Testing out various vintage drum & tape machines during repairs including some major custom modifications by Dani in the workshop...

All recordings Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio.

The Secret World of Vintage Delays, Drum & Tape Machines...

The result of some of the many random experiments with sound in The Lab over the years...

All recordings copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio.

Random Experiments With Sound in The Lab...

Having a go washing through a cute little 1983 Doctor Rhythm DR-110 analog drum machine through a vintage VA-55 tube mixer with spring reverb paralleled with the kicks fed through a tube amplified Bruel & Kjaer 1615 resonator set in the 63Hz 1/3 oct band.  The result was then washed through an old SONY DAL-1000 digital limiter. The result is quite beefy! :)

PLEASE NOTE: THESE LOOPS ARE FREE TO USE IN ANY MUSIC RECORDING BUT STRICTLY FORBIDDEN FOR USE IN COMMERCIAL SAMPLE PACKAGES OR INSTRUMENTS WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio, 2021.

1983 Doctor Rhythm DR-110: Tube Processed (Free Loops 4U)

My studio archives are littered with long forgotten test recordings I made of vintage studio gear that has been through the workshop for clients. Sometimes I have fun throwing a few of them together and seeing what comes out. In this case its a couple of test recordings from back when I custom modified a number of Adrian Utley's wonders a few years back to be sync'able including his Bentley FR-6, TR-808 and a rackmount Oberheim Two-Voice (TVS-1).

Composition  & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2015.

Locked & Loaded: TR-808, Bentley FR-6 & Obi TVS-1 Sync Retrofit testing...

An 1969 Solartron Pseudo Random Generator modulating  a lab oscillator in a 5 level probability distribution of pitches mixed with three drones slightly modulated with the bandwidth filter set to 3.5Hz producing something a little more musical than I was expecting from an old piece of lab test gear!

Original Sound Design & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019

1969 Solartron Pseudo Random Generator: JM1861 Bagpipes

Made whilst testing out a gorgeous 1978 Ibanez AD-230 all BBD analog delay heavily modified in The Lab at Hideaway Studio to permit full CV control of most of the major front panel controls including Vactrol controlled regen levels adding a whole new slant to a great sounding modulated delay jam packed with Bucket Brigade Delay chips!...

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio, 2020.

1978 Ibanez AD-230: Under Full CV Control...

This thing is just plain nuts when you start injecting LFO signals onto the pins of the ADC MUX chip for the front panel control CV channels!!

All segments of this were made with a simple one note sequence whilst the pitch, sample, decay and repeat parameter CV channels were modulated by an LFO with a roughly time related period to the tempo thus causing all manner of evolving natural patterns - this includes the entire section at the end of the recording which was made the same way!..

I feel some serious circuit-bending coming on as none of these parameters are available via midi or CV in stock form...

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio, 2020.

1986 Simmons MTX9: Messin' With Its 'Nsides!...

Testing out Adrian Utley's infamous and very awesome 1979 Maestro Echoplex EP-4 after it developed some capstan motor issues.

I love old tape delays - they all have a sound and character of their own and the EP-4 sounds particularly chunky with a great vibe and really cool sounding regerative feedback.

In this case a factory drum sequence from the Alesis Micron I keep in the workshop as a useful test source was fed into the EP-4 - and what a transformation!...

My archives are littered with literally hundreds of test recordings like this!

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2020.

1979 Maestro Echoplex EP-4: Drum Munging Beast..

Having just invested in a crazy number of never used, still in their boxes, JAN (GE) ECF82 Triode-Pentode tubes I spent the afternoon determining whether I'd got myself something worthwhile or a useless pile of glassware..

- the answer?  Well I managed to lash up a working pre-amp, VCA, ring-mod and superhet mixer and then proceeded to have great fun going a bit nuts with it all...  yup - I think there are some interesting projects to come out of all these tubes!

Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio, 2020.

ECF82: SuperHet Soup

Testing a 1964 Mk 2 Watkins tube Copicat during initial wakeup and assessment on the bench on the isolated variac following essential repairs to free up a seized capstan motor...

Made with two overdubs - one with a lab sinewave generator through the Copicat and one with some drums from the little Alesis Micron in the workshop also being munged to great effect by this lovely sounding all tube tape echo!

Some people say they prefer the sound of the solid-state Copicats but having owned and worked on both I'd say I prefer the tube units for their mojo.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio, 2020.

1964 Watkins Mk2 Tube Copicat Awakens: Drum & Sines...

D.A.Wilson is an Electronic Engineer, Sound Designer & Vintage Synth Specialist with a particular interest in combining vintage tube, classic analog and modern digital technologies working as a synth engineer looking after a very considerable amount of vintage studio equipment for Will Gregory (Goldfrapp / Moog Ensemble) and a number of other internationally celebrated electronic musicians and producers.  Having undertaken several major restorations and produced custom electronic designs for a number of major artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Dani is also known for fully restoring two out of the world's four remaining 1979 Crumar GDS and partially restoring 1938 Novachord 346 (the only known operational Novachord in the UK) to playable order along with developing and producing the new Elfin family of 8-bit polysynths and the popular MIDI Front Panel Animator (FPA), Filter Defeat Module (FDM) and XD-280 Drive Emulator upgrades for the AKAI S612 sampler.

Demos of the S612 Upgrades in Action: 

https://soundcloud.com/hideaway-studio/sets/hideaway-studios-s612-front


Hideaway Studio Kontakt Sound libraries may be purchased directly from: 
https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/hideaway-studios
 

..and a nice introduction by Cory Pelizzari to the Hideaway Studio Kontakt Libraries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C7a3ChC9U&feature=emb_title


For more on releases from Hideaway Studio for Kontakt please visit the blog at:  www.hideawaystudio.net