Studio Gear
A selection of processing equipment available via our remote studio service.
A snapshot of our current set-up, with the focus on the more permanent residents. The Soundgas Studio is continually evolving; we regularly unearth new sonic gems that demand their place in our racks. There are the ever-changing “guest” pieces that are passing through on deep testing before sale – an essential element of our service and why we guarantee our gear works as it should – subjected to real-world use under battlefield studio conditions before shipping.
You may notice some “grey areas” below – the weird, cheap, exotic (or all of the above), boxes which are the result of years spent exploring sonic paths less-traveled. These redacted devices add varying degrees of filth and character, remaining nameless to maintain the element of surprise: in the realm of the happy accident…
(here’s a shot of the studio that is doubtless already out of date…)
And, just before we get into it: a very FAQ…
“I’m confused. Is this stuff for sale?”
Short answer: maybe…
Most of what is below is not actually for sale, although we do use the studio as a way of giving more unpredictable or subtle pieces some prolonged “real-world” testing before they are sold (for example Eventide Harmonizers). But everything on this page is the gear we know, use and love, and because of that we often have examples coming through for sale. If a search of our Gear For Sale or our current Stock List doesn’t show that we have something you are looking for please get in touch now.
Please note that this list does not currently cover drum machines, beatboxes, most of the synths, and other various other instruments present in the studio but not usually employed as part of our remote services.
It’s also quite… long. We obviously don’t use all of these on every project; indeed a big part of what we bring to this is our experience using these machines which allows us to quickly select the best combination for your needs, and to know when less is more (but also when, sometimes, more is more 😀 )
This image below was originally created for a Sound On Sound Magazine advert. It contains a lot of our key rack effects, plus a few that were passing through at the time. More about them below…
BINSON ECHORECS
- Echorec Baby – Tony’s original and Soundgas Super Slow Varispeed examples
- Echorec 2 T7E Varispeed
- Echorec B1S – Tony’s original well-used machine
- Echorec A 605 TR-6 (modified with extra record head and varispeed)
We’re Binson specialists with many years’ experience restoring and working with these remarkable, unique machines. You’ll find plenty of information about them elsewhere on the site (start here). We have several studio machines, but it’s our super slow varispeed Echorec Baby and valve T7E that are used most often. In addition, all the machines we sell are subjected to rigorous testing, so we often have a number passing through the studio.
Every Echorec has its own character and some definitely lend themselves to use with particular sources – for example our modded Baby is incredible with beats at ultra slow speeds (especially on one particular head). Some are subtle, whereas others – more battle-scarred or solid state – are better for more extreme sound-mangling. But they are all certainly about more than just adding delay, and we often deploy them for rich, overdriven valve distortion or layers of modulation and feedback. Tony recorded nearly a whole album through his Baby. A good Echorec can get you a very long way sonically…
TAPE/DISC ECHOES
We have an endless (pun intended) flow of tape echoes through Soundgas and we can call on any number of machines to create wild effects running them in series and parallel. However, there are a few that reside permanently in the studio, listed here in no particular order:
- Roland Space Echo RE-201 – at least two, including our benchmark unit: an early example with those magic early pres
- Roland Chorus Echo RE-301 – ex Magazine/Visage – Dave Formula’s wonderful machine that Tony has treasured for many years now
- HH Slider Echo – the dub-meister – infinitely-playable – as used by Jah Shaka (and Bauhaus on Bela Lugosi’s Dead)
- ESE Echomatic VI SE – super-rare chrome-fronted stunner – the pinnacle of Eric Snowball at ESE Music’s experience
- Market Electronics (Maestro) EP-2 – Mike Battle’s epic valve echo – superbly playable and a stunning sounding example
- Dynacord Echocord Studio – ‘The Magic Typewriter’ – heavily modified disc echo inc Soundgas Super Slow Varispeed
- Siemens Sprachverzögerer Speech Delayer – modified broadcast tape echo
- Exo-2M – rare Soviet tape echo with fuzz/modulation
- Clouds Hill Floppy Disc Delay – unique-sounding floppy disc echo
- Korg Stage Echo – SE500 – great studio echo with CV control
- Ecco Fonic Model 109
- Marantz Cassette Tape Echo w/ CV input
- T-Rex Replicator – lofi machine with great saturation/modulation effects
- Fulltone TTE
- ELK EM4
SOLID STATE DELAYS
- Guyatone AE-7 Analog Echo – vibey BBD delay
- Teac Echo-8 – pair Japanese consumer analogue delays
- Teisco SR-450E – Japanese analogue delay with modulation
- A/DA STD-1 Stereo Tapped Delay – amazing & rare BBD rack unit
- Ibanez/Maxon AD-190 – modified analogue delay/flanger – extra wild modulation on the delays
- Dynacord EC-280 – one of the first BBD echoes with interesting modulation effects
- Loft 450 Analog Delay Flanger
GRAMPIAN TYPE 636
There’s a lot of great reverb units here, but our pair of Grampians see a lot of action. Why two you ask? They all sound different, and one of ours has an Accutronics tank for a different vibe. Glorious harmonic-rich germanium transistor distortion works wonders with so many sources. Find lots more info on them on here.
