Re: vintage eh16

[tEd ® kiLLiAn <tedkillian@charter.net>]

Hi there,

It's been a while. From the mid '80s to the mid '90s I owned a pair of them.
AND . . . most important of all . . . is that I owned one of the original 6-button, 
rare as hen's teeth, remote foot-switches for one of them -- and had a second 
one custom made to match it. Then I had the guts of BOTH foot-switches out
and housed together in one big sturdy, metal, custom stompbox.

The reason why I feel this is so important is that it kept my EH16s off the 
floor and away from as much damage as my big, heavy-footed self could
be counted on to inflict with my feet, spilled beer, etc., to such expensive 
but still predictably EH flimsy pieces of kit. 

Also, not only did each set of 6 switches replicate the 3 stomp-switches on
the EH16 unit itself -- but it also brought the 3 little finger toggle switches 
along the top of the units under foot control. That meant I didn't have to 
bend over if I wanted to go half- or 2x-speed, switch into reverse or
turn on the "clix" output. I had stomp switches for everything that I needed
except the slider functions. 

I do believe that was why I was able to own and use continuously for
10+ years those two devices without having any particular problems
with them -- losing any of the little plastic handles on the sliders or having
the sliders get all "scratchy" sounding when I slid them during performance,
or any other major problem. They remained in practically pristine mint 
condition and I sold them separately in '96 for enough to buy 2 spankin' new
Oberheim EDPs (and an EFC-7 foot-switch) with enough memory to max
both out to 180 seconds of delay.

The EH foot-switch worked along the same lines as the EDP remote switch.
It brought 6 different resistors (each with an order of magnitude higher value
of resistance than the next) in or out of a circuit that sensed resistance values 
and changed functions on the main unit accordingly. It was bone-head simple.
I wish I had the resistor values and the pencil-drawn schematic for the dumb 
thing still. 

Anywho, those switches lengthened the life of the main devices and made
using them a whole lot more convenient and pleasant. If you can find or
make one, you will be doing yerself a big favor and will have a lot more fun
with your looping.

You only own 1 unit,  so you won't have to worry about having to sync 2 of them
up as a stereo pair. I have a trick for that that involved using the "clix" feature and
was fairly accurate. I doubt if anybody on the list owns 2 of them so there's no
point in going into that.

Other advice? Well, the clix track can be more handy that one might think. You
can use it for a lot more than just an audio click track. For example, in the early
days of drum machines, Boss made a little drum machine thingy that was silver gray
and hardly bigger than one of their tuners are now. Well, those had an "input"
jack 'em that enabled their tempo to be driven by an audio pulse (either a click
track or a signal from a microphone in a bass drum). I used the EH16's "clix"
output to drive it with amazing success. It sure made playing to a canned beat
a lot more interesting than just playing to the sound of the "Clix." The drum machine
turned on and off . . . speed up or slowed down . . . always in sync with the loops.
Cool huh?

Plus the Clix slider could be positioned continuously, right? So you could find
spots that were between 4, 8 and 16 beats (etc.) where the Clix would stutter
and drop beats. Using this with the above mentioned drum machine was 
REALLY interesting. It introduced a bit of odd metered semi-randomness
to what was originally pretty standard canned (rock, shuffle, waltz, etc.) beats.

I also had an early Roland sampler (an S-10, I believe) whose arpeggiator could
could similarly be audio clock pulse tempo driven. I made some of the most
creative music I EVER made with that setup. I still wish I had it as a matter of
fact. That stuttering Clix track can be used for all sorts of madness if you put you
mind to it and use a little imagination. You could filter and process the bejeezus 
out of it for one thing.

Anywho, that's about enough. It brought back memories just thinking about 
those days. I can no longer give you current advice on the things. Like where
is a decent repair shop or what have you. But that's what Stan Card (Stan-o-saur)
and some of these other cats on the list can help you with. Stan is an amazing
surf guitar player who uses EH16 loops and is simply amazing to watch. I bet 
he'll have bunches o' advice for you. If you get a chance to hear him perform 
sometime, he'll pin yer ears back too.

Have fun!

tEd ® kiLLiAn

On Mar 31, 2006, at 7:28 PM, robert jenkins wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm new here, and the proud, new owner of the mythical
> delay.  I'd be so appreciative if anyone who knows
> this unit well could offer suggestions, as I'm just
> learning it.  I don't want to miss anything obvious.  


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