Watkins Copicat

Last updated

The Watkins Copicat is an audio effects unit that produces delay and reverb effects. One of the first commercially available tape delay units, [1] the original Copicat model was produced by Watkins Electric Music beginning in 1958. The Copicat became one of Watkins' most successful products, and the company produced various Copicat models and versions over the following decades.

Contents

History

In 1960, inspired by the tape echo unit used on Marino Marini Quartet's song "Come prima", Charlie Watkins, co-founder of London music shop Watkins Electric Music, had the idea for a simple, affordable, portable tape echo unit. With the help of engineer Bill Purkis, Watkins designed the Watkins Copicat, a compact (12-inch by 8-inch) valve-based tape echo unit with three replay heads and selector switch, and a feedback loop for a variable echo-repeat effect. [2]

Watkins' shop sold the entire first production run of 100 Copicats on the first day, including the very first Copicat sold to Johnny Kidd of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, whose guitarist used it on the group's UK hit song "Shakin' All Over". [3] [2]

The Copicat, which preceded other major European echo units like the Binson Echorec, Meazzi Echomatic, and Vox Echo Deluxe, would become one of the company's most successful products, with Watkins (later branded as WEM) releasing various different Copicat models over more than 50 years. [4]

The Copicat became one of Watkins' most successful products, and the company produced various Copicat models and versions over the following decades.

Models

Software emulations

Wavesfactory makes an analogue-modelling delay plug-in emulation of the Copicat called the Echo Cat. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effects unit</span> Electronic device that alters audio

An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mellotron</span> Musical instrument

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. As the key is released, the tape is retracted by a spring to its initial position. Different portions of the tape can be played to access different sounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vox (company)</span> Musical equipment manufacturer

Vox is a British musical equipment manufacturer founded in 1957 by Thomas Walter Jennings in Dartford, Kent, England. The company is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, used by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Queen, Dire Straits, U2, and Radiohead; the Vox Continental electric organ, the Vox wah-wah pedal used by Jimi Hendrix, and a series of innovative electric guitars and bass guitars. Since 1992, Vox has been owned by the Japanese electronics firm Korg.

In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the listener. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or by the walls of an enclosed room and an empty room. A true echo is a single reflection of the sound source.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Echo chamber</span> Hollow enclosure used to produce reverberated sounds

An echo chamber is a hollow enclosure used to produce reverberation, usually for recording purposes. For example, the producers of a television or radio program might wish to produce the aural illusion that a conversation is taking place in a large room or a cave; these effects can be accomplished by playing the recording of the conversation inside an echo chamber, with an accompanying microphone to catch the reverberation. Nowadays, effects units are more widely used to create such effects, but echo chambers are still used today, such as the famous echo chambers at Capitol Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roland RE-201</span> Audio effects unit

The Roland RE-201, commonly known as the Space Echo, is an audio effects unit that produces delay and reverb effects. It was produced by the Roland Corporation from 1974 to 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novation Digital Music Systems</span> British musical equipment manufacturer

Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd. is a British musical equipment manufacturer, founded in 1992 by Ian Jannaway and Mark Thompson as Novation Electronic Music Systems. Today the company specializes in MIDI controllers with and without keyboards, both analog and virtual analog performance synthesizers, grid-based performance controllers, and audio interfaces. At present, Novation products are primarily manufactured in China.

Automatic double-tracking or artificial double-tracking (ADT) is an analogue recording technique designed to enhance the sound of voices or instruments during the mixing process. It uses tape delay to create a delayed copy of an audio signal which is then combined with the original. The effect is intended to simulate the sound of the natural doubling of voices or instruments achieved by double tracking. The technique was developed in 1966 by engineers at Abbey Road Studios in London at the request of the Beatles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ARP Odyssey</span> Electronic musical instrument developed by ARP Instruments

The ARP Odyssey is an analog synthesizer introduced by ARP Instruments in 1972.

