terminology

Something I just remembered! I put two 4 track mono reel to reel
machines side by side to make a stereo one. Put tape spool on first
machine, past the heads of both machines (but avoiding the pinch
roller of the first machine) then onto the take up spool of the
second
machine. Set one machine to track 1, second machine to track 2. It
sort of worked.

Marky P.

Way back in my mobile disco days I had a Watkins (WEM) Custom
Copycat tape echo machine (foreground)
http://www.ampaholics.org.uk/watkin4.jpg

Wow - that stirs memories. The guitarist in the band I was in had one of
those - allegedly ex Johnny Kidd & the Pirates.

Martin

There's a bloke somewhere that still makes the copicat. New tape
loops are also sold, though it's quite easy to make your own.

The ones I made used to cause a popping sound due to static
build-up, a sort of Van der Graaf Generator effect
(did you ever build one Marky,. Did you ever inherit their
kit Martin!)
Anyway, the facrory-made loops had a conductive backing,
but I don't remember any provision for a discharge path on
the machine.
--
Graham

%Profound_observation%

In article , News
wrote:

Yes - the wrongly named 'echo plate' was the standard top end reverb unit
for many a year. Definitely not for gigging as simply moving one could
upset the tensioning of the plate which was crucial to the sound. Their
principle advantage over a spring was being able to change the reverb time
- and remotely.

The other advantage was that they sounded good and the early springs
sounded terrible. In the 1960s we had a couple of EMT plates - great
huge things - in Bush House Control Room which were accessible by most
of the studios. Then some bean-counting idiot removed one (and sold it
to Television) and replaced it with a Grampian spring unit costing
about £40, which sounded terrible and 'quacked' on piano notes (and
detuned them). I seem to remember the other one went the same way later
on.

Much later we got digital reverb. units in each studio which were
immensely flexible.

Incidentally we all knew it was reverberation, but we all said echo
because it's 2 syllables not 5. (It was later we all started saying
'reverb').

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:50:59 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Yes - the wrongly named 'echo plate' was the standard top end reverb unit
for many a year.

I remember installing one at Gosta Green in Birmingham in 1965(?). I
think they were made by EMT. They consisted of a large box, about the
same dimensions as a double mattress, containing a spring-suspended thin
steel plate and a similar sized variable damper. On one end of the plate
was clamped a moving coil drive unit which was fed with the programme
material and which excited the plate. The vibrations of the plate were
detected by a contact microphone on the opposite end. The echo effect
was due to the multiple paths through and vibration modes of the plate.
The delay was varied by adjusting the spacing of the damper from the
steel plate which was either by means of a roughly calibrated external
wheel or remotely, using a system of levers, a motor and control box. If
I remember correctly, the remote control system was of BBC design and
used a 'phantom' on the programme circuits.

They were usually installed in a quiet area as external noises could
easily be picked up by the plate.

I still have a copy of 'High Quality Sound Production and Reproduction'
by H Burrell Haddon in which they are described.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:20:22 -0000, "Graham." wrote:

I have never been able to accept the concept that a curve is comprised of an
infinite number of straight lines, I can accept the premise that a
curve can be *considered* to be an infinite number of straight lines,
but that isn't what I was taught.

I'd say you're absolutely right, you were taught wrong.
--
http://www.robinfaichney.org/

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:44:05 -0000, "Graham." wrote:


Something I just remembered! I put two 4 track mono reel to reel
machines side by side to make a stereo one. Put tape spool on first
machine, past the heads of both machines (but avoiding the pinch
roller of the first machine) then onto the take up spool of the
second
machine. Set one machine to track 1, second machine to track 2. It
sort of worked.

Marky P.

Way back in my mobile disco days I had a Watkins (WEM) Custom
Copycat tape echo machine (foreground)
http://www.ampaholics.org.uk/watkin4.jpg

Wow - that stirs memories. The guitarist in the band I was in had one of
those - allegedly ex Johnny Kidd & the Pirates.

Martin

There's a bloke somewhere that still makes the copicat. New tape
loops are also sold, though it's quite easy to make your own.

The ones I made used to cause a popping sound due to static
build-up, a sort of Van der Graaf Generator effect
(did you ever build one Marky,. Did you ever inherit their
kit Martin!)

What, a copicat or van der graaf generator? I thought they were a
band.



Anyway, the facrory-made loops had a conductive backing,
but I don't remember any provision for a discharge path on
the machine.


Marky P.

