Gear In-depth & Longer Blogs — Grampian 636

How To Buy Vintage Gear Well (Part One) We all love a bargain; it seems nearly everybody knows someone else who got lucky and picked up a classic for next to nothing, though it never seems to happen to you or I (although, on reflection the price I paid for my first Grampian 636 now seems a steal, but at the time £70 was the going rate for one in need of work!). I remember the eagle-eyed guy who spotted a very early Marshall amp head sitting abandoned in a skip (dumpster US fans) full of garbage that, once restored,...

Last week saw the publication of my 'Lords Of The Springs' article for Premier Guitar. Being invited to write for such a finely-crafted publication was an honour and quite some education. I received a six-page document on correct writing practices for the house style, and another that detailed ethical guidelines (don't be afraid of giving a bad review; no free or discounted demo units to be kept by reviewers; check all facts thoroughly). This was clearly a publication with very high standards and I didn't want to let the side down. My first piece was for the June 2018 edition on the subject of vintage...

  Yes, big news indeed. That's just a quick screen grab above, but click on it and you will be taken to the Aladdin's Cave of Sound that is our new Bandcamp. OK, so right now the cave is a little empty but, as anyone who follows our gear demo adventures on social media will know, we have a huge bank of recordings of demos made with all a manner of vintage gear hooked up in different combinations. These recordings are now lined up to be edited, mastered and prepared for release - some will become tracks and others will be...

We have a heavyweight consignment of mouth-watering vintage gear just arrived hot from the studio of Mike "Prince Fatty" Pelanconi. He is undoubtedly on the vanguard of the new wave of dub producers now following and building on the traditions and techniques of dub. We're long time fans (see his live dubs on youtube!) so getting our hands on some of his essential studio tools is a source of much excitement. Some items will be sold via the site, others by a sealed bid auction ending on Wednesday 9th November at 12pm GMT. First up, and requiring no introduction to Soundgas regulars, is his stunning Grampian Type 636...

We recently had the Grampian 636 you see below come up for sale by sealed bids. This blog post is about that unit, as well as some history and technical information about these superb, legendary machines. If you are looking to buy a Grampian or have one to sell in any condition please get in touch. UPDATE: we compiled all the demos of this Grampian into this Youtube playlist. I first encountered one of these unprepossessing grey boxes while trawling ebay many years ago. As ever, I was looking for inexpensive old effects that would sound different to the run of the mill...

There are probably as many answers to this question as there are different models of spring reverb out there: even the most unpromising cheap plastic box with tiny springs can shine when you're looking for a different flavour. We happened to have a stack of vintage spring reverbs all in one place so thought we'd put them all against each other and produce: The Soundgas Snare Springathon - 13 Spring Reverbs head to head with a Roland TR-808 snare… (You may have already seen this video - we made it a few months ago now - but we'd always intended to add our thoughts...