DAWNER PRINCE
BOONAR
REVIEW BY YOEL KREISLER
STREET PRICE $349.95
One of the very first albums
that really blew me away and
changed my entire perception
of what the electric guitar
could do, was Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon. Some
of my fondest memories are
walking to school through
the cold desert, watching
the sun peak over the golf
courses and suburban homes,
and listening to the massive
tones and intimate guitar work
of my favorite guitar player
to this day, David Gilmour.
During my first forays into
gear-land, the Binson Echorec
would constantly come up
as the key ingredient in his
early tones. The little Italian
machine known for its quirky
architecture held a near
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GEAR REVIEW
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mythic reverence from me,
and still does. Whenever
a new Echorec style pedal
is announced, I become as
excited as I did the first time I
listened to the solo on “Time,”
waiting to see if the secret
sauce to that timeless tone will
finally be unlocked.
The Boonar is the latest pedal
from Croatia-based effects
outfit Dawner Prince. Like I
mentioned above, it is based
on the legendary Binson
Echorec, an echo machine
most famously used by David
Gilmour on Dark Side of
the Moon, Live at Pompeii,
Meddle and many others.
While most echo machines
at the time employed a tape
loop or similar mechanism,
Dawner Prince Boonar
the Binson Echorec used a
magnetic drumhead, which
was very unique for its time.
The original Echorec featured
four different playback heads;
each spaced out differently to
give you a different delay time.
You could combine them to
create haunting, dark, reverblike tails, or use the famous
Swell control (unique to the
Echorec) to create repeats that
bubble beautifully into each
other. The Boonar is very much
like an Echorec for the 21st
century, with FET inputs to
simulate tube-like dirt on the
repeats, and a digital DSP unit
controlling the virtual magnetic
head. There are a multitude
of controls here for tweaking
the dank and cavernous delay