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I was wondering if anyone has any experience of the new Watkins echo unit and could give an objective assessment ( if that's possible) of its performance in comparison with the other common units in use such as the Magicstomp, Quadraverbs, or even the tape machines it claims to replicate. I know Alan Jackson ( whose knowledge of all things echoee I greatly respect) had some considerable input into the creation of the echo patterns, but I have never seen one of these machines in use and do not recall much chat on the subject on any of the forums.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

John Goatcher

Dave Robinson posted some soundfiles in the soundfiles a while back and I think Alan assisted him .. do a search to find them

I was speaking to a well respected Lead Guitarist and he said that
in his opinion the Copicat Gold is a superb echo unit, I believe it is based
on analogue "Bucket Brigade" technology rather than digital.

Alan Jackson also rates the unit highly!

Amanda

Thanks, John, for your query.

The Gold is/was a superb unit having 5 banks each containing 12 echo patches and I was able to programme Meazzi, Watkins, Binson, VOX and Roland sounds into the unit. The sound I describe as warm with a beautiful 'bloom' to the echoes. Each model of echo box simulated had an authentic amount of 'dirt' characteristic of the model and there were controls for the user to change echo volume, feedback, bass and treble and amount of 'wow' to taste and then, if wished, to reprogramme.

I should have liked a little more time to get the prototype exactly right (it was still damned good) before handing it over to Robbo for him to produce some demo tracks but it was never returned to me since the Watkins people thought it good enough.

The downside of the Gold was that changing Banks was a little clumsy and there was no digital display to tell the user which patch had been selected. Perhaps these were the reasons why the Gold did not catch on as only ten machines were ordered and so is has been discontinued. Charlie Watkins told me that he was replacing the Gold with a new unit presently in development which appears to be more user-friendly and I look forward to seeing one to play with.

Alan D. Jackson.

GOSH I am glad Charlie is still hanging in there!