Binson Echorec Revisited

US Overloud releases Echoson - an emulation of the vintage magnetic drum delay 27/09/18

Overloud has released Echoson, which they describe as the faithful recreation of a legendary Italian magnetic disc delay unit who's unique tone helped define the Pink Floyd sound in the '70s. Here's the details in their own words...

Features

ECHOSON is a hyper-realistic recreation of the original unit's lush and ethereal tone, with independent control of each playback head, and stereo operating mode with separate controls for the left and right channels. Dual-mono, Stereo, and Reverb modes allow wider soundscapes, while adjustable disc speed allows you to change delay time with BPM sync option. Echoson also features a built-in parametric equalizer, user adjustable wow/flutter and electrical noise, multilevel undo-redo, A/B Comparison, Scribble Strips, and lots of presets designed during real mixing sessions.

Beyond The Original Hardware

ECHOSON extends the features of the original hardware, adding digital flexibility to the character of analog processing. In Stereo Mode you can process left and right channels with different settings (Mono), send delays to the opposite channel (Cross) and combine the two channels (Verb). With Multiple Head Control you can switch playback heads on or off individually and decide which ones are fed back to the loop. While the original hardware had a fixed delay time of 310 milliseconds, ECHOSON's Adjustable Time allows you to choose a different tempo and even sync it to the song's BPM.

The original delay units were manufactured in the '60s and '70s by an Italian company. These are currently in high demand thanks to their unique tone, which adds more than a touch of personality to modern recordings. It's the secret weapon of many contemporary engineers and producers that use this delay on vocals, keyboards and drums to achieve a special tone.

A Unique And Flexible Soundchain

While a normal tape echo's input signal was recorded to tape, this unit differed by recording the signal onto a circular spinning magnetic disc with four record and playback heads positioned around it. This mechanism allowed for a more stable transport than tape devices while providing a distinctive sound full of character. ECHOSON captures every nuance of the original machine's design.

Pricing and Availability:
€79 / $89 €129 / $139

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