Official: Gilmour used Dawner Prince’s Boonar on stage at the Royal Albert Hall

When we first got involved with Dawner Prince about selling their (then) new Binson pedal, the Boonar, I was impressed by the features that they’d managed to fit in such a small pedal, but felt the Boonar was too bright/clean and not quite right at higher feedback settings. Zoran from Dawner Prince was swift to react to our comments and an upgraded version of the Boonar swiftly followed. I soon became very attached indeed to my Boonar (which has now journeyed back to Croatia a couple of times for tweaks).

I now use it all the time together with the Echosex 2º Ltd. The Echosex nails my favourite single head repeat (Echorec 2 setting number four), and the Boonar very convincingly recreates that wonderful multi-head reverb-like Binson bloom – something I rarely used on my Echorec 2 as it was always on long single head delay duties. So I now have two Binson pedals working together on my pedalboard and couldn’t be happier with the results. It seems that I’m in very good company: read on…

It’s official – not only is Dawner Prince’s Boonar one of Gimourish.com’s picks for 2016, but it is now certain that David Gilmour himself used a Boonar on his last tour. This is a big deal: Pink Floyd’s use and abuse of Binsons is the stuff of legend, and a big part of their signature sound, from the early psychedelic days with Syd Barrett in the UFO club to Live At Pompeii, you can hear and see Echorecs everywhere (play the bassline to ‘One Of These Days’ on an Echorec 2 set to number 4 and you’re there). Barrett, Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason used these fine Italian echoes throughout their sixties and seventies recordings – Echorec gold is almost as constant a presence as David Gilmour’s black Strat…

Zoran from Dawner Prince takes up the story of how this small pedal became a big hitter:

“A few months ago, it would have been just another ordinary working day in the Dawner Prince office, if the phone hadn’t rang. The signal was not clear and I could not understand all the words coming from the other side of the line, but I could hear a clear British accent and a person asking about the Boonar pedal. He asked about our Artist endorsement program, which usually awakes my inner salesman, so I started reciting the information, mechanically and a bit reserved, until I heard a short laughter and the words: “It’s Phil Taylor, David Gilmour’s technician”. We closed the deal and, in a few days, one Boonar was on its way to the Astoria studio in London. Since they were on tour, I waited patiently to hear from Phil if David had managed to find some time to test the pedal. Phil did call, at the end of the tour, with some constructive criticism and overall good comments from Gilmour.”

To be honest that would have been enough to get us very excited and be shouting about it today, but there was more to come. When the photos of the last show of the Rattle That Lock tour (at the Royal Albert Hall) were released, there was the Boonar Zoran had sent to David, clearly visible on the top right of his pedal board (just above his mug of tea).

At the time of writing we have the latest version in stock. If not then we are able to take pre-orders so you can secure one of the next batch of pedals.

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Tony Miln is the co-founder (& Head Gear Head) of Soundgas. See/hear him in action on Instagram.