Line 6 is a musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer. Their product lines include electric and acoustic guitars, basses, guitar and bass amplifiers, effects units, USB audio interfaces and guitar/bass wireless systems. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Calabasas, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electro-Harmonix</span> Guitar pedals company

Electro-Harmonix is a New York City-based company that makes electronic audio processors and sells rebranded vacuum tubes. The company was founded by Mike Matthews in 1968. It is best known for a series of guitar effects pedals introduced in the 1970s and 1990s. EHX also made a line of guitars in the 1970s.

Arturia is a French electronics company founded in 1999 and based in Grenoble, France. The company designs and manufactures audio interfaces and electronic musical instruments, including software synthesizers, drum machines, analog synthesizers, digital synthesizers, MIDI controllers, sequencers, and mobile apps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delay (audio effect)</span> Echo-like effect

Delay is an audio signal processing technique that records an input signal to a storage medium and then plays it back after a period of time. When the delayed playback is mixed with the live audio, it creates an echo-like effect, whereby the original audio is heard followed by the delayed audio. The delayed signal may be played back multiple times, or fed back into the recording, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Echoplex</span> Tape delay effect machine

The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s—it is still regarded as "the standard by which everything else is measured." It was used by some of the most notable guitar players of the era; original Echoplexes are highly sought after.

The Binson Echorec is an echo machine produced by Italian (Milan) company Binson, an early manufacturer of such devices. Unlike most other analog echo machines, they used an analog magnetic drum recorder instead of a tape loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rockfield Studios</span> British recording studio

Rockfield Studios is a residential recording studio located in the Wye Valley just outside the village of Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales. It was originally founded in 1963 by brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watkins Electric Music</span>

Watkins Electric Music (WEM) is a British company known for manufacturing PA systems, the Copicat tape echo unit, guitar amplifiers, and electric guitars.

Charlie Watkins was a British musician, inventor, and entrepreneur best known as the founder of Watkins Electric Music and a pioneer of sound reinforcement systems for rock concerts. Watkins was the first to build PA systems with multiple slaved solid state amplifiers driving various loudspeaker stacks, beginning with the Windsor Festival in 1967.

The EchoSonic is a guitar amplifier made by Ray Butts. It was the first portable guitar amplifier with a built-in tape echo effect, and it allowed guitar players to use slapback echo, which dominated 1950s rock and roll guitar playing, on stage. He built the first one in 1953 and sold the second one to Chet Atkins in 1954. He built fewer than seventy of those amplifiers; one of them was bought by Sam Phillips and then used by Scotty Moore on every recording he made with Elvis Presley, from the 1955 hit song "Mystery Train" to the 1968 TV program Comeback Special. Deke Dickerson called the amplifier the Holy Grail of rockabilly music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One of These Days (instrumental)</span> Song by Pink Floyd

"One of These Days" is the opening track from Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle. The composition is instrumental except for the spoken line from drummer Nick Mason, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces." It features double-tracked bass guitars played by David Gilmour and Roger Waters, with each bass hard panned into one channel of stereo, but one bass sound is quite muted and dull. According to Gilmour, this is because that particular instrument had old strings on it, and the roadie they had sent to get new strings for it wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.

References

  1. Hughes, Tom (27 August 2014). "Echoes of the Past and Future". Premier Guitar. Gearhead Communications, LLC. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 Hunter, Dave (September 2017). "Beat-Gen But: The Watkins Joker". Vintage Guitar. Vintage Guitar Inc. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  3. Cooper, Gary (February 2015). "Charlie Watkins: Audio Pioneer 1923-2014". Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  4. "WEM Shadow Echo". catalinbread.com. 26 March 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  5. Pickford, John (28 May 2014). "Vintage: Watkins Copicat". MusicTech. MusicTech. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  6. Inglis, Sam (February 2021). "Wavesfactory Echo Cat: Analogue-modelling Delay Plug-in". Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group. Retrieved 21 February 2022.