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Post by sentientsound on Jun 16, 2023 13:50:27 GMT -6
Near the end of last year, I got a Surfy Industries SurfyBear Studio. I'd heard their pedals and was impressed so jumped in on pre-orders on good faith. www.surfyindustries.com/surfybearstudioReally cool compact, lightweight but sturdy 1RU Fender-style 4 spring tank. It's got stereo balanced XLR I/O on the rear as well as a mono DI input and 1/4" stereo outs on the front panel. The more interesting features for me: - a soft gate - lets the springs ring out fully or tighten the decay in a musical way. - tilt EQ - besides dialing in the brightness it's fun to automate by hand during a mix - stereo width control - a kind of analog stereo comb filter I guess, spreading various frequencies to alternating channels (a bit like the old Waves PS 22 spreader) It sounds awesome to me and a slight bit of stereo width is a nice alternative to the classic mono spring sound. With 15-30% width you get a little halo of spring ambience that doesn't take over or muddle a mix. That said the full-stereo operation sounds cool too when you need that. Great tool overall for fans of the Accutronics spring tank sonics! The price feels really reasonable too. Anyone else enjoy stereo springs for mixdown? What else is available, what do you like? I know Audio Scape has a killer 12-spring Master Room redux: www.audio-scape.com/products/xl-305rTeaching Machines have a new-ish really interesting unit called Wellspring: Dual ping-pong PT2399 delay lines with modulation and filtering, and an overall feedback control tapped from the spring outputs.. teachingmachines.co.uk/?v=e892e780304dThen there's the AKG BX series of course... ITB there's AudioThing Springs, Fuse VREV-305, IK Sunset Sound Reverbs (AKG BX-20E) or UA's licensed BX 20 |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 16, 2023 13:54:43 GMT -6
Usually use the AKG BX20...but wish there were some drippy Fender style stereo springs.
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Post by sean on Jun 16, 2023 14:07:58 GMT -6
In plugin world I’ll use the PSP SpringBox…Arturia Spring-636 is great…sometimes the lowly Avid Black Spring
Outboard, there are tons! Tapco, Furman, Sound Workshop, various AKG, Orban, Vesta Fire…
Personally I kept my AKG BX10 but I’ve owned pretty much every 70’s and 80’s rack mount spring reverb it feels like
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jun 16, 2023 16:19:50 GMT -6
I’ve got the stereo Orban with eq - it’s fun but I’ve got to open it up and track down some noise issues in the thing.
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Post by shakermaker on Jun 16, 2023 16:39:40 GMT -6
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,794 
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Post by ericn on Jun 16, 2023 17:10:36 GMT -6
Talk to the guys at Audioscape, theirs looks really interesting.
I used a cheap POS Tascam for years, but the secret was we drove it with a Neve or API mic pre.
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Post by LazyOldSun on Jun 16, 2023 18:44:48 GMT -6
I dig the Tubeworks/BK butler RT-921. Stereo, 12 springs and only 1 rack space.
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Post by ab101 on Jun 16, 2023 23:19:48 GMT -6
I would be all over the audioscape. It sounds fantastic from samples. And they do amazing work.
And now down to $1999.
And that 260VU looks like the ultimate! (Off-topic but could not resist.)
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Post by anders on Jun 17, 2023 0:18:57 GMT -6
I have a Klark Teknik DN50 from the 1980s found on eBay. Dual springs with eq and limiting in a 2U box. It sounds surprisingly good for the size of its spring arrays. The Eurhytmics Sweet Dreams album was done with one of these and a Space Echo.
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Post by sentientsound on Jun 17, 2023 2:09:34 GMT -6
Woah that's impressive! Especially the internals - looks like good transformer-balanced discrete amps. From the samples it sounds a bit dark and midrangey, probably sits well in sparse mkxes. What do you most like it on? |
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Post by sentientsound on Jun 17, 2023 2:25:17 GMT -6
Usually use the AKG BX20...but wish there were some drippy Fender style stereo springs. Are you ITB? If so you may like AudioThing Springs. There's a few more drippy sounding options there along with various shaping controls and stereo width. I just picked up the Benson Tall Bird plugin too, it's not a particularly surfy sound but one of the most convincing plugin springs I've tried: www.mixwave.net/products/benson-tall-bird |
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Post by lowlou on Jun 17, 2023 2:57:30 GMT -6
Grampian reverbs, grampian reverbs & grampian reverbs.
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Post by christophert on Jun 17, 2023 3:31:54 GMT -6
AudioScape spring is right up there with the all time greats - a very special sounding stereo / dual mono spring without the "boing" - and with lots of EQ to shape the reverb.
The Grampians are mono, and are killer for soul and reggae / retro 60's sound / insane on guitar and Hammond - you can drive them hard
QuadEight springs are special mono springs too (think Motown).
I have all three here, and dearly love them all, but the Audioscape is very special.
