Yes - finally got my "King Tubby" spring reverb!

[2000f]

Finally I got hold of a Fisher K10 valve amplified spring reverb, as used by King Tubby and Prince (King) Jammy. Just won the auction at ebay. Hurrah!

This old reverb was originally intented for use in cars, organs, tv sets in the 60's. In this way you could suddenly get "stereo" sound, eventhough the spring reverb is in mono. Check out the audio sample below.

Another pride of my collection. The 2007 Obeah tunes will feature this reverb quite a bit, I rekcon.





sample: http://www.interruptor.ch/audio/spacexp ... spring.wav

[doomstep]

except tubbys was modified by the man himself, so he still has it xcloos

[2000f]

Yes, apparently it was. But I reckon that what he did was adding a piece of cloth to one or both of the springs to dampen the sound. This a very common spring reverb "mod".
I´ve already got a AKG BX2 (mono), AKG BX20 (stereo) and a Great British Spring (stereo) + an EMT 240 (stereo gold foil/plate reverb), but I´m sure the Fisher Spacexpander will work it´s way through the ranks.

[doomstep]

given his skill with a soldering iron & the fact that Spacexpander was really a 'consumer' piece I'd say he prob swapped a few bits here n there as well,

but yh the fisher def has its own sound, which is why Tubbys records didn't sound like phil spectors, or others using more standard units, your studio is nuts tho man - I wouldnt be able t eat if I had all that stuff about.

hey man I know yr a big reason fan, have you ever lined the RV-7k spring algorythm up against the origs, I love that thing but even the tiny (& hissy) spring in my VCS3 kills, proper lush verb from springs

[2000f]

I reckon you are right regarding his mod' ing skills of the Fisher. I´ve got the schematic, and will ask an electronics genious to have a look at it. I reckon that eg. the capacitators might need to be replaced (standard procedure).

Anyway, regarding the Reason RV-7000: I love this unit A LOT. But not for regular reverbs. The spring (and Space Echo) algorithms tend to fit my tunes quite good, however (my special "mod) I tend to use it like this:

For spring reverb:
sounds souce ->compressor->EQ-> Scream (with Tape selected or sometimes Valve/Tube) -> RV-7000 (spring one or the other) -> Scream (with Tape selected).

For tape echo:
sounds souce ->compressor->EQ-> Scream (with Tape selected or sometimes Valve/Tube) -> RV-7000 (spring one or the other - however short reverb time) -> RV-7000 (Space Echo one or the other). Sometimes I also add yet another RV-7000 spring reverb at the end, if it has to sound extreme.

I haven´t compared the RV-7000 with my "real" units, but I know that the originals sound quite different: more lively, fuller (sometimes also wider) but also have more overtones. It´s hard to explain, but eg. the BX20 sounds so amasing, that you can an single vocal perfomance solo just with the reverb and it will sound wide and full.

[soi]

congratz on the Fisher.
while we're on the subject, here's my reverb unit i got from a friend:

close but no cigar

[doomstep]

yh man you know about scream tape, I love that thing, I use so many I kinda feel dumb, but nah if it sounds good,

its amazing how good 'mechanical' verbs sound, so wrong but so right

[subtek]

thats a pretty good score, man!

[Sharmaji]

live it up man! i got a roland 301 chorus echo w/ spring reverb a few months back... thing is endlessly inspiring. real springs can get NASTY!!!