The ShadowMusic Web Community

In listening to one of Cliff's early things Hank's echo is a dead simple repeat.
What echo did he have before the Meazzis ?

He didn't, it was the Abbey Road reverb.

Which tunes do you mean Ecca ? I'll check 'em out.

I'll find it out, it wasn't reverb.

Could it be studio added slapback tape echo ? Using one of the recording machines ?

Abbey Road were using the J37 Tape in the early 60s, this had slapback echo and may well support Rogers theory?

Gary

All the upmarket machines back then were capable of providing a slapback, it could be varied according towhich speed was selected i.e. 3/34 ips for a slow repeat, 7/12ips for faster and 15ips for the rock & roll slapback. Some machines had vari-speed also that would allow more choice. Some machines a bit later ran at 30ips (inches per second) which meant eating the tape at a great rate ! All of these sounds were been used long before the earl Cliff & Shads stuff though, especially by the Americans, as you can hear with the Elvis, Buddy Holly & Eddie Cochran recordings to name but a few. Chet Atkins was one of the innovators at RCA and before him, Les Paul amongst a few. There was a guy called Ray Butts I think who built in a tape echo machine in the back of Scotty Moore's amp back in about 1956 (I think I read somewhere)

I had 2 x B&O 2000 machines at one time which enabled all manner of tape echo patterns to be achieved, so who knows what tricks an enterprising recordist used after hours, once he had taken off his white coat!!

Garystrat wrote:Abbey Road were using the J37 Tape in the early 60s, this had slapback echo and may well support Rogers theory?

Gary

The Studer J37 (4 tracks) only came in Abbey Road around 1964, before that they only used EMI BTR tape recorders, either mono or stereo.

Read this article : http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/a ... tracks.htm to know more on how recordings were made in the early years in Abbey Road.

Didier

Here it is , Unchained Melody.