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Post by lowlou on Jun 17, 2023 3:55:18 GMT -6
The Grampians are mono, and are killer for soul and reggae / retro 60's sound / insane on guitar and Hammond - you can drive them hard That's why you need two ! Never heard the Quadeight, how does it sound ? |
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Post by christophert on Jun 17, 2023 4:37:24 GMT -6
The Grampians are mono, and are killer for soul and reggae / retro 60's sound / insane on guitar and Hammond - you can drive them hard That's why you need two ! Never heard the Quadeight, how does it sound ? QuadEight sounds like a chamber - hardly any "boing". Very nice on vocals |
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Post by niklas1073 on Jun 17, 2023 5:40:07 GMT -6
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Post by sentientsound on Jun 17, 2023 13:58:41 GMT -6
Very cool, haven't seen these. Good price if you can DIY but still mono. I just remembered seeing a stereo Demeter spring at a friend's studio too. Haven't heard it yet. |
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Post by niklas1073 on Jun 17, 2023 15:18:58 GMT -6
Very cool, haven't seen these. Good price if you can DIY but still mono. I just remembered seeing a stereo Demeter spring at a friend's studio too. Haven't heard it yet. Yeah it’s mono, it would require to build two. Probably there’s room to incorporate two in one unit. |
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Post by veggieryan on Jun 18, 2023 14:45:40 GMT -6
The new Milkman Harmonic Tremelo Reverb plugin by Mixwave is the first digital spring reverb I have really enjoyed. Super fun in stereo. I thinks it's even better than the UAFX Golden.... It can do drip or more clean sounds. The hardware version is supposed to be like a vintage Fender tube reverb but tweaked and hot rodded with circuit improvements.
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Post by Ward on Jun 18, 2023 16:39:04 GMT -6
Having been a kid and interning/being a gopher at a studio as early as the 7th grade, the only outboard reverb around was a spring one. AKG BX of course. And then the Roland Space Echo with spring reverb. A rather large bathroom was tiled and de-fixtured thus converted into a chamber for vocals. That was interesting to some degree.
I watched, and eagerly joined in, the escape from these primitive means and rush towards EMT plates and then digital boxes like the Lexicon units, SPXs, Rolands etc. and to emulations of all with plugins.
Which leads me to the question... why does anyone want a spring reverb now, and what are your favorite applications for it anyhow?
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Post by robo on Jun 19, 2023 17:42:53 GMT -6
Having been a kid and interning/being a gopher at a studio as early as the 7th grade, the only outboard reverb around was a spring one. AKG BX of course. And then the Roland Space Echo with spring reverb. A rather large bathroom was tiled and de-fixtured thus converted into a chamber for vocals. That was interesting to some degree. I watched, and eagerly joined in, the escape from these primitive means and rush towards EMT plates and then digital boxes like the Lexicon units, SPXs, Rolands etc. and to emulations of all with plugins. Which leads me to the question... why does anyone want a spring reverb now, and what are your favorite applications for it anyhow? Character! It’s an obviously artificial but classic sound that draws a lot of subconscious associations. It can be just the thing to add some spicy space on a vocal or lead instrument. The “sproing” can be really great to help a snare drum sing in a mix too. I’ve been running monosynths through a little Van Amps box a lot lately. |
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Post by lowlou on Jun 20, 2023 3:03:50 GMT -6
One possible explanation : you need lots of reverb to make computer programmed music sound lively. Synths and drum machines do love their reverbs, choruses etc more than ever. Considering that current softsynths are reproducing analog synths sounds so well, more people, maybe, start to look at analog FX ?
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Post by Ward on Jun 20, 2023 7:36:27 GMT -6
Having been a kid and interning/being a gopher at a studio as early as the 7th grade, the only outboard reverb around was a spring one. AKG BX of course. And then the Roland Space Echo with spring reverb. A rather large bathroom was tiled and de-fixtured thus converted into a chamber for vocals. That was interesting to some degree. I watched, and eagerly joined in, the escape from these primitive means and rush towards EMT plates and then digital boxes like the Lexicon units, SPXs, Rolands etc. and to emulations of all with plugins. Which leads me to the question... why does anyone want a spring reverb now, and what are your favorite applications for it anyhow? Character! It’s an obviously artificial but classic sound that draws a lot of subconscious associations. It can be just the thing to add some spicy space on a vocal or lead instrument. The “sproing” can be really great to help a snare drum sing in a mix too. I’ve been running monosynths through a little Van Amps box a lot lately. Great answer! |
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Post by sentientsound on Jun 27, 2023 18:03:08 GMT -6
Yea vibe / character basically.
They can also be inspiring in writing or tracking situations.
In some cases they create a sense of physicality and depth unmatched by plugins making them a good ambience reverb for the right music. Especially true with some of the bigger units that sound almost plate-like. You can get a lot of variation by driving the input at different levels or with EQ in front (and/or after)
Mono springs can also work a bit like slap delay putting a subtle focused space on things that doesn't eat mix space.
Making them feedback or hitting them is fun too.
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