"Graham." wrote in message
...
Wow - that stirs memories. The guitarist in the band I was in had one
of
those - allegedly ex Johnny Kidd & the Pirates.

Martin

There's a bloke somewhere that still makes the copicat. New tape
loops are also sold, though it's quite easy to make your own.

The ones I made used to cause a popping sound due to static
build-up, a sort of Van der Graaf Generator effect
(did you ever build one Marky,. Did you ever inherit their
kit Martin!)
Anyway, the facrory-made loops had a conductive backing,
but I don't remember any provision for a discharge path on
the machine.
--
Graham

AFAIK the guitarist still has it, in gwo, and using it with a Vox AC30 &
Barney Kessel semi-acoustic - beautiful sound.

Martin

"Marky P" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:44:05 -0000, "Graham." wrote:


Something I just remembered! I put two 4 track mono reel to reel
machines side by side to make a stereo one. Put tape spool on first
machine, past the heads of both machines (but avoiding the pinch
roller of the first machine) then onto the take up spool of the
second
machine. Set one machine to track 1, second machine to track 2. It
sort of worked.

Marky P.

Way back in my mobile disco days I had a Watkins (WEM) Custom
Copycat tape echo machine (foreground)
http://www.ampaholics.org.uk/watkin4.jpg

Wow - that stirs memories. The guitarist in the band I was in had one of
those - allegedly ex Johnny Kidd & the Pirates.

Martin

There's a bloke somewhere that still makes the copicat. New tape
loops are also sold, though it's quite easy to make your own.

The ones I made used to cause a popping sound due to static
build-up, a sort of Van der Graaf Generator effect
(did you ever build one Marky,. Did you ever inherit their
kit Martin!)

What, a copicat or van der graaf generator? I thought they were a
band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator
I never built one. The Wimshurst machine was more my style.
--
Graham

%Profound_observation%

In article , Alan White wrote:
Yes - the wrongly named 'echo plate' was the standard top end reverb unit
for many a year.

I remember installing one at Gosta Green in Birmingham in 1965(?). I
think they were made by EMT. They consisted of a large box, about the
same dimensions as a double mattress, containing a spring-suspended thin
steel plate and a similar sized variable damper. On one end of the plate
was clamped a moving coil drive unit which was fed with the programme
material and which excited the plate. The vibrations of the plate were
detected by a contact microphone on the opposite end.

Were those the things you had to adjust with a little steering wheel on top?
I can remember occasionally being sent to some grubby basement in either TC
or Lime Grove to set them, either because they were manual only, or because
a motorised mechanism was so rarely used it had stuck, I'm not sure which.

I expect it's done by a chip the size of my fingernail now.

Rod.

In article ,
Roderick Stewart wrote:
I remember installing one at Gosta Green in Birmingham in 1965(?). I
think they were made by EMT. They consisted of a large box, about the
same dimensions as a double mattress, containing a spring-suspended
thin steel plate and a similar sized variable damper. On one end of
the plate was clamped a moving coil drive unit which was fed with the
programme material and which excited the plate. The vibrations of the
plate were detected by a contact microphone on the opposite end.

Were those the things you had to adjust with a little steering wheel on
top? I can remember occasionally being sent to some grubby basement in
either TC or Lime Grove to set them, either because they were manual
only, or because a motorised mechanism was so rarely used it had stuck,
I'm not sure which.

That's the one. A large chipboard box. With a picture on it of how to
carry it showing two cheerful types in bib and braces. In the original
incarnation of TC there was one in the SAR of each studio. Along with bays
of nice hot valves. ;-) And real echo rooms in the basement. With an LSU10
at one end and a PGS at the other.

I expect it's done by a chip the size of my fingernail now.

Indeed. Although like much of that older gear some still prefer their
sound. Which is sad as because of the size many were simply scrapped as
they had no value.

--
He who laughs last, thinks slowest*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Alan Pemberton" wrote in message
erve.co.uk.invalid...
Bill Wright wrote:

"Alan Pemberton" wrote in
message
erve.co.uk.invalid...
Bill Wright wrote:

We used to nick blasting wire from the quarry. It was single strand
and
plastic insulated, and very useful. You could find miles of it in the
quarry. It was strong enough to make long wire aerials with.

You get more like Fred Dibnah every day. He's dead an'all.

I'm not dead. I still hurt and I still have unsatisfied desires.

Someone in another thread purporting to be you said he was dead. Perhaps
he was starting to write 'dead drunk' and never made it?

Yes, that could be it.

Bill