ESTECHO is an analog electronic music project that began in Montreal in 2006, after a series of experiments piping the output of a 60’s drum machine playing a ‘cha cha’ beat through some tape delays and various other effects. In 2007, JF and Rumi, the people behind the project, moved to Kawasaki, Japan, and a few years later to Tokyo, where they still reside and work today.

ESTECHO’s music features a wide range of vintage equipment, such as numerous tape echos, analog synths & drum machines, electric pianos, string instruments and an assortment of analog effects. With these devices, sounds are explored, tweaked and modified extensively; electric current is transformed and shaped through the beautiful uncertainties of the analog domain, before being sent into the digital realm for recording.

Although the songs comprise many genres – electronica, psychedelic music, funky grooves, space rock, chill out, leftfield, downtempo – ESTECHO’s very distinct sound & production brings these styles together into a coherent entity, with a fully analog, unquantized, warm and human sound, applied to contemporary electronic music styles and compositions, through the use of digital editing and a modern musical sensibility. This recipe is what makes ESTECHO unique.

Through the project’s website, ESTECHO also provides an extensive amount of resources dedicated to cataloging and repairing vintage tape delays, effects units and synthesizers, which can also be heard in their music.

 

Disclaimer
This site contains repair, modification and maintenance information for various devices. Although all of it is posted in good faith, and to the best of my knowledge, I am not an electronics engineer, only a hobbyist having gained a small amount of practical skill about the inner workings of old audio equipment. I proceed by trial and error, not by calculations. Please keep this in mind when consulting the technical info contained on this site… Furthermore, basic knowledge of electronics is recommended before tinkering with your precious gear’s guts. If you’re not confident enough in what you’re attempting, finding someone qualified to do the job is probably a better idea.