Wow! Super rare early Tel Ray Oil can echo unit in very good working condition. This is the original Ad-n-Echo version from Raymond Lubow, before the big brands put their name on them. Early 60s with even some 50s parts, potentiometers date to 1957 (134751). Amazing piece of musical effects history! Get it before it’s gone!
Ray Lubow was born in the Bronx and studied electronics before entering the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He and his wife moved to Los Angeles after the war and opened a radio repair shop.
In the early 1960s, he and his brother were running a television repair business when they began experimenting with techniques for creating echoes. Breaking with industry convention, the brothers did not use tape recorders to make these sound effects, but instead used a small electronic unit. The Lubow brothers created a company, Tel Ray Electronics, to market these machines under the name Ad-N-Echo. This technology was also incorporated into some amplifiers made by Fender, Gibson, and Rickenbacker.
The “Adineko” Memory System used what looks like a tuna can filled with electrolytic oil. A tiny motor pulls a miniature rubber belt, spinning a flywheel armed with a pickup inside the can, acting like a recording head, sloshing it around in the oil to produce an echo. While some Adineko effects were designed to create delay and reverb, others produced a strange pitch-shifting effect, an uneven and somewhat schizophrenic warbling sound!
