Gear In-depth & Longer Blogs — Spring Reverb

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...

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...

Vintage Japanese Tape Echo & Spring Reverb Update:  Mid-seventies Japanese manufacturer Hawk Technical Works Co Ltd put out a range of tape echoes and spring reverbs branded Mirano and then Hawk aimed squarely at domestic home recordists. We were intrigued and decided to get hold of as many different models as possible and try them all out. The results so far are documented below - these are great machines with useful features, and interesting creative possibilities especially once pushed beyond their comfort zone. We're definitely keeping examples of some of them for the studio. This is a run through of our...