Review by George Shilling
Before digital delay and reverb became commonplace in the early 1980s, reverb on records was created by analogue means. You’ve probably read about echo chambers in some of the major studios of the second half of the twentieth century – some of which have been recreated as plugins. These worked by sending a signal to a speaker in a reflective room, and miking it up to capture the ambience. The Abbey Road and Rockfield ones are still used and sound great. Another common reverb was the echo plate, most famously the EMT 140 which was an enormous sheet of metal in a box, with a transducer at one end and a pickup or two the other, capturing the generated signal. These unwieldy units were sensitive to external noise and often located in the attics of studios.
Spring Is Here
Then there were spring reverbs. These coiled springs worked on a similar principle but took up rather less space, indeed so compact as to be able to fit inside a guitar amplifier. But studio units also existed like the Master Room reverb, a great sounding tall column-like box, or the Great British Spring which was built inside a grey plastic waste drainage pipe, and about as lo-fi as it looked. I previously owned a terrific rack-mounted Orban stereo spring reverb from the 1970s which included basic EQ. But it’s a long time since a serious studio spring reverb was marketed.
So it’s a brave move from Teaching Machines to dive in with a brand new design for a stereo spring, and the brand name suggests there are some things to be learned here…!
Mr Bojangles
The unit is a smart looking 3U box – rack ears are supplied, or you can stick feet underneath for desktop use. Oh and it comes in environment-friendly biodegradable packaging, so full marks for that. You get a 12V DC wall-wart, and connections are simply unbalanced jacks. There’s also a 1/8th inch socket for external (+/-5V) control of the modulation. On the front is a guitar jack input, and this is selected with a toggle switch. It’s a high impedance input which worked great with several different guitars, and the signal is sent to both sides for great stereo effects. The springs inside are twin 15 inch units, fairly well isolated within the case. This prevents annoying acoustic pickup, but spoils the fun of banging the case for some splattery boings, which of course was the first thing I tried to do… You have to physically pick up and pretty much drop the thing from an inch off the table to get the classic effect – it sounds quite thunderous – but if it’s screwed into a rack then of course that isn’t possible.
Turn! Turn! Turn!
The only control for the springs on the front panel is a dry/wet knob. Actually, that’s not entirely true, as there’s another knob labelled Magic – more of which later. To spice things up a bit, there are not only the springs (reverb), but also a pair of analogue delays, four-mode filters, a modulation section, and various feedback circuits.
Who Knows Where The Time Goes?
The first thing the signal hits is the analogue Delay circuit. It has that slightly less than pristine vintage analogue sound that degrades the signal just enough to soften the high end a bit in a most pleasing way – perhaps a bit like a Memory Man or other vintage unit. There are separate left and right delay settings, but the way they are controlled is quite clever. The first knob controls the delay time of the left channel. And the second knob controls the right channel, but has two possible modes: Follow 1, or Free. In the former setting, by putting the knob to centre detent, the delays are dual but follow the setting of the left channel knob. Being analogue, it’s never likely to be completely identical, so you get a nice stereo effect. (There’s a trim pot to line the default setting up and get it as close as possible.) A Parallel/Ping Pong switch determines how the Feedback knob works, sending the delayed signal back through either the same channel or the opposite one. So various kinds of stereo effects are possible.
Feeling Good
Then there is a Modulation section (although the circuitry actually passes signal through the Filter section next). This modulates the delay and/or the filter, with a sine or sawtooth LFO which can be inverted for either or both of the delay and filter processing. The Speed knob also has a 10x toggle so a wide range of settings is available.
The Filter section comprises a selector for HP, LP, BP or Notch and a Frequency knob. This is fairly smooth sounding, but does what you would expect. At the right of this is a Dry/Wet mix knob that governs all of the delay and filter section.
Papa, Can You Hear Me?
(Almost) finally there is a Dry/Wet control for the Springs. So by juggling these last two knobs you can dictate how much (filtered) delay and reverb is achieved. When using the unit from a Send/Aux, one or other of these needs to be fully Wet of course.
The Pusher
Then on the far right is the aforementioned Magic knob. This feeds back the left output to the right input and vice-versa, post-Springs. Even if Springs are set to Dry, some reverb will be heard when turning up the Magic knob. If you push this knob (too?) far, you can make the unit sing and whine with a bit of feedback. This can be tempered with the modulation in order to continuously vary the pitch slightly.
Fine And Mellow
So, how does the spring reverb itself sound? Well, first impressions are that it is very smooth and warm sounding. The springs are not as bright and boingy as some classic units, and are well-matched, providing a beautiful stereo effect for vocals and instruments. It actually sounds expensive, rather than the trashy, clangy cheapness of many vintage units. There’s not much going on above 5kHz but that is probably to be expected. That’s not to say it is dull-sounding, bland or characterless though. It is pretty long (perhaps 2.5 or 3 seconds) and of course using the Magic knob can effectively lengthen the effect, although that will inevitably add a bit of weirdness! But in its natural state, there is a richness and depth to the reverb effect which sounds musical, and the lack of top-end means there are no harsh sibilant sounds causing trouble. If you send drums to it you get a bit of bubbly quivering that characterises spring reverb, but it remains relatively demure. For vocals and instruments, the Wellspring adds terrific depth, and with true-stereo you can pan things to the stereo inputs and the reverb stays with the stereo image.
It Might As Well Be Spring
There’s an awful lot to be said for having a real physical unit like this. As well as its natural warmth and depth of tone, it encourages a different kind of interaction than you tend to have with plugins. When I mixed ‘Kowalski’ by Primal Scream we were all hands on deck, throwing in brief moments of spring reverb, tape delay and suchlike to create a spontaneous sounding mix. You tend not to do that with plugins. Knobs with direct analogue connections to the sounds you are creating are much more satisfying. And the Wellspring’s rich features encourage twiddling. With the signal path flowing from delay to filter to modulation before hitting the springs, things can tend to veer towards the smoother and more polite sounding effect, as everything can be bathed in reverb, however crazy. The Magic knob allows for some more experimental singing feedback sounds, but I’d have perhaps liked the option to change processing order, which could lead to more ‘out there’ effects.
Tell It Like It Is
So, what did we learn from Teaching Machines’ Wellspring? If you’re looking for truly lo-fi crazy effects, you’d possibly do better with a vintage unit. But if you want a high quality effect, with a low noise floor, and plenty of creative possibilities, then this is a wonderful and unique gem.
Pros: High quality great sounding true-stereo spring reverb, bonus delay and filter effects with fun features.
Cons: Fixed processing order, perhaps a bit too smooth and sensible sounding.
