Tape Echo 2 — Tape Echo and Spring Reverb for Ableton Move

A component-modelled vintage three-head tape echo with spring reverb for Schwung on Ableton Move. Twelve head and reverb combinations, record EQ and tape saturation inside the feedback loop so every repeat darkens and compresses, wow and flutter, tape age, and tempo sync with the reference machine's leading-head note tables.

Controls

Page	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Main	Time	Sync	Fbk	Mix	Tone	Width	Tape	Mode
Advanced	Arm	Drive	Age	W&F	Bass	Treble	Rate	—
Out	Echo	Verb	Pong	Div	—	—	—	—

Main is the front page. Time is in milliseconds and stays within the current head, so it never fights Mode. Tone, Tape and Width are macros over real parameters — Tone tilts Bass against Treble, Tape moves Wow & Flutter with Tape Age (age multiplies flutter, so they belong together), and Width arms Ping Pong on a rising edge, which keeps Pong Off / Width 100 reachable. Everything a macro touches is still on Advanced or Out and moves there too.

Modes are H1 H2 H3 H2+3 H1+R H2+R H3+R H12+R H23+R H13+R H123R Rev — digits are the live playback heads, R is the spring tank.

Fbk above ~75% self-oscillates. Arm is the dub switch: off stops feeding the tape while existing repeats wash out — the spring still hears you, so a +R mode keeps reverberating. Bass and Treble are on the echo path only.

Pong alternates successive repeats left and right, Width sets how far it swings. Each head alternates on its own delay, so the multi-head modes separate too. With it off the echo bus is mono and the output is bit-identical to Dusk Audio's original — the build checks that against a fresh copy of upstream on every run.

Tape Echo 2 reads the older TapeDelay module's settings: the stored delay time picks the playback head that can reach it, and feedback, mix, tone, note division and stereo width carry across, calibrated per head against measured decay rather than a flat scale. A patch names the module it wants, though, so point it at this one first:

python3 tools/convert_tapedelay_patch.py MyPatch.json

Remote panel

A tape-deck style editor in the browser: draggable knobs, mode and rate-note selectors, tempo sync and input send switches, and a record meter. Open it while the module is loaded in an FX slot:

move.local:7700/api/remote-ui/module-assets/tape-echo2/web_ui.html

On a Schwung that offers custom UIs to FX slots (#253) the same panel appears inside the module's section on move.local:7700/remote-ui. It reads the component it is driving from the host, so it addresses the right FX slot either way.

Install

Via the Schwung Module Store, or manually: copy dist/tape-echo2/ to /data/UserData/schwung/modules/audio_fx/tape-echo2/ on the device.

Building

Requires Docker (cross-compiles for the Move's ARM64, pinned to glibc 2.35):

./scripts/build.sh               # builds build/tape-echo2.so + dist/tape-echo2-module.tar.gz
./scripts/deploy.sh <host>       # safe deploy (atomic rename, never over a live .so)

Credits

• Tape Echo 2 by Dusk Audio (GPL-3.0) — the DSP, and all of the modelling credit. The core in src/ported/ carries one Schwung-specific change, marked in the files: a per-head ping-pong stage on the echo output tap. Switch Ping Pong off and it is upstream sample for sample, which the build verifies against a fresh checkout of the original.
• @charlesvestal — Schwung itself, and a substantial contribution back to this module: the macro front page, a per-head calibration of the TapeDelay import, and repairs to the core-equivalence gate (#1).
• Move port by athousanddetails.

GPL-3.0, inherited from upstream.