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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of rejoining my former bandmates in The Mach IV for our first gig together in seven years. Thankfully a few videos got posted on youtube.

First up, the Shadows classic "Dance On"


Our last song, my original "Il Eko Eleki". My tuning had gone a bit south, but hey, that's rock and roll.

That's cool Mel. Seven Years? Maybe my band needs to take a break for a few years and we can be that tight after a long absence.

On that last song, are you using the Space Echo pedal to get that sound? Also what is the rhythm using to get the paper tearing sound? I hear Don Wilson has that same sound. I just assumed it was massive reverb but it decay's away so fast it can't be an outboard reverb unit.

Cool Mel. I always enjoy playing "Dance On", myself. Love that spacey sound and tempo of "Il Eko Eleki"! What echo do you use?

Very nice!!!

--Jim

Thanks guys! We only managed one rehearsal before the show, but thankfully we all did our homework on our own beforehand.

The echo is a Roland RE-20 digital space echo, set to position "4", the 2+3 tape head sound. This gives a great "galloping" feel which you can't get with single head type echos. For whatever reason, most American echos, like the Echoplex, only had a single record head. Multi-head echos were more common in Europe - Binson, Meazzi, Dynacord, Klemt, WEM, etc all had multiple record heads, and the 2+3 sound was used by The Shadows, The Spotnicks, The Atlantics and others. While a number of modern tape echo simulators can replicate the sound, none that I've tried have an interface as simple and intuitive as the RE-20.

Ferenc played the rhythm on the bridge pickup without much reverb, but the brightness enhances the reverb effect.

Hey, Mel--

The sound you fellows achieved was first rate. There is a real art to choosing pedals and effects, I've found.

I only use one, and that's a Dunlop MXR Carbon Copy delay. Since I'm going for a very particular sound (Sun Records' era Scotty Moore), that manages to do just fine.

I tried using a box that had a wide variety of effects options, and spent a weekend jotting down all kind of arcane permutations and combinations on a yellow pad, only to give up and hand the contraption to my son.

Simple works best for my simple mind.

--Jim

I'm with you Jim. A few years ago I bought a Boss GT6 'contraption' (all digital stuff plus a thick operater's manual, )
and thought "now I have it all" ....pedals, dials, knobs, buttons, amp modelling etc. etc. all on one board. I got fed up very quickly because it controlled me instead of the other way round and I finally admitted to myself that I needed only about 10% of the stuff on board anyway...
My mind is still in the analog world I'm afraid

That's exactly why I was so excited when the RE-20 came out - it has the same controls as the RE-201 Space Echo. Perhaps with a different interface it could do a bunch more, but I'm glad it's how it is, as I know how to work it.

Very nice. Thanks.
Jim