This paper treats a vibration control method that can be used in textile machinery to reduce the unbalanced vibration of an overhung roller-motor system. To control the vibration of the overhung roller, a drive motor with a hybrid type vibration control device consisted with rubber springs and electromagnets is used. When the vibration control system is set up in the textile machinery for industrial use, the stand supporting the control system to the base may be assumed not too rigid but elastic. For a certain value of the elastic stand stiffness, the vibration control performance of the overhung roller becomes very low. In order to prevent this deterioration, a stiffness control achieved by a positive feedback of the displacement signal of the rubber spring is proposed and the effectiveness of the stiffness control is confirmed by simulations and experiments. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.