That Ol' Echoplex Rig

Do I hear an echo?

• Who said you can never go back again?
• What if you never left?
• What if the only thing standing between you and ecstatic release is a blown bias generator?

That was a heck of a road rig. I put it together in 1973. It held up until 1998. It's on the bench right now. Bad bias generator. I have an offer to overhaul it and install new tape for a great price, and I might just do that. This post might just prod my conscience bad enough to move me to action. Help me out, folks... this is sort of a survey. In a way.

The rig consisted of a Gibson Echoplex vintage 1970 I bought brand new from a music store for $100, and a Barcus-Berry flute system. The store specialized in school band instruments and couldn't sell it, so they had it seriously marked down. By a fortunate circumstance I was in the store shopping for a flute, trading up from a student Artley to a better student Gemeinhardt. The Echoplex got my noodle rolling, of course. I had experimented with the Conn acoustic pickup system in the past with trumpet and trombone. I knew I could use the same system by drilling out the head joint and installing the pickup fitting, but the pickups were so awkward. And I really didn't care to have yet another hardware mounting hole in an instrument.

The store happened to also have the Barcus-Berry system for flute in a little box down on the bottom shelf of the display case. The kind where the pickup replaces the head joint cork assembly, and drives to a preamp. Flute, pickup, Echoplex. I forked out all of my cash and took my goodies home.

Later I added a volume pedal which came in very handy. The outputs usually went into a small stage PA or a guitar amp stack. This rig served me well several nights a week for many years. I came to appreciate the "old school" analog echo as the years passed and really good digital time delays came around. Once control became all digital, real-time device changes became gawky compared to, say, moving a sliding bar or turning a potentiometer. Like comparing a MiniMoog (normalized knob noodling) with a DX7 (electronic calculator math). But that's not exactly a valid comparison. And I digress. But the best digital time delay is still not fun to play with. It's just a means to an end and not an extension into the tactile experience. That's where the ecstatic release thing happens.

Oh, the cascades of scales and trills overdriven to sustained echoes! The hard-edged quick slapback effect on brash solos. And the auto-accompaniments a la Chet Atkins. The flute just soared into space with a clean electric pickup and an Echoplex. I loved that rig. But it was not without a few rough edges. The Barcus-Berry preamp used a nine-volt transistor battery. If accidentally left on overnight, the battery was completely drained. That was a constant pain in the ass. The patch cord from the pickup to the preamp was a flimsy affair. It took a 1/16 sub-mini mono plug to a 1/4 standard mono plug. The sub-mini plug forced the gauge of the patch cord to be extremely small. Therefore flimsy. Well, you can't just walk into your neighborhood Radio Shack and get a sub-mini to quarter patch cord like that, and if you have to wire one up on a gig you better have high-quality low-heat soldering apparatus.

The preamp is blown now, and the Echoplex has as I mentioned a bad bias generator. But I could resurrect the rig. Coupla hundred bucks. Do you think there's still a place in the world today for that old time echo flute flava?