T-Rex's superb final edition modern replica of the Binson Echorec Magnetic Drum Echo steals the show at NAMM 2023 after 8 years of R&D
I apologise for being a little late with this - while I was waiting for proper official release references to materialise - and they still haven’t - so we don’t have the full specs necessarily. What we do know is that it’s a touch smaller than the original - and while not really properly a stompbox as such it can still be sort of deployed in that pedalboard manner.
It’s actually quite a bit more practical than I thought it would be - but I don’t have the final dimensions yet. The top visual here though does beautifully show off the mechanics of the device - with what looks like a set of 7 Playback and Recording Heads. Obviously we know that 4 of those are the main Playback Heads, and at least one is a Recording Head, with an Erase Head in there too - so I’m not clear on what the 7th in this set does - perhaps someone else can illuminate!
Controls - Volume, Rec.1-Short / Rec.2-Long switch, Drum Speed, Rec Level, Playback Heads buttons - 1-4, Feedback, Repeat / Swell switch, Echo Tone, Bypass, Magic Eye Vacuum Tube Saturation Indicator.
If you've been following the progress of the Echorec development - you will have seen that a previous iteration had separate volume controls for each of the playback heads - I guess that could come back as a Dlx version one day - while the current format is obviously neater and more practically usable.
So much time and effort has gone into the development of this device - in particular the magnetic drum - which is incredibly precisely milled to aerospace tolerances - and to a much higher level than the originals were. Some highly specialist wire is then wound around the drum and ground down to 0.1mm thickness - where that layer is then magnetised for carrying the recordings.
There's no indication of lifespan for this Drum part - while it will of course be easily replaceable. I would assume some sort of direct-drive motor propels that - as used on the most high-end of turntables. Where this device is a much more robust kind of magnetic echo than the usual tape-based ones - and should have a more reliable and extended use than those devices.
Pricing is relatively steep but still relatively fair at €1,700 / $2,100 / £1,649 and equivalent and it is already listed for preorders at several dealers including Andertons and Sweetwater.
This is still most likely to be more of studio tool - while I think some well-known players will try to accommodate it within a pedalboard setup - Schmidt Array will no doubt need to do a special edition to accommodate this.
I'm a huge fan of Tape / Magnetic style delays and that is typically my preferred flavour of delay. So I would really quite like to own one of these - while I would have no idea how to fit it into my setup. Obviously it's the kind of pedal that most of us will need to save up for if we want one. I would imagine fairly significant demand and waiting lists for these - as no doubt every studio will want one.
Kudos to T-Rex for persevering with this project - the demos sound pretty stellar, while I for sure won't be one of those getting one of these particularly quickly unless my numbers come in or some other windfall. And I would then have to figure out where the heck I was going to fit it in - possibly on some kind of dedicated pedestal.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing these out and about and on some of those pedalboards!
Are any of you seriously considering acquiring one?
I'm sure with all the technology we have to hand we can make an even smaller proper analog magnetic echo some day soon. Whichever way you look at this though you have to be impressed by T-Rex's engineering prowess in perfecting and refining this format over so many year.
Considering all the time and effort that's gone into it - perhaps that price isn't quite so steep after all!
Demos