SPRING REVERBS:
- Fisher Dynamic Space Expander – Soundgas modified – twin tanks
- Grampian Type 636 – original Gibbs tank
- Grampian Type 636 – Accutronics tank
- Hawk HR-40
- Kawasaki Broadcast Reverb – three springs each made from a different material, one wired out of phase – unique
- Mystery German (ex-theatre) spring reverb
- Orban 111B stereo spring reverb
- Pioneer SR-101 – valve spring reverb
- Pioneer SR-202W hifi spring reverb
- Roland PA-250 Mixer/Spring Reverb/Eq – stereo mixer with great eq/spring – perfect for analogue jams
- Roland VX-55 Mixer/Spring Reverb/Eq – great mono summing and that classic Roland spring sound
- Telefunken Echomixer – Soundgas modified
ANALOGUE/EARLY DIGITAL OUTBOARD
Digital reverbs, delays and weird, wild modulation units are all present. Some of these are extremely tricky to source/service/maintain, but are worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears. This is equipment from the wild frontiers of studio effects and early digital, when true trail-blazers and mavericks were coming up with new ways of manipulating sound. This stuff sounds like nothing else made before or since and we are utterly-obsessed (in spite of the pain involved in bringing it back to life). There are always additional units passing through on extended test before they ship out, but the list below are nearly all permanent residents and not for sale!
AMS:
- DM 2-20 Tape Phase Simulator – amazing analogue flanger
- DMX 15-80S – regular visitor
- RMX 16 – regular visitor
EMT:
- EMT 244 reverb – one-knob EMT 250 magic – pure class
- EMT 246 reverb, with remote – classy, ex-broadcast unit that shines
Eventide:
- Harmonizer H 910 – essential! (sometimes two if we have another on test) – as Tony Visconti told Eno and Bowie ‘It fucks with the fabric of time!’
- Harmonizer H 949 – often passing through on extended test
- Harmonizer HM 80 – super rare, super hard to fix (ours is about 80% working and we love it!) – if anyone has a schematic, we’d love to get the reverse function working
- Instant Flanger FL 201 – insanely-vibey early rack flanger
- Instant Phaser PS 101 – so rare, so good. As used on the drums of ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zep. Say no more.
- Omnipressor – unique compressor/expander for that ‘Portishead’ vibe
- the Eventide site a great resource for more information on those last three machines.
Lexicon:
- Model 200 Reverb – we just love this one – infinite early digital reverbs
- PCM 42 Digital Delay Processor – regular vistor
- Prime Time Model 93 – full of 10-bit crazy goodness – a stone cold classic and firm Soundgas favourite
- Prime Time II and/or Super Prime Time often passing through on test
Marshall:
- Marshall A5002 Time Modulator – wild, crazy and often unpredictable – ours came from Musicland Studios and was used on ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen
- Marshall A5402 Time Modulator – more delay, more of everything. Currently in longterm rehab (both modules died – no schematics – we’re working on reverse engineering a fix)
Publison:
- DHM 89 B2 Stereo Pitch Shifter – like a vintage Ferrari – expensive and tricky to maintain, but pure sonic adrenaline
- Infernal Machine 90 – as above but even more so – essential
Ursa Major:
- Space Station SST-282 reverb / delay – one of Tony’s all time favourites
- Stargate 323 reverb – another of Tony’s long term loves – fine flexible early digital reverb
- 8 x 32 early digital reverb
(MOSTLY) MODULATION EFFECTS
Lots of phasers, flangers,choruses, and other weird and wild devices not already covered above.
