Gear In-depth & Longer Blogs — Space Echo

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...

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,...

To describe Daphne Oram's Still Point as groundbreaking is akin to suggesting the Beatles sold the odd record. Composed for double orchestra, turntable manipulation and echo chambers with additional filtering - in 1948, when Oram was only 23. It predates the rise of the DJ as instrumentalist by three decades or more and is thought to be the first ever composition to feature real time electronic transformation of instrumental sounds.  IMPORTANT NOTE: You can listen to the entire Pioneers of Sound concert right now on the BBC iPlayer (if you are in the UK) - but this link will only work until mid-August!...

When Dan from That Pedal Show called in at the Soundgas HQ to choose a Roland RE-201 Space Echo for their new Pedal Barn, it’s fair to say he was somewhat blown away by the Soundgas Studio. On that night’s show, he told Mick that when he dies, he wants to be stuffed and put on a chair in there with his Tele!This was Dan’s second visit; it’s always a pleasure to host someone who’s as passionate and animated about gear and sound as we are. The first time, he came to collect a Gurus Echosex 2º for a Binson...

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...

  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...

** UPDATE! WE'RE COMING BACK TO SYNTHFEST FOR 2017. BIGGER, BETTER, VINTAGER! The line up & exhibitor list is superb - find out more and book tickets HERE. ** Saturday October 1st was the inaugural Synthfest UK show at the Octagon Centre in Sheffield organised by Sound On Sound magazine as part of the Sensoria festival. Incorporating manufacturer/dealer displays and a modular synth meet, this was a celebration of all things synth, appropriately-located in Synth City. We headed up the road with a big stack of Soundgas gear to take a stand at our first full-scale show. By Friday night we were all set for the...

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...