Akai Head Rush Tape Echo Simulator/Loop Recorder

Some knobs have two uses, printing is kinda small, but it's not much harder than your garden variety delay, but does a LOT more.

Excellent! A lot of ground covered in one box-
1. Multi-tap tape emulation with a control for how much degradation from one repeat to the next, each tap can be output to a different amp for a total of up to 5. You can stand in the middle and have the delay pingpong your notes all over the room-who needs drugs!
2. Loop-can record a single loop up to 23 seconds, or a loop to overlay your next notes on up to 11.5 seconds-be Robert Frip in your own basement.
3. Straight echo-up to 8 seconds delay!!!
If you can't afford a Boomerang, this will do everything except the reverse delay.

Looks well built, I've never worked with Akai.

See above.

I play blues (loops are cool for soloing over), rock (that pingpong delay is just too cool) and some acoustic stuff (just use a little slapback). It'll be great for all of them. Run, don't walk, to your local retailer and BUY THIS PEDAL! Bob

The E1 is very simple to use. Although I purchased as an economical replacement for the now extinct Jamman I am quite pleased with this unit. There are no exact adjustment settings for time delays, all three modes are strictly tap tempo or loop record stop/start. This is not a problem, actually for me an advantage being able to set on the fly. Loop is a good 11 seconds plus if you want to layer, 23 seconds plus if you don't. Delays standard and tap are 23 seconds plus. Another nice feature is that it will spill over in delay mode when you tap out, not leaving a noticable void but the remaining regenerations run out as per setting. I like that. I must have a newer version purchased in 6/99, I have experienced no problems what so ever in the loop or tap concerning timing, works flawlessly. Very easy to use.

The sound quality is great, although have noticed with my setup that it does tend to clip easy on input. I am going to use this pedal all the time for delay. I have an old tape maestro echo-plex ep-3 that is not going to be used anymore (sorry not for sale), this emulates an old tube unit better than I can remember. I use a gt-5, ts-9, ada mp-1, a rack full of stuff and old mkII half and silver faced twin. I think this delay pedal is better than any of my digital delays thru the years. It really not only sounds good thru the mkII if feels good. I have not experienced that with any of this digital stuff having always preferred analog whenever possible. Got it for $169 at zzounds.com, it really is worth a spin. Originally purchased for the loop function (very nice) I found it has a real strength in the analog tape sim echo. My unit does not have the noise level previously reported by other users. Just watch the input level.

Have not had any problems.

Have not had any problems.

It was fairly easy to use the delays but the manual wasn't very good. I happend onto some things that it could do that were not in the manual. It has three functions: Tape echo sim./Digital tap delay/loop recorder. These are changed with a little switch. It has two stomp switches one is on off the other is the tap tempo. These same switches are used to record and play back loops. My main problem was with the loop recorder. At the end of every loop there was a pause while the loop began again. I could not get this thing to work in a live setting. Every time the loop started over it would be out of tempo. If there is a way around this I could not figure it out and the manual made no mention of it. The delays were pretty easy to figure out and easy to use.

This unit has 4 outputs. I ran three to a mixer and through a pa, the other I ran to a mesa boogie mk2. I used a strat plus to test it out. The tap delay sounded ok. I really couldn't hear a difference between the delay and the tape simulator. They both worked the same and share the same controls but with different parameters (although they seem to be the same things with different names). This unit is supposed to be true bypass. It added static to the chain on or off and seemed to rob bass response. My other true bypass pedals don't do this. You have to use the included wall a/c adapter so that could be what causes the static. The delay was ok, nothing really great. As I said above I couldn't get the loop recorder to work in tempo so it sounded pretty bad (I spent alot of time with it also trying to get it to work right).

n/a I returned it. It seemed like it was a solid pedal though.

I returned it!

It is an ok delay but I don't think it is worth 200 dollars. To me the loop feature was worthless. Maybe you can get it to work properly? I would definatley try it out before buying it, because it doesn't live up to the ads. If the looper would of worked right I think it would of been a cool pedal. With out the loop it is an overpriced digital delay!