WATKINS (WEM) COPICAT Mk2 Rare Sixties Valve/Tube Tape Echo

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"Offered for sale here is a valve (tube) Mk2 Copicat from the sixties in reasonable cosmetic condition and excellent working order (for a 40-50 year-old valve tape echo). It has had a full service including, head cleaning/alignment/demagnetising, replacement of the capacitors, earthed three core mains cable fitted, and valves tested and replaced where appropriate.

Compared to the later IC Copicats the valve units don't usually produce such clear echoes, even when in good order (bear in mind the heads are 45 plus years old). This sounds lovely both as a pre-amp and as an echo unit. All three heads work well and sound excellent - good strong repeats that break up in an evocative fashion, and run into self-oscillation when the 'reverb' knob is turned up for authentic dub effects. The echoes have a good tone for an old valve Copicat and degrade with a dark crunchy quality - they cannot be desribed as accurate repeats as this is not a digital delay, but they have a sound and vibe that is most pleasing and create a unique effect that sounds 'right'.

These valve Copicats make great preamps, and are increasingly sought-after to add character and warmth to modern digital recordings (the Arctic Monkeys used a valve Copicat when recording their recent 'Suck It And See' album - see Sound On Sound magazine July 2011), as a result they are becoming harder to find, especially in good working order.

It has a trailing socket for footswitch operation and works with any normal footswitch (not included): the added advantage of this is that the footswitch socket carries the wet-only signal for use as an effects send via a mixing desk in the studio - the repeats don't self oscillate from this output unless you feed the signal back via the desk. This makes for a great character dealy when mixing, and is good for authentic dub effects.

The case is in reasonable order for its age, there is some damage as you'd expect and the original plastic grilles are long-gone but it has appropriate replacements.

It's fitted with a new genuine WEM tape - these are easy to bulk buy online, but if the winning bidder wants some couple of spares, please message us for prices/quantities. For best performance tape loops should be changed regularly. We can supply tape loops in greater quantities if required. We use/supply genuine WEM loops, still manufactured/supplied by Copicat designer/manufacturer Charlie Watkins, as well as loops from MyTapeEcho."