Dawner Prince Electronics has launched its long-awaited Boonar Tube Deluxe – a vacuum tube-loaded delay pedal, which was developed with input from David Gilmour.
Said to be a “groundbreaking advancement in vintage echo emulation”, the top-tier effects unit is modeled after the Binson Echorec 2 T7E, which is heralded for its multi-head tube echo.
It follows Dawner Prince’s flagship Boonar multi-head drum echo, another emulation of the Binson Echorec, which soared in popularity and made its way on to countless high-profile pedalboards.
Gilmour was particularly impressed with the Boonar. At first, his tech Phil Taylor reached out to Dawner’s owner, Zoran Kraljevic, and requested one for integration into Gilmour’s rig.
After that, Gilmour and Taylor reported back their experiences with the Boonar. Following the exchange, the two parties proposed teaming up on a “special Boonar” that would be a completely different machine altogether.
What followed was a lengthy design and testing process – so lengthy, in fact, it is the topic of three blog posts on Dawner Prince’s website.
It makes for quite the story, but for those wanting the streamlined version, Gilmour, Taