Coolest Old School Rack Gear

[jon]

OK time to get out your spandex, parachute pants, and aquanet.

What's the coolest old school piece of rack gear you've got and why do you love it.

Me, I've got a Korg DRV-3000 IMO one of the nicest reverbs around, Plus Gilmore has one. I also am about to buy a Yamaha E1010 Analog delay with modulation.

[rsalinger]

Apart from my ol' faithful Eventide H3000s, the only other piece of "old-school rack gear" that I refuse to part with is a little-known (perhaps, 'long-forgotten'?) Pitch-Shifter/Chorus/Harmonizer: Digitech HM-4 Harmony Machine. Any love for the HM-4?

The HM-4 is an integral part of my so-called 'clean sound'. It has 4 banks (Blues, Country, Rock, Jazz) each with 16 presets (12 harmony, 4 Chorus/Shifter). I use some of the Chorus patches very subtly on ballads or to add depth to my chicken pickin'.

As a Harmonizer, it's not a TC Helicon. Obviously. However, some of the Harmony patches are very intuitive and the unit tracks surprisingly well, for its age, with fewer audio artifacts than expected from an "old-school rack unit". I use a few of the Harmony patches when I play slide, for pedal-steel type licks. When used in moderation, it does the trick.

I will probably never part with either.

I don't haul a rack around to shows anymore. These units now sit in the relative tranquility of my home-studio.

[sharkboy]

I still have an HM-4, but it's been a few years since I used it. I got it for vocals, originally, but I found that I didn't like it so much for that application.It sounds very cool on a distorted guitar. Especially where it gets confused about what the fundamental is- surprisingly great effect.

I have a JoeMeek 1U single preamp of some brief vintage that is surprisingly good. I've spent a lot of money on gear in my life, and that silly wad of sand that I bought for almost nothing has been a go-to preamp since I picked it up. I just moved, so I can't get an eyeball on it right now. It was a very cheap predecessor of the SixQ2.

[ToneMerc]

Lexicon PCM-41, nice warm delay tone, cool modulation effects and when you are bored, it makes great ray gun sounds too. Also, not as old but 80's, the TC2290 is very cool as well.

TM

[mhartman]

ADA MP-1 This was the goto preamp for the late 80's/early 90's. Plug it into a nice, tube power amp, add some reverb/delay and you are good to go.

[rsalinger]

It sounds very cool on a distorted guitar. Especially where it gets confused about what the fundamental is- surprisingly great effect.

The "Country" bank has some nice patches that help nail those elusive Queen and Boston-esque type harmony lead sounds. The trick is to use the unit in parallel.

[Baxtercat]

Some generic Digitech digital 'verb [has useful in and out level controls too].
Since I play so many Surf tunes someone's always wondering why I don't use an old Fender tank. I just don't like that harsh clanky sound.

[LeftyStrat]

I have two favs.

A Digitech TSR-24. It has two processors so you can switch programs and have the 'tail' of decays and reverbs continue to decay.

It also allows any layout and order of fx blocks. Unfortunately programming it is like mapping out the universe while peeking through a key hole.

The other is just plain crazy, a Lexicon Vortex. I play with it whenever I want to induce flashbacks.

[vibratoking]

Dynacord CLS-222 Leslie simulator. It part of my 'big' rack and goes to most all of my gigs. Just sounds great...

[Structo]

Google big rack.

I dares ya.

[vibratoking]

I forgot that big rack means so many things to so many people. That Google search led me down way to many paths...

[LeftyStrat]

Dynacord CLS-222 Leslie simulator. It part of my 'big' rack and goes to most all of my gigs. Just sounds great...

I would *love* to have one of those. Nothing else comes close to simulating a leslie. But they're hard to find and expensive.

[Cliff Schecht]

Definitely my MXR M-175 Digital Time Delay. It's a really fun 80's digital delay with built in chorus, flanger and doubler. The deal is it's not a very useful delay, just a run of the mill stale digital delay, but they gave it the ability to self-oscillate well into the audio range. Also it has a width knob that is usable even in delay mode, something that I haven't seen on any other delay. There's also a goofy inverted delay feature to emulate reverse studio tricks poorly. Just in there I've had a lot of fun, but the built in chorus and flanger can actually be made useful. It's not a box I use often, and heck I think I paid $5 at a Goodwill for it, but I would never get rid of it because it's too damn unique.

[Reeltarded]

Lexicon PCM-41, nice warm delay tone, cool modulation effects and when you are bored, it makes great ray gun sounds too. Also, not as old but 80's, the TC2290 is very cool as well.

TM

+1 anda +2 and a one more of the -42 and the Eventide.

[Bear]

Definitely my MXR M-175 Digital Time Delay. It's a really fun 80's digital delay with built in chorus, flanger and doubler. The deal is it's not a very useful delay, just a run of the mill stale digital delay, but they gave it the ability to self-oscillate well into the audio range. Also it has a width knob that is usable even in delay mode, something that I haven't seen on any other delay. There's also a goofy inverted delay feature to emulate reverse studio tricks poorly. Just in there I've had a lot of fun, but the built in chorus and flanger can actually be made useful. It's not a box I use often, and heck I think I paid $5 at a Goodwill for it, but I would never get rid of it because it's too damn unique.

That sounds a lot like the Deltalabs Effectron delays. I've got the ADM-1024, which can modulate the delay and has the fun-as-f*** infinite repeat button and switch jack. Lots of fun, and they seem to have sold well and cheaply back in the day so they pop up a lot.