{{Short description|Guitar amplifier}} The ''' EchoSonic''' is a [[guitar amplifier]] made by [[Ray Butts]]. It was the first portable guitar amplifier with a built-in [[tape echo]] [[Effects unit|effect]], and it allowed guitar players to use [[Delay (audio effect)|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 ''[[Elvis (1968 TV program)|Comeback Special]]''.<ref name=hunter>Hunter, "The Ray Butts EchoSonic" 46-48.</ref> [[Deke Dickerson]] called the amplifier the [[Holy Grail]] of [[rockabilly]] music.<ref name=marcus>Marcus 42.</ref>
==History== Ray Butts, an "electronics wiz," owned a music store in [[Cairo, Illinois]], in the early 1950s. By this time, [[rockabilly]] and other guitar players (such as [[Les Paul]]) had discovered the "slapback" echo effect, which had become generally used but could, however, only be made in a studio setting.<ref name=hunter/> Butts thought that maybe guitar players would want to use the effect on stage,<ref name=bacon/> and using a Gibson 15-watt amplifier with a pair of [[6V6]] tubes,<ref name=hunter/> he fabricated a combo amplifier with a built-in tape echo<ref name=bacon>Bacon 44.</ref> for a local guitar player named Bill Gwaltney.<ref name=hunter/>
Butts took the second version of his EchoSonic to [[Nashville]], where he looked up Chet Atkins in the phone book; the next night, Atkins used the amp at the [[Grand Ole Opry]], having given Butts $395 and a 100-dollar [[Fender Amplifiers|Fender combo]] for it (this at a time when a top-of-the-line [[Fender Twin]] cost $239).<ref name=hunter/> The collaboration between the two produced more than just good advertising for Butts: he helped Atkins set up a recording studio, and in 1954 or 1955, prompted by Atkins, he invented a [[humbucker]] [[Pickup (music technology)|pickup]] which was adopted by [[Gretsch]] and introduced in their Atkins-endorsed [[Gretsch 6120]] in 1957 as the FilterTron pickup, creating what would become the legendary "twangy" Gretsch sound.<ref>Hunter, ''Electric Guitar Sourcebook'' 48-49.</ref> Atkins recorded much of his music of the 1950s with the Echosonic,<ref>Hunter, ''Guitar Rigs'' 50.</ref> and in his autobiography spoke of the connection between the amplifier and the humbucker (the first humbucker, according to Atkins, but [[Gibson Guitar Corporation|Gibson]] patented their [[PAF (pickup)|PAF]] before Butts did): the pickups on Atkins Gretsch produced an awful hum in conjunction with an unshielded transformer in the EchoSonic, leading Butts to connect two single-coil pickups in series and out of phase, creating the first humbucker.<ref>Atkins 80.</ref>
Scotty Moore, who at the time was recording with [[Sam Phillips]] (whose [[Sun Studio]] had the equipment for slapback echo), became aware of the Echosonic from listening to Atkins on the radio<ref name=hunter/> and called Butts to have one built for him;<ref>Moore and Dickerson 100.</ref> according to Moore, this was the third EchoSonic ever built<ref>Molenda and Paul 76.</ref> though Dave Hunter claims this is incorrect, that Moore's has serial number 8.<ref name=hunter/> He bought the EchoSonic specifically to emulate Atkins's sound,<ref>Millard 36.</ref> and bought another one in the late 1980s or early 1990s, serial number 24—an amplifier that had belonged to [[Paul Yandell]] and that Moore later sold to Deke Dickerson. Since the EchoSonic lacked power for large live venues, Butts later made a set of 50-watt "satellite" amplifiers and cabinets, "to enable Moore's lithe rockabilly riffs to be heard on a stage in front of thousands of screaming Elvis fans."<ref name=hunter/>
The combination of Moore's [[Gibson Super 400]] with the Echosonic ("a jazz classic meets a rock'n'roll revolution"<ref>Hunter, ''Guitar Rigs'' 40.</ref>) became legendary. Soon, many seminal rock and roll players, including [[Carl Perkins]], started using an EchoSonic, which in turn led to other manufacturers producing individual tape echo units that could be used in the studio as well as on stage.<ref>Hunter, ''Guitar Rigs'' 54.</ref> One of those tape units was the [[Echoplex]], which started as a copy of the echo unit from an EchoSonic, and became one of the most important echo effects of the twentieth century.<ref>Hunter, ''Guitar Rigs'' 55.</ref>
==Description== The EchoSonic is a combo amplifier "the size of a traveling salesman's battered suitcase" with, like most tweed amplifiers of the era, the control panel on the top. It has a single 12" speaker (made by University). The first versions produced 15 watts from 2 6V6 tubes but lacked "punch"; by the time Scotty Moore bought his amplifier, Butts had replaced the 6V6s with [[6L6]] tubes, increasing the output to 25 watts. The pre-amplifier section had four [[12AU7]]s, two [[12AY7]]s, a [[12AX7]] (originally a [[12AD7]]), and a [[6C4]]. The amplifier has a control for bass/treble (whose functionality (but not implementation) resembles that of a [[Peter Baxandall#Baxandall circuit|Baxandall circuit]]), two volume controls for microphone and instrument, and three controls for the echo circuit, but the delay time is not adjustable. The amplifier is delicate and requires a lot of maintenance: tubes run hot, and the echo circuit is delicate and needs frequent cleaning, oiling, and de-magnetizing. But according to amplifier restorer [[WWW.ECHOSONIC.CA|Frank Roy]], the wiring is "meticulous", all done [[Point-to-point construction|point-to-point]] and with "top-quality components".<ref name=hunter/>
==References== ;Notes {{Reflist|30em}} ;Bibliography *{{cite book|last1=Atkins|first1=Chet|last2=Cochran|first2=Russ|last3=Cochran|first3=Michael|title=Chet Atkins: Me and My Guitars|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjIj7tCvbtwC&pg=PA80|accessdate=11 February 2012|year=2003|publisher=Hal Leonard|isbn=978-0-634-05565-2|page=80}} *{{cite book|last=Bacon|first=Tony|title=50 years of Gretsch Electrics: half a century of White Falcons, Gents, Jets & other great guitars|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GMn4rhg7N9cC&pg=PA44|accessdate=10 February 2012|year=2005|publisher=Hal Leonard|isbn=978-0-87930-822-3}} *{{cite book|last=Hunter|first=Dave|title=The Electric Guitar Sourcebook: How to Find the Sounds You Like|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u8qxXFvsqeMC&pg=PT48|accessdate=10 February 2012|year=2006|publisher=Hal Leonard|isbn=978-0-87930-886-5}} *{{cite book|last=Hunter|first=Dave|title=Guitar Rigs: Classic Guitar & Amp Combinations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1-kULtG9tgC&pg=PA50|accessdate=10 February 2012|year=2005|publisher=Hal Leonard |isbn=978-0-87930-851-3}} *{{cite news|title=The Ray Butts EchoSonic|last=Hunter|first=Dave|date=April 2012|work=[[Vintage Guitar (magazine)|Vintage Guitar]]|pages=46–48}} *{{cite book|last1=Marcus|first1=Greil|last2=Dregni|first2=Michael|last3=Guralnick|first3=Peter |author4=Luc Sante |author5=Robert Gordon |author6=Sonny Burgess|title=Rockabilly: The Twang Heard 'Round the World: The Illustrated History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=06VWZ69WBAEC&pg=PA42|accessdate=10 February 2012|year=2011|publisher=Voyageur |isbn=978-0-7603-4062-2}} *{{cite book|last=Millard|first=A. J.|title=The electric guitar: a history of an American icon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zUlt7Q71_ssC&pg=PA36|accessdate=11 February 2012|date=June 2004|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-7862-6|page=36}} *{{cite book|last1=Molenda|first1=Mike|last2=Paul|first2=Les|title=The Guitar player book: 40 years of interviews, gear, and lessons from the world's most celebrated guitar magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zu3owmYkpZ0C&pg=PT76|accessdate=11 February 2012|date=2007-11-01|publisher=Hal Leonard |isbn=978-0-87930-782-0}} *{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Scotty|last2=Dickerson|first2=James|title=That's alright, Elvis: the untold story of Elvis's first guitarist and manager, Scotty Moore|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SFcIAQAAMAAJ|accessdate=10 February 2012|year=1997|publisher=Schirmer|isbn=978-0-02-864599-5}}
==External links== *[http://www.scottymoore.net/echosonic.html Scotty Moore's Echosonic] *[http://www.echosonic.ca Frank Roy's Ray Butts Echosonic EA-1 site] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5I3rWiseBU Video: Scotty Moore playing through Deke Dickerson's EchoSonic, 2003]
[[Category:Effects units]] [[Category:Instrument amplifiers]]