by alandjackson » 10 Nov 2010, 23:26
Thanks, John, for your query.
The Gold is/was a superb unit having 5 banks each containing 12 echo patches and I was able to programme Meazzi, Watkins, Binson, VOX and Roland sounds into the unit. The sound I describe as warm with a beautiful 'bloom' to the echoes. Each model of echo box simulated had an authentic amount of 'dirt' characteristic of the model and there were controls for the user to change echo volume, feedback, bass and treble and amount of 'wow' to taste and then, if wished, to reprogramme.
I should have liked a little more time to get the prototype exactly right (it was still damned good) before handing it over to Robbo for him to produce some demo tracks but it was never returned to me since the Watkins people thought it good enough.
The downside of the Gold was that changing Banks was a little clumsy and there was no digital display to tell the user which patch had been selected. Perhaps these were the reasons why the Gold did not catch on as only ten machines were ordered and so is has been discontinued. Charlie Watkins told me that he was replacing the Gold with a new unit presently in development which appears to be more user-friendly and I look forward to seeing one to play with.
Alan D. Jackson.