Gear In-depth & Longer Blogs — Roland

A quick run through some of the reasons that we are happy to call out the idea that Roland Space and Chorus Echoes are not reliable. We're confident that this is a myth brought into being by too many people spending time with neglected and abused machines. However, like many things, it's about arming yourself with knowledge, and realising you get what you pay for. But before we get into that here's a time-lapse video showing our tech Doctor Huw servicing one of our RE-201 Space Echoes:  A post shared by Soundgas Limited (@soundgasltd) on Jun 15, 2017 at 5:59am...

When it's gone it's gone. A recent meeting with the man instrumental in saving Abbey Road Studios from being flattened for development gets Tony thinking about what can be done to prevent other irretrievable losses of cultural history. Last week we had the pleasure of meeting Peter Cobbin and Kirsty Whalley from Such Sweet Thunder when they visited Soundgas. The pair met while working at Abbey Road and are legends in the world of mixing sound for picture (2012 London Olympics - the largest multi-track recording ever made, assorted Harry Potters and Hobbits, 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics...). Peter was the first...

I first laid hands on a synth in 1981 - a very brief ‘go’ on an older boy’s MS-10 (I was shown how to do the intro to Silver Machine by Hawkwind - great excitement). However, living in rural Derbyshire, transport was more important to this teenager than playing space rock anthems, and funds went on a succession of motorbikes and cars. My pals in Sheffield with its 2p bus fares could spend any spare money on wondrous noise making devices. In 1987, I wandered into Carlsbro Sound Centre in Mansfield to finally buy a synth: I was sold a...

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...

A blog post going into some of the history and features of superb Korg's tape echoes, and also some useful information if you are asking yourself "Should I get a Korg Stage Echo or a Roland Space Echo?".

Roland’s black, green and silver (and later black and orange) Space/Chorus Echo units are familiar to nearly everyone who’s been involved in music-making over the past four decades - they are iconic and ubiquitous. Korg’s echoes are more down to earth - in livery as well as name. Swapping Space for Stage and jazzy colours for the muted - almost gothic - dark grey/black contemporary to their synths, Korg Stage Echoes are much less common than their cosmic cousins and, as a result, there are many yet to encounter them.

This is the story of how we sold Space Echoes to Roland, our trip to London to bring the vintage gear noise to the Boss exhibition launch and came to meet Miki-san, CEO of the mighty Roland Corporation. Pictures are of the venue, the epic exhibition of Boss & Roland gear, and our workshop set up; you can see a full album of shots from the weekend here.   Following the initial request from Roland/Boss asking us to supply serviced Space Echoes for their Cause And Effects show (celebrating 40 years of Boss guitar effects), our involvement grew, leading to us being...

HEADLINE NEWS: we're coming to London with a stack of vintage Roland gear - if you're able to get to House of Vans on the afternoon of Sunday September 10th then come and say hello. Cause & Effects: 40 Years of Boss History This was already very cool - Boss celebrating their 40th year by gathering every pedal and a load of other effects into one cool space in the tunnel exhibition gallery at House of Vans in London. The exhibition runs for two weeks and includes an opening weekend Sept 9th/10th with a gig and workshops - read more about...

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...

We found all sorts of things we'd forgotten about, and fell in love with some new things that we'd never used before. Pete from Teleman and Ben from Elephant Disco came down to help us get organised and so huge thanks have to go to them for kicking us into action. It's a facebook post so hopefully most of you can see it, but if you can't and you want to see pictures of a lot of vintage gear then give us a shout. We also made a load of video demos (thanks again to Pete for the great guitar...