LAP TSL-A91
A tape echo with four playback heads: a tape loop runs past one record head and four playback heads at fixed spacing, so the echoes come at about 78, 159, 247 and 336 ms. ECHO picks the heads you hear, HALL records them back onto the tape - repeats, a dense reverb, and near the top of the travel self-oscillation. The electronics are modelled part by part and solved as a circuit in real time, the tape is a physical model.
What it is. TSL-A91 is a tape echo with four playback heads. A tape loop runs past one record head and four playback heads at fixed spacing, so the echoes come at about 78, 159, 247 and 336 ms - the time is chosen by picking heads, not by turning a delay knob. ECHO 1–4 mix each head into the output. HALL 1–4 record each head back onto the tape: one head gives repeats at its own time, several heads at once build a dense reverb, and near the top of the travel the loop starts to oscillate, exactly as on the hardware. RECORD sets how hard the tape is driven (soft tape saturation), ORIGINAL adds the direct signal through the unit’s tone stage, BASS and TREBLE shape both. Wow and flutter, tape hiss and the high-frequency losses of real tape are part of the sound. The electronics are a real-time component-level circuit model.
Heads, not a time knob
The tape runs at a fixed speed past four playback heads: about 78, 159, 247 and 336 ms. ECHO 1-4 mix each head into the output - one head for a slap, two or more for rhythmic patterns. TAPE SPEED in the menu moves all heads together by up to ±15 %, with the pitch bend of a real motor while it settles.
HALL - feedback through the tape
HALL 1-4 record a head back onto the tape. One head gives a train of repeats at its time, several heads at once interleave into a dense, irregular reverb. The loop gain reaches about 1 near the top of the travel - turned up far enough the unit oscillates by itself, as the hardware does. The defaults fade out.
Tape
RECORD drives the tape: at full travel a -18 dBFS signal reaches full tape level, louder material saturates softly, highs first. The tape loses top end like real tape, the transport has 1.5 % wow and flutter, each head adds hiss at -42 dB - WOW and TAPE NOISE can be reduced or switched off in the menu.
ORIGINAL · tone · MIX
ORIGINAL feeds the direct signal through the unit's tone stage and output filter; BASS (±18 dB at 40 Hz) and TREBLE (±21 dB at 16 kHz) act on echo and direct signal alike. MIX is an addition for use as an insert: the dry input against the output of the unit, 100 % = the unit as it is.
Output transformer · SATURATION
After the unit can sit a model of a real audio output transformer - the same as in the other TSL plugins - with SATURATION from -12 to +18 dB at the same level. Off by default.
Presets
A preset bar above the panel: categories, Save / Save as / Delete and ◀ ▶. A preset holds the knobs and the menu settings; the selected preset is saved with the project. One plain file per preset.
A mastering-grade plugin
The electronics are solved as a circuit at every sample: about 20 % of a CPU core for a stereo instance at the default 2x oversampling (about 10 % at 1x, 43 % at 4x), the same in 96 and 192 kHz sessions. Made for the master bus, stems, an echo send and a few key tracks - not for every track of a session.
First release. RECORD, ORIGINAL, VOLUME, ECHO 1-4, HALL 1-4, BASS, TREBLE, the ECHO switch, MIX (dry / wet) and POWER; tape saturation, losses, wow and flutter, tape hiss; oversampling 1x / 2x / 4x (default 2x); TAPE SPEED -15 … +15 %, WOW and TAPE NOISE in the right-click menu; a model of a real audio output transformer (off by default) with SATURATION -12 … +18 dB; presets that include the right-click menu settings and are saved with the project.