Product Description
We're big fans of all these Hawk spring reverbs; this HR-40 appears to be an earlier incarnation of the fine-looking stereo HR-45 (the first one we got was promptly removed to the studio for ‘testing’ and still hasn’t been returned).
With a definite 70s Hi-Fi aesthetic, albeit with a fairly business-like diagram across the front to explain the signal path, this stereo unit takes mic or line in via front jack sockets or line via phono on the rear. You then have various controls over the echo, including "reverse" which sadly does not offer a backwards reverb, but switches the wet signal to the opposite channel. Output is via phono on the rear.
It’s a useful and good-sounding spring; where things get really interesting is how this unit reacts to being overdriven - pure magic when a guitar is plugged into the mic input, but also very usable on a whole range of sources. The flexibility offered by being able to just drive the dry or reverb signal, or a combination of the two makes this a very creative tool: the overdriven reverb sound from this unit is highly-addictive! With the added phono option on the input and a different circuit the HR-40 sounds quite different to the HR-45 when pushed - can get very crunchy and vicious indeed...
We keep picking up these vintage Japanese machines – read all about them in our Hawk/Mirano tape echo and spring reverb blog post.
With a definite 70s Hi-Fi aesthetic, albeit with a fairly business-like diagram across the front to explain the signal path, this stereo unit takes mic or line in via front jack sockets or line via phono on the rear. You then have various controls over the echo, including "reverse" which sadly does not offer a backwards reverb, but switches the wet signal to the opposite channel. Output is via phono on the rear.
It’s a useful and good-sounding spring; where things get really interesting is how this unit reacts to being overdriven - pure magic when a guitar is plugged into the mic input, but also very usable on a whole range of sources. The flexibility offered by being able to just drive the dry or reverb signal, or a combination of the two makes this a very creative tool: the overdriven reverb sound from this unit is highly-addictive! With the added phono option on the input and a different circuit the HR-40 sounds quite different to the HR-45 when pushed - can get very crunchy and vicious indeed...
We keep picking up these vintage Japanese machines – read all about them in our Hawk/Mirano tape echo and spring reverb blog post.