On Personal Projects and Giving Up (Echo-Matic Deluxe Update)

Personal projects often feel like a weird limbo between work and play. Starting a project motivated by nothing but passion and a willingness to learn is great. Even if the initial enthusiasm fades, it’s still worth it to power through. A finished project is often its own satisfaction. But when all personal interest in the project evaporates, even the most simple tasks become tedious. Every time I think about my gutted Marantz tape deck project, I find myself caring less and less. My recent move to Santa Clara was the final excuse I needed; I’m no longer working on the DIY tape echo project.

Maybe some context would help. When I started this project, I thought that analog circuit design, specifically for audio applications, would be my calling in life. I loved music, and my major was EE. What more needed to be said? As it turns out, quite a bit. Sure, I passed my analog classes, but all of the cool stuff I wanted to do seemed locked behind a barrier of pedantic prerequisite knowledge. At the same time, I realized I was perfectly fine with my existing tape echo simulator, which had luxuries like functional knobs and a power supply that wasn’t a fire hazard. But hey, at least the prototype worked, right?

Well, that was the final nail in the project’s coffin: even when the deck was working, it didn’t even sound that great. Don’t get me wrong, it did this cool distorted slapback sound really well. But other than that, it was a one-trick pony. The delay rate wasn’t variable, so I couldn’t get rhythmic, Slowdive-style tones out of it. Self-oscillation was inevitable, and the feedback knob did almost nothing to curb it. By the time these problems manifested, my passion for the Echo-Matic Deluxe was entirely spent. I just wanted to move on.

So even though it pains me to give up, I’m pulling the plug on my Echo-Matic Deluxe project. I hope that any of the resources I’ve created are helpful to those tackling the same project. Happy Debugging!