PURPOSE: To perform rewinding in the shortest time while nearly eliminating the possibility that a speed of a reel motor increases and decreases repeatedly, by approximating increase and decrease of speed of a capstan motor to that of the reel motor.

CONSTITUTION: In a timer setting circuit, intervals of time for stepwise acceleration of a capstan motor 6 are stored. A programmable timer sends a counter operating pulse to a speed indicating counter at every set interval of time in the timer setting circuit. When the output of the speed indicating counter is "1", a frequency dividing circuit 17 sends the output of a tachometer 7, i.e. a tachometer pulse to a period counter 18 as it is. The counter 18 measures the period of the tachometer pulse and then sends the measured value to an error detecting circuit 19. The circuit 19 compares the period of a reference signal from a terminal 21 with that of the tachometer pulse; when the period of the tachometer pulse is longer, a capstan motor driving circuit 20 is driven to increase the speed of the capstan motor 6 and when shorter, the speed is decreased.