It must be THAT Meazzi!

[dave robinson]

Ecca is right, the Revox (or similar) was often utilised as an echo machine - a classic example is Eddie Cochran's talking bit on 'Summertime Blues'. There was a a choice of echo speeds as the Revox would play between 1.75ips to 15ips plus the Varispeed option.

[RayL]

Agreed that any three-head tape device running at the right speed could have been used so . . . . . does anyone know Joe Brown well enough to ask him?

The mention of the Revox raises a whole new set of questions. At that time only the B36 and C36 models would have been available. These were valve machines with AC synchronous motors and tape speeds of 3.75 and 7.5 ips. The only way to varispeed them was to power them from a powerful (150w+) audio amplifier (hens teeth in 1959) driven by a variable-frequency sine-wave source. Were you thinking of the A77/B77 models which could be made to varispeed by adding a pot? These were not available until several years later (the A77 first appeared in 1967).

Joe would presumably have recorded this Decca single (Darktown Strutters Ball / Swagger) at the Decca studios in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead (where the Beatles did their notorious 15 audition tracks a couple of years later with Tony Meehan as Producer). A quick Google has failed to find any lists of the recording equipment available, but since Decca didn't make their own tape recorders it is reasonable to guess that, like Abbey Road, they used the EMI BTR1 and BTR2 as their main recorders in 1959/60.

Besides, the Revox would be seen as 'domestic' equipment (expensive, but still 'domestic') and in an age when the engineers wore white coats over their suits ("Sports jackets are allowed on Saturdays") it seems unlikely that 'domestic' would have found a place in the control rooms of a major recording company.

Ray L

[Didier]

Ecca is right, the Revox (or similar) was often utilised as an echo machine - a classic example is Eddie Cochran's talking bit on 'Summertime Blues'. There was a a choice of echo speeds as the Revox would play between 1.75ips to 15ips plus the Varispeed option.

Another pionneer of echoes is Marino Marino in Italy who also used tape recorders to generate echoes back in 1956.
Listen to a sample here : http://www.4shared.com/get/110844025/db ... xtrai.html
May be this is what led to the design of dedicated echo machines in this country.
I dont think there was a varispeed option on Revox tape recorders, which used two speed synchronous motors.

Didier

[dave robinson]

Regarding my comment about the Revox, I did say 'or similar'. I saw tape machines over in RCA Studio 'B' in Nashville that clearly had facilities for echo, which were used by Chet Atkins back in the fifties. I don't claim to be an expert on the actual gear that was used, but you can hear the evidence of echo being used from these machines as early as the Les Paul recordings mentioned by Ecca. Chet's own echo box was designed and built into an amp called the 'EchoSonic' by a gentleman called Ray Butts in 1954, inspired by the Les Paul recordings. The tape loop system was housed in the bottom of the amp, under the speakers. Chet reckons that by 1958, every guitar player of note in the USA was using one of these amps.

[Didier]

Chet's own echo box was designed and built into an amp called the 'EchoSonic' by a gentleman called Ray Butts in 1954, inspired by the Les Paul recordings. The tape loop system was housed in the bottom of the amp, under the speakers.

I have heard about these Echosonic amps : http://echosonicamp.com/

Chet reckons that by 1958, every guitar player of note in the USA was using one of these amps.

Only 68 were made, that's not enough for every guitarists to have one, but Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore did...

Didier

[dave robinson]

. . . . . and both of those were guitarists 'of note' . . . . . see if you can find me 65 more in the USA at that time Didier.

[Didier]

. . . . . and both of those were guitarists 'of note' . . . . . see if you can find me 65 more in the USA at that time Didier.

You are right, I missed "of note" !...

Didier

[ecca]

I remember doing a simple repeat echo using an Akai reel to reel recorder in the mid-seventies.
It was a case of using the signal from the instrument directly plus the signal from the playback head- which was delayed.
The exact manner is long forgotten.

[dave robinson]

That's exactly the way it was done in recording studios Ecca. I went to a couple of 'name' studios where a couple of Revox machines had been 'inverted' so that they could use giant tape loops with a 10" reel swinging freely under the machine with the tape turning the reel in mid air, like a giant Copicat stood on it's back, with the heads facing the ceiling. I never did investigate it any further, but I managed to use my Tascam 32 in a similar fashion, using a full 10" reel of tape rather than making the loop. The trouble was with that method, you were forever rewinding the tape.

[Amanda]

Hi,

A friend and I used to spend many happy hours into the night at Silver Blades Ice Rink,
in Birmingham recording the Hammond C3 we used a series 7 ferrograph for "Track bounce"
multitracking and a ferrograph series 4 with an extra replay head and preamp for echo.

We used to get a fantastic reverb by pushing a mic through the curtains on the stage and
picking up the reverb off the Ice!