Stewart Copeland and the Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo: Investigation

This page concerns the backstory behind Stewart Copeland and him developing his drum echo technique with the Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo device (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a 'Space Echo').

It is widely reported by many sources that Stewart bought the Echo from Manny's Music Store (48th Street, New York) and used it the next day during a concert at My Father's Place, Long Island on October 2nd 1979. Stewart's recollection of his discovery of possibilities of using echo on the drums is as follows: "One afternoon when we got a pay day, we were touring in America and one day we were in New York with money in our pockets and we went down to Manny's Music store on 48th Street... We just picked instruments off the wall. Sting and I both bought Stratocasters, loaded up on Roland amplifiers as Roland was the brand of the day. We got every Roland device they made - Sting and Andy each got a set of bass pedals, amps, and delay lines. The Roland [Chorus] Echo, Andy got one, so I wanted one too and I got [myself] one.

The next day at soundcheck out [at My Father's Place] in Long Island, we brought all our new toys, arrayed on the stage. With my new Roland amp and my new Roland echo device, I'm sitting there playing my drums and I haven't got a guitar but I want to play with my echo, so I put my snare drum through the echo. Within seconds, 'whoa! This is cool!' And so we spent the afternoon in an orgy of repeat echo and totally f**ked up the gig that night with repeat echo and that was the beginning of it. It became more refined. (Musicradar interview, 2014)

However, there is evidence that Stewart had, in fact, developed the technique months earlier than that. The dates to 27 April 1979 at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta, Georgia. And of course, he had it in time for recording the Reggatta De Blanc album, on which the echo features prominently in the title track and "Walking On The Moon".

Stewart's recollection as quoted above is plagued with some inaccuracies: he seems to suggest there was one large shopping spree at Manny's (which, from his memory included buying Stratocaster guitars) and links it to the My Father's Place concert on 2 October 1979. But Sting and Stewart bought Stratocasters at Manny's earlier almost a year before, so he could be misremembering about a handful (if not multiple) visits to Manny's (between 1978 and 1979) as one large shopping spree.

Here is what Stewart recalled in Modern Drummer magazine October 1982 issue about the development of the echo, considerably not as distorted: "'I first started using echo with Eberhard Schoener [German composer who The Police once worked with in 1977-79]. The musical concepts were very weird and the show was two and a half hours long. He had lasers, mime artists, all this weird synthesizer stuff, a string quartet and all sorts of strange stuff. I would go “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle” through the quad echos and the ethereal music kind of washed it back and forth. I would hit a woodblock once and it would echo around and stuff, and I got into the echo. Then when we were touring in America and making the customary “English band in New York” stop in Manny’s, I got a Roland [Chorus] Echo and an amplifier. I had it on tour with me, waiting to get home to play with it with my guitar. But it was frustrating having it sitting in the truck and never playing with it. So I pulled it on stage during a sound check and had it sitting right behind me. As I was using the echo, I figured I’d put my snare through it, so I got another microphone, stuck it on the snare, put it through the echo to the amplifier sitting right behind me, and immediately, a new device was born. I’ve developed it since.'"

In this recollection, compared to what was suggested in the earlier quote, he implies more time elapsed between him purchasing the Chorus Echo (initially for guitar) and trying it out in soundcheck on the drums. The amplifier referred to was likely the Fender Twin; he did not get the Roland JC-60 Jazz Chorus until October 1979, which was often seen to Stewart's right in many photos.

Stewart's specific memory of My Father's Place in the more recent recollection could have more likely tied in with trying out the Roland JC-60 on the Chorus Echo during that specific soundcheck. The Police played at My Father's Place previously on 29 March 1979. But on the other hand, photographic evidence from around that time shows he wasn't yet using it on stage yet. For example, it isn't yet seen in this photo from the Bottom Line concert on April 3, 1979 - normally the Chorus Echo was positioned on a road case to Stewart's left, below the hi-hat, but is absent in the photo.

So overall, Stewart most likely acquired the Chorus Echo as early as March 1979, but didn't start using it live until around late April 1979.