesn’t add much to the conversation. The term “AI slop” is terribly overused. If you really want to avoid AI created software, you better stop purchasing or downloaded pretty much all software. All current software development is using AI “tools”.
What makes you call this ‘AI slop’? I see people saying this sometimes now as sort of a knee-jerk reaction to some new plugins.
This actually looks pretty cool to me – I’d love to get my hands on a hardware Space Echo.
I do not recomment to install this plugin. I tried it out and could not find any resemblence in sound with a Roland Space Echo. Also, like in all other RE-201 emulations, the EQ is post feedback. Nobody seems to know that the original has the EQ pre feedback. With this you can ‘catch’ a sound bite and bring it to the front with manual EQ and feedback adjustments.
Such flaws in emulations tell something about today’s plugin world. Even well known companies like Universal Audio have a RE-201 plugin with this fault in the emulation.