I'm looking for a "new" echoplex. I've tried all types of digital/analog stomp boxes etc... and can't find anything to suit my needs. I'm looking for the Atlantics/Shadows/Spotnicks type of delay. All i have found is The Fulltone Echoplex which is slighty out of my price range. Are there alternatives (not stomp boxes)??? And are the fulltone's worth the $$$?

www.myspace.com/vondrats
www.myspace.com/therobotssurfband

Bots, I don't think you are actually looking for an Echoplex type echo. Echoplex, made by Maestro (owned by Gibson), is easily replicated by many echo units today. It's a simple regular repeating echo, which any simple digital delay can do. Many modern delay pedals also allow you to roll off the treble (or even bass) on the repeats to give it a more tape-like sound and really capture the Echoplex sound. (Tape makes the repeats degrade slightly in sound quality.) But that's not what the Shadows echo sound was about.

Hank Marvin of the Shadows used the Italian-made Meazzi Echomatic from '60 until about '63 and then a Binson echo machines (Echorec and Baby Binson) into the seventies (he finally used an Echoplex in the early-to-mid seventies, switching to a Roland tape-echo unit soon after). The thing about both the Meazzi and the Binson is that they were much more complex than the Echoplex. They both had several playback heads that could be engaged in various combinations. Those multiple playback heads were the key to getting that syncopated, 'staggered' repeats sound that has become so identified with Hank & the Shadows. You can't get that sound with an Echoplex or most modern echo/delay units.

There was a similar situation with The Atlantics, who used a Klemt Echolette, a German-made unit that was similar to a Meazzi with many different combinations of the multiple playback heads. (I must admit I don't know what echo unit Bo Winberg of the Spotnicks used.)

These European echo machines of the early sixties are very rare by now, very expensive, and very fragile. Unlike amps and reverb units that are 40+ years old and still working fine, the echo units in general have a much shorter life span for the simple reason that the motor inside them would wear out and die (the recording and playback heads would also wear out). So, getting one of these original units is out of the question for most people. What to do?

Well, there are several options you can puruse. There are a few people in England that were not happy about the lack of Shadows-style echoes on the market, so they decided to take the existing market digital delay devices which allowed some sort of tape-emulation and more importantly which had the capability to get 'multi-tap' delays, and started programming them to exactly copy the old Euro-echo-machines repeat and degradation patterns, down to even the wow-and-flutter of the tape. The kings of this kind of programming are the Echoes From the Past:

http://www.eftp.co.uk/
http://www.eftp.co.uk/page2.html

They were the first, and Hank (as far as I know) has been using their system (programmed on the Alesis Q2 and Q20 machines) for almost ten years now. But they are expensive, and the Alesis machines have been out of production for many years now. EFTP also programmed the Zoom RFX2000 machines a few years ago, which are not as powerful. I have one of these and it sounds very, very good to my ears. But it's a rack-mounted unit, which is a pain in the butt if you're playing out. And I don't know if EFTP will program those anymore. I don't see anything on their website about it.

An alternative - a better one, IMO - is the Sounds Like The Shadows Echoes:

http://www.shadowsland.freeserve.co.uk/

They do the same thing as the Echoes From the Past team, but they do it for the Yamaha Magicstomp pedal. I have one of these as well, and it sounds very good. Maybe not quite as good as the Zoom unit programmed by EFTP, but close. You can buy these Magicstomp pedals very cheaply today, around $100, and then just buy the programs from Sounds Like The Shadows Echoes which they can email you. (I think they're around $75 or so, not very expensive.) The cool thing about the Magicstomp is that you hook it up to your computer, and then mess with the parameters on the screen. When you hook up the pedal to the computer, you can simply dump into the pedal all the programs from Sounds Like The Shadows that are emailed to you. It's really not hard, I did it, and I'm no computer whiz! And then you begin to have hours and hours of fun! That would be my recommendation.

Good luck, and I hope some of this was helpful.
Ivan

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Thank you Ivan for the very informative post!

Check out this link for The Shadows music. A complete album listing with every song from every album in mp3 for downloading. It's the complete mp3 file of all The Shawdos music. Just click on the albim cover to get to the music.

http://freddie.spb.ru/rock/shadows/

Joel

Klas

IvanP
(I must admit I don't know what echo unit Bo Winberg of the Spotnicks used.)

I think he built his own echo units, at least in the beginning.

image

I believe the home built tape echo can be seen on the right behind the reel to reel tape recorder.

Spotnicks bonus pic with rarely seen type of space suits:

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

ANother alternative to an echoplex is the WEM Copycat, a smaller, very portable multihead tape echo that has a gain control pot, something the echoplex does not have.

It sounds very cool, noisier than the echoplex. I bought mine on Ebay for $245.

I also have an EP-3 Echoplex which I use on stage. It sounds AMAZING, never failed me, built like some kind of soviet era spy machine. It's quiet and very warm, a sound that cannot be sampled. I love my echoplex.

I ALSO have a Roland RE 301 (chorus echo) that I bought back when I was trying to get that Brian Setzer sound (I also have a 1961 Gretsch 6120 to go with it). It'sa great sounding echo unit but way too bulky and expensive compared to the echoplex (a 301 will run you about $500 on ebay). It's much quiter than the 201 and sounds just as good (the 201 is the most sought after model for it's tone...).

I think that if you have spent the $$ to have a tube amp, a tube reverb and a decent sounding guitar, why plug silicone junk into your signal chain? That's my .002 on that. No digital shortcutsfor me.

g