- A/DA Flanger (custom racked)
- A/DA Final Phase
- ADR Panscan
- Analogman – Bi-Chorus, misc pedals
- Boss CE-1 (custom racked)
- Boss – vintage pedals – DD-2, DD-3, DC-2, DM-3 etc
- Dynacord CLS-222 – classic Leslie simulator as used by David Gilmour
- Effectrode Tube Phaseomatic Deluxe, misc pedals
- Electro Harmonix – large selection of rare vintage units – Small/Bad Stones, Big Muffs, Electric Mistress, Talking Pedal, DMM, etc
- Electro Harmonix Vocoder – classic rack unit as used by The Beastie Boys
- Electrospace Spanner
- EMS Vocoder 2000
- Frogg Compusound – super rare analogue multi-filter effects
- Gelf Auto Phasers (Pair) – ex Pink Floyd/Britannia Row
- Maestro G2 – wild guitar processor as used by The Beastie Boys & Silver Apples
- MicMix Dynaflangers – pair of these versatile units as used by Frank Zappa
- Moog 12 Stage Phaser
- Mu-tron Bi-Phase with Opti-Pot pedal – classic (Lee Perry, Smashing Pumpkins)
- Mu-tron III – the best envelope filter ever
- Ortho Spectrum Voice Shifter VS-727
- Roland Jet Phaser
- Roland SVC-350 Vocoder
- Schulte Compact Phasing ‘A’ – the Krautrock Phaser – with custom control pedal
- Schaller Rotorsound – pair of these 60s Leslie simulators
- Shin-ei Resly Tone (UniVibe), FY-6 etc
- Songbird FS-1 Cyclosonic Panner – amazing 3D panner
- Surrey Electronics Spectrum Filter
- Tascam RS-30 Recording Simulator
- and a collection of other modulation pedals from the last 50 years or so.
SYNTH/FILTERS
- Akai Deep Impact – crazy synth pedal
- Custom Twin MS-20 Filter with modulation
- EMS Synthi A (2013)
- EMS Synthi HiFli
- Formanta Polivoks
- Hammond Innovex Condor SSM
- Korg X-911 Guitar Synthesizer
- Moog 907 Fixed Filter Bank
- Moog Minimoog
EQ, COMPRESSION, CHARACTER
- A Designs REDDI
- Alan Smart Research C2 Stereo Compressor
- BAE Neve 1272 pair
- Dolby Modded 361 – the vocal stressor/exciter – ex John Lennon
- Echolette Resonar – Krautrock EQ
- Gurus Optivalve compressor
- Langevin EQ-252-A Passive Graphic Equalizer – the Motown EQ
- Mirano Echo Mixer 5 – 60s valve mixer with eq
- Origin Effects Cali 76 Limiting Amplifier
- Revox B77 Mk II – 1/4″ classic two track open reel tape recorder
- Tascam 122 Cassette Recorder
- Tascam 134 Syncaset – Cassette Four Track
- UBK Fatso
- Urei 1178 Stereo Peak Limiter
- Vintech CA-73
VALVE AMPS ETC:
- Ace Tone 601 – sixties Japanese head
- Ace Tone Fighter – 60s Japanese practice combo
- Laney LC-50 50W Combo – c1968
- Laney Supergroup Mk 1 30W head – 1960s
- Magnatone 280 Custom 1958
- Magnatone – MOT Lap Steel amp 40s/50s
- Magnatone Varsity
- Vox AC-30 1967
- Watkins V Front Dominator (Black Panel) 1950s
- Watkins Westminster (Black Panel) 1950s
Calrec Q Series Console
At the heart of the Soundgas Studio is our stunning ex-broadcast Calrec Q-series desk. This was once a 72 stereo channel behemoth and has been completely overhauled and reduced to a more manageable 36 stereo channels so it (only just) fits in our studio. It boasts ten (!) aux sends, fabulous mic pres, 16 channels of parametric eq, four stereo compressor/limiters and the most comprehensive routing options possible, it’s a joy to work on. This era of broadcast desk represents the ultimate expression of no-expense-spared pure analogue design and this Q series was built and specified to the highest standards and rivals Neve for sound quality.
SECRET DIRT
OK, not all of it is a secret, and it’s certainly common knowledge that we love cranky old BBD echoes, solid state reverbs, cheap vintage mixers, preamps etc. We have plenty to choose from to get just the right unique character (or indeed plain filth) that is needed. Analogue delays include models from Teisco, Guyatone and Evans (to name three of 10 or so currently in residence); old Roland mixers are a favourite for adding bite and grit. But there is long tail of rarer effects including everything from mis-used HiFi gear and re-purposed test equipment to several boxes of guitar pedals from the 60s, 70s and 80s covering fuzz, overdrive and effects across the spectrum.
MORE? YOU WANT MORE??
Here’s a page of archive listings of examples of a lot of the gear above. Therein you will find many photos, much information, some video demos and further links 🙂
