local jazz legend NATHAN HAINES has long time been a friend of ekadek. so even though i don’t work on alot of domestic music equipment, i did make him a stereo system … which i think he loves. here’s his testimony. “My brief for Ekadek was simple – I wanted to play my jazz vinyl at home on a system that would replicate the listening pleasure afforded those when the records were new…in other words a valve amp with matched vintage speakers. After some searching Greg came up with the chassis of a mid 60′s Lafayette amp (with pre), then went about ordering parts from the US and getting the amp going perfect again. He also sourced a pair of Celestion Ditton 15 speakers from the 60′s at a very reasonable price. After buying an early 70′s Luxman turntable to match , I was understandably excited when he arrived at my house with the equipment in tow – another example of how Greg looks after his customers and really cares about the outcome of his work. I was astonished at the sound from the system – literally never before had I heard my vinyl sounding so translucent, real and defined – and this is with records I have owned for over 20 years! At home listening to records, I have never been happier” Nathan Haines.
heres some details of my newest obsession. a pair of old plate reverb frames were to either come to me, or left to rust utterly. they need complete rebuilding. starting with the spring wire tensioner bolt arrangements. they are all rusted and weak. the plate verb sound is all about the plate being tensioned just right. so that the transducers can do their business. ive found some new spring wire and the hardened tags are being made. spring steel needs special tools. guilotines and hi speed diamond drills. i have made new tensioner adjustment bolts myself though. its quite a large project. the plate drivers have to made custom and the pickup devices to be sorted. there are driver amplifiers and pickup amps to make. and i have to work on them to sell now. or i fear they would probable get chucked out in the way-future for whatever dam reason. so my obsessive compulsive gear junkie tweaking and geeking brain gets another good smacking. i will make some sound tests of the plates once they work. in the meantime please enjoy a smidgen of lulus latest number entitled microphone
the klark teknik dn34 analogue time processor. 1976. this toy twists and flips to see sound from all different angles of time. u can hold a sound still . pensive. and then move it dramatic in space. it can move a thing inside out of itself and back. the combination with hh multi- echo can lift a sound up right off the ground and then slam it down. this track is a simple bass riff with my hh tape echo and katee working all the spatial delay. a mono system will not play this correct. there’s too much out of phase.
the ekadekatron. two fat lady vari mu limiting amplifiers. and a two 3 WAYS equalizers. 18 tubes total. goes like stink! adam (empire audio labs) reckons the eq is better and more effective than a pultec eqp1a. and the limiter amps are like a mothers love (?) but hey! enough with the similie. they have their own sound dimension believe me. please send a short sound file to test me.
philips EL6910 serial #507 1960. the tall and handsome ray the delay. 216kg. ray gets played as a tight and twisted space delay maker. he makes extreme excited and churning close up … and up to … longer rattleee delay timings. the regen mixer chassis has momentary regen mute and ‘preset full on’ button switches that are large and springy and playable. the 4 head amps have indivdual gain controls. they can be quite clean and also very very dirty. heres a 3 meg mp3 of ray churing and clacking into a rythym track. and heres another mp3 of that rythym track with one more completely ray-ed up sound. (thanks for that beaut sound dirac).
if you want to hear what hes like on a sound of yours … send me that thing. i’ll ray it up and blip that rayed thing right back.
he was made in zurich by exiled valve rocket scientists out of old valve rocket parts. those crazy guys! everything about how ray is designed and built is mental expensive over the top military like. cast iron with extra steel. 28 special quality tubes. 8 split layered class A signal transformers. and a 600 rpm precision bearing power turbine disk system recording/playing back across a paper thin air gap. nope. the v.s.t plug in does not exist.
at last! this machine is alive and on line. its taken an age to rebuild and modify. and finally has brand spanking new 1/2 ” 2 track heads. the recordings are very fat and clear. very kind to transient peak levels. you can drive more sound signal at him. and he never really breaks up … just gets more glued. the playback is awesome. really big and solid. ultimate analogue really …hugh from goldbaby recorded and resampled his TR808 drummer from this machine. so send me a soundfile and i’ll record it onto mr ampex and i guarantee youll like the difference that a good tape recording can make. the first demo can be free. thereafter by easy negotiation.
