Analog Outfitters The Scanner Reverb & Vibrato Unit

Hailing from Champaign, Illinois, Analog Outfitters began as an amp repair company before branching out with their own line of guitar amps. Highly rated by pro guitarists including Wilco’s Nels Cline, their quirky line of heads and combos is big on vintage values and boutique appeal, all tube and no frills. Their biggest distinguishing feature is the use of reclaimed parts from vintage Hammond organs, principally the transformers and casework, making each amp a unique piece of ‘upcycled’ history.

Though it’s as big as a 100W head, the Scanner is not an amp but a stand-alone vibrato and reverb effect, built around a reclaimed Hammond vibrato scanner and spring reverb tank. While the latter is a familiar feature of guitar amps, the vibrato scanner is rather more unusual. Developed by Hammond in the 1930s as a means to add pitch variation to their tonewheel organs, the scanner is, like the instrument it was part of, entirely analogue and electromechanical in operation, and pretty darn ingenious too. The incoming audio passes through a delay line which sends nine different phase-shifted versions of the signal to 16 capacitor plates arranged in a circle around the scanner drum. A spinning rotor in the centre of the drum picks up the signal from each plate in turn to create the vibrato effect.

While the mechanism would have originally revolved at a fixed speed, Analog Outfitters have added a brushless DC motor that allows you to vary the speed — via a knob on the front panel or by attaching an expression pedal — and the whole assembly is displayed in all its spinning splendour under the easy-to-clean Perspex top. The spring reverb tank, which is the long, Hammond/Accutronics Type 4 design, with two sets of two springs, is attached to the Perspex behind the scanner so that the springs are visible from the rear.

The Scanner has two sets of inputs and outputs, with quarter-inch jacks on the front panel and XLRs at the rear. The front-panel jack input features an instrument/line pad switch to accommodate both guitars and keyboards. Next to this, the second slider switch is an input selector, switching between the quarter-inch and XLR line inputs, while both outputs are live all the time. This means that, in a studio setting, you can keep the Scanner permanently patched in using the XLRs and use the front-panel connectors to use the device with different instruments and amps as required.

At the rear, you can plug in a standard expression pedal to control vibrato speed and attach the included footswitch to turn the reverb and vibrato effects on and off independently. On the front panel, there are controls for vibrato gain, reverb mix, XLR line out level and vibrato speed. The vibrato level knob essentially sets the overall output level when the effect is on. Unity gain is somewhere around two o’clock, meaning there is some scope to boost your level via the Scanner.

While these controls are fine as far as they go, there could have been more on offer here — a vibrato tone control and mix/depth knob, for example. Early prototypes of the device appear to have featured more extensive control options, so perhaps Analog Outfitters decided that these options added little of use in practice; at this price, you wouldn’t expect the cost of a few potentiometers and some extra circuitry to be a sticking point. Similarly, the reverb lacks the Fender Reverb-style tone and dwell (reverb drive) controls found on most stand-alone spring reverb units.

The Scanner is a real head-turner; it has elicited curiosity and comment from everyone who has seen it.