A tape echo built like a studio rack unit and priced like one - the Chorus Echo that made the Space Echo sound like a toy.

Overview

The RE-501 is the boxed version of Roland's SRE-555. The two machines share exactly the same innards and front-panel layout. The difference is a vinyl-covered wooden box finished in black versus a rack-mount chassis with grab handles and coin screws for pulling the unit free when it's time to change tape or clean heads. Both weigh 23lb. The RE-501 measures 16½ × 7½ × 13 inches. That's a serious piece of furniture next to a pedal, and the price matched: £550.93 ex VAT in the UK, with the rack-mount SRE-555 at £607.83 ex VAT.

You get a four-effect tape unit for the money: Echo, Sound-on-Sound, Chorus, and Reverb, used separately or mixed together. The Echo section runs through a special high-response long-lasting tape loop, and Roland's own literature of the period billed the pair as "the most advanced echo chambers" on the market. That's marketing copy, but the trade press largely agreed with the substance. As one UK reviewer put it, nearly every criticism leveled at the cheaper Boss DM-100 was splendidly refuted by the SRE-555, which went to prove that Roland could really produce the business when money was no object.

The Echo controls take patience. A six-position Mode selector sets the basic delay window, and a Repeat Rate control then stretches or shrinks the delay within that window. Position 1 gives an estimated 70ms with Repeat Rate at 10, opening out to 150ms with Repeat Rate at zero. Position 2 spans roughly 130-450ms, and position 3 spans roughly 200-750ms. Positions 4, 5, and 6 engage multiple playback heads for repeat patterns. Position 4 uses heads one and two, position 5 heads two and three, and position 6 all three. Those repeats can themselves be repeated via the Intensity and Repeat Rate controls. The Intensity control regulates the repeat period, meaning how long the echoes linger, not their volume. The owner's manual reportedly muddies this further by describing Intensity as if it were an echo level. The actual echo level lives on the Volume control, which gives no effect signal at zero and equal effect/direct signals at 10.

Sound-on-Sound on the RE-501 is not the long-delay looping some players expect. It offers a delay range of 550-1800ms depending on the Repeat Rate setting, and that signal can be mixed with any of the six Echo modes. The Korg Stage Echo SE-500, the Echoplex EP-3, and the older Roland RE-301 all have much longer Sound-on-Sound windows. The RE-501's shorter range is arguably more practical for live work, since you're not kicking the effect in ten or thirty seconds before you want it to come back. Roland's own documentation also credits the model with instant playback in Sound-on-Sound, a genuine improvement over the RE-301.

The Chorus section is the sleeper. It's controlled by an Intensity knob mounted on the rear panel, which is an awkward placement for performance, and none of the front-panel rotary controls affect the chorus sound in any way. But the chorus itself is a proper Roland chorus, and the combination of chorus and echo from a single tape transport is the reason these units hold their value. The Reverb section has a Volume control but no status light and no hand switch. It's governed by the overall bypass footswitch socket, and a faint rattle from inside the box suggests a spring tank. The sound it produces is excellent, even though the owners' manual says nothing about the facility at all.

The routing is professional. Balanced XLR inputs and outputs are provided for mixing-desk work, alongside a ¼-inch jack input for mics and instruments with its own input level switching, and a sequential LED input level indicator at top left. Two outputs on the right of the front panel can serve as separate Direct and Effect outputs for both echo and chorus, or the Direct output can be used alone for a blend of direct and effect signal. Treble and Bass tone controls act on all four effect signals without touching the direct signal, flat at 5 on the dial. The whole system can be pre-programmed before a performance and then selected at will with up to five remote footswitches. Period advertising positioned the RE-501 as the direct successor to the RE-301. It added the XLR balanced inputs, a better signal-to-noise ratio than its predecessor, faster-reacting LED metering in place of the RE-301's VU system, and that instant-playback Sound-on-Sound. That made four improvements at an unchanged suggested retail price.

It isn't a digital delay. Modern Recording (June 1981, p.4) made the case plainly: buyers would find plenty of digital delays in the same price range as the RE-501, but a digital system is not automatically better, and most digital units of the day carried a serious drawback the tape machine avoided. The tape loop is the sound - slightly imperfect, warm, and impossible to clone exactly - and the tradeoff is maintenance. Roland's ready-made loops came in small plastic packs, fitted reasonably easily, and were said to last over 300 hours. When they don't, the machine stops being an echo unit and becomes a project. The rear-panel chorus Intensity control and the manual-only effect selector (no footswitch selection between the two effects) are the ergonomic complaints that have followed this model since new.

The people who own them tend to keep them. The people who service them tend to charge accordingly.

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