Echo machines...

[alanbakewell]

Ecca's trumpets are something to behold.

[Jetblack56]

Hi all,

I have just had a "Modern E2 By LGK", a valve driven tape echo built from the specs of Meazzi Echomatic I and II. It has 6 replay heads and selectable feedback from the 4 last heads. It also has variable speed. There are separate switches for the playback heads and also for the feedback heads the combinations are almost infinite

https://app.box.com/s/ctla08sa6blupd9cz083jghdvehgpg4j MODERN ECHOMATIC

https://app.box.com/s/80trz0z6cce97k1v8pgcri49b94p4p30

https://app.box.com/s/w4d512g7e1wktfw9lk01dbih6k6wjwu0 ECHOMATIC SOUND FILE

Steph.

[abstamaria]

My informal combo played yesterday after

a long layoff. It was good opportunity to use one of the echo machines i accumulated over the years. I keep them in a rack with front and back covers that protect them from dust.

I have one of Charlie Hall’s G7 1UT pedals too, but given away a spare as well as a Q20 from Charlie.

There are aritifacts that will likely be a puzzle to guitarists 20 years hence.

Andy

PS: My apologies for the duplicated photos. I’m not sure how that happened.

[JJMMWG DuPree]

I'm just going through all (Well... Most) of the stuff on here that I've never looked at in preparation for the shutdown and as someone that really has no interest in getting any 'sound' particularly, I get all my pleasure from just playing music that I like, I can't be sure if that makes me more or less ideal to pass opinions on this subject.

So I'll do it anyway.

On the Shads re recordings of their back-catalogue on which they supposedly went to great lengths to duplicate their own sound, and you don't even have to do an A/B comparison, you can hear almost immediately that even they couldn't do it.

60's Voxes weren't all built in the same shop, or even the same town, and they also suffered from the 'Monday morning, Friday afternoon' syndrome normally associated with motor cars. The odds on you getting a perfect match must be humongous. Your best bet is to buy a Peterson or an amp intended for acoustic guitars and try to modify your signal electronically. This presents its own problems...

Digital and analogue are two different things and will never be the same, but the odds on you never playing in the presence of someone who actually can hear the difference are pretty good. I think it was something like 2 per million. For the 60s stuff analogue is obviously best but the rules regarding what you can and can't use in your equipment have changed over the years. As an example, my Mesa Boogie has a spec that can no longer be (Legally) duplicated, and the valves in it are no longer obtainable from the original source (But I can't hear the difference). If you go digital there's loads of stuff you can use to modify your sound, I'll bet that's what the Shads were using in their later years. The downside is that they have to be programmed unless you buy loads of them (which can damage your sound anyway), and I, for one, can't be bothered.

I can see that you guys are really into getting your sounds right, even down to getting the right colour guitar (And yes, surprisingly, the paint job can make a difference!) and whatever turns you on... I'm not sure whether I envy you or not!

[abstamaria]

That is perfectly fine, Deke. Our pursuits, although musical, differ.

I believe the nucleus for this forum, the basic core around which the discussions revolve, is constituted by two subjects - all things Shadows of course and the eternal quest for That Sound.

I didn’t know how hard the Shadows tried in later versions to replicate That Sound, which is generally regarded here as their sound up to the Burns Era, or if that was ever their goal. Why would they want to reproduce exactly tracks they already recorded decades ago, I ask myself. There would be no point, I conclude.

That Sound is very difficult to achieve, absent Abbey Road Studios, but many here have come exceedingly close. Some of them sound more like the early 1960s Hank than Hank did after those early years!

Undeterred, our ragtag band Walking Shadow has been trying to replicate That Sound live with Vox vacuum tube (valve) amps and no digital devices other than the echoes by Charlie Hall or a TVS3. At one how, we did away with keyboards and employed live cellists, violinists, brass, and so on. That was satisfying. Nowadays, I find it more satisfying to play with the band in a studio, where we have more control and do not have to deal with compromises imposed by a performance on stage. We can focus on the music and That Sound.

Will we or someone here achieve That Sound 100%? Probably not, but that is the nature of a quest. (A major hit by Frank Sinatra talks about such dreams.) That Sound is the holy Grail, and folks here have been happily chasing it for the 20+ years since this wonderful forum began. May we never achieve it completely!

Andy

[Moderne]

Why would they want to reproduce exactly tracks they already recorded decades ago, I ask myself.

Andy

Around 1989 they recorded an album for Rollover Records entitled "At Their Very Best" which was a compilation of their hits from the '60s - plus Argentina and Deerhunter. (The tracklisting was very similar to 20 Golden Greats...but with the aforementioned two tracks plus The Stranger and The Boys substituted for Maroc 7, The Warlord, Stingray and A Place in the Sun.) The reasoning was that The Shadows would have more control (and get paid more money!) over any future "Greatest Hits" compilations on Polydor/Rollover than EMI-released compilations - over which they had no control. They attempted to replicate the sound of the original recordings, and there was a note on the back of the sleeve stating that Hank had used a Vox AC30 amp (presumably hoping that this fact would sway any undecided purchasers!). It's a perfectly listenable LP - but, of course, lacks the indefinable magic of the original recordings. How close they got to 'that sound' is for others to debate!
(I believe they edited some of these recordings for the Shadowmix single - their final British single - which attempted to cash in on the Jive Bunny craze.)

[nivramarvin]

I suspect that this compilation is identical to "Dreamboats & Petticoats: The Shadows - The First 60Years" from 1989, which I found on Apple Music. Iconic titles like "FBI", "Theme for young lovers", "Atlantis", "Rise & Fall", "Kon Tiki" etc. sound - at least to my ears - nothing like the "originals" from the sixties.

[abstamaria]

Thanks, Clive, Wolfgang. I can understand why our heroes wanted to overlay the original recordings. They may get at least the economic benefit of the later versions of the tracks and any reissues of the same. The magic of the early recordings would have been very difficult to capture though, even for them (it’s not “all in the fingers”), and they might have benefitted from advice from this forum! For one, Paul Rossiter’s detailed post here on the gear the Shadows could have used to good advantage would have been useful.

But I do not know how seriously the Shadows tried to replicate That Sound or if they were wont to make the tremendous effort to do so.

I should look up the 1989 album in Jim Nugent’s excellent curated site on Shadows recordings.

Best,

Andy

[Didier]

Why would they want to reproduce exactly tracks they already recorded decades ago, I ask myself.

Andy

Around 1989 they recorded an album for Rollover Records entitled "At Their Very Best" which was a compilation of their hits from the '60s - plus Argentina and Deerhunter. (The tracklisting was very similar to 20 Golden Greats...but with the aforementioned two tracks plus The Stranger and The Boys substituted for Maroc 7, The Warlord, Stingray and A Place in the Sun.) The reasoning was that The Shadows would have more control (and get paid more money!) over any future "Greatest Hits" compilations on Polydor/Rollover than EMI-released compilations - over which they had no control. They attempted to replicate the sound of the original recordings, and there was a note on the back of the sleeve stating that Hank had used a Vox AC30 amp (presumably hoping that this fact would sway any undecided purchasers!). It's a perfectly listenable LP - but, of course, lacks the indefinable magic of the original recordings. How close they got to 'that sound' is for others to debate!
(I believe they edited some of these recordings for the Shadowmix single - their final British single - which attempted to cash in on the Jive Bunny craze.)

As Bruce Welch tell in his book, when the contract and the Shadows ended in 1980, they asked to have rights for their previous recordings, which had already been done for some EMI artists, but EMI refused for the Shadows, so they didn't renew their contract with EMI, and signed instead with Polydor. And their first album for Polydor was "Change of Address" !
For the "At theit very Best" album, they re-recorded their early hits for Polydor so they would have the rights...

Didier

[Moderne]

they asked to have rights for their previous recordings,

Didier

Not quite. They accepted that EMI retained the rights to their previous recordings, but they wanted to retain the rights to their new recordings. That was what EMI refused to agree to (although they did have such a 'lease-tape' agreement with Queen - according to Bruce in his book). Not sure why it took them nine years to record the At Their Very Best LP - when they'd signed with Polydor in 1980.

Anyway...we're straying a little far from David's 'Echo Machines' topic, which he started fifteen years ago!