Interesting comparison of old spring tank versus new

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Bassman
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Interesting comparison of old spring tank versus new

Post by Bassman » Thu Dec 18, 2008 4:18 pm

I recently picked up a Spacexpander and a separate vintage Type 4 Hammond spring tank. I thought the spring tank was dead, so order a replacement from Accutronics (BTW, they were very helpful and provided great customer support – they have matched their products to the Spacexpander). While waiting for the new tank to arrive, I resoldered the connections on the old Hammond tank and got it working again. Sounded great.

When the Accutronics tank arrived, I A/B’d them and to my surprise they sounded significantly different! The Accutronics tank was much brighter while the old Hammond was darker and duller perhaps. I figured they might be some variation, but not to the degree I experienced. erhpas due ot oxidation on springs or simply (nicely) degraded components on the Hammond?? I haven’t experimented with variation in a mix yet, but I can see how both sounds will have advantage for different applications. For example, the Accutronics may serve well with shimmery phase/flanged hihats as it has more high end frequency to work with, while the Hammond tank did sound great on snares and sidesticks as is. Will report back more after some upcoming mix sessions.

Thought I’d throw this out there for consideration

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JahNice
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A/B samples?

Post by JahNice » Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:17 am

Hi, would it be easy for you to record and upload some samples from your mix-sessions so that we can hear the differences between the 2 spring-tanks? would be nice, although i am getting a spacexpander soon :-) ,so when i get it i can experiment 4 myself..

respect

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Neil C
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Post by Neil C » Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:50 pm

Here's what I said in the transducer specs thread:

'I got a new tank (good service from Accutronics).
I can tell you the code above - 4FB2B2C (although 2C will have to be 1C because of the clamp thing*) works - the input output audio levels seem to be the same as the original one.
There certainly is a difference in sound. With both springs (on the new one) there isn't much of the undulating/ripple effect, with one spring tank you get all undulation but no reverbiness. The new one has a more clean, less rusty sound than the original one. I'm not sure if I prefer the old or new one.
The decay time on the new one seems shorter than the orignal - I wonder if I should have gone for the maximim reverb time on the specification?
I also wonder if you need to 'run in' a spring tank to get it to loosen up?'

I think what I'll do is do 2 passes to track both tanks into a project and blend between them.
Last edited by Neil C on Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bassman
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Post by Bassman » Mon Dec 22, 2008 6:32 am

Hey, Neil - sorry I didn't spot your earlier post. Your comments are spot on with what I'm experiencing. In fact, I'm finding the new tank to be bright to an extreme, although I'm reserving judgement until I can resolve some patching issues. I have some big latency issues to resolve before I can post anything.

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Neil C
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Post by Neil C » Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:45 pm

I've just added to the images, overview thread with some images.
I see that the Spacexpander was shipped with the springs in the tank quite bent (with a strip of something) I presume to stop them rattling about in transit.
Anyway, I wonder if having them stretched like that for a while affects the sound - and whether that is something one should do to a new tank?
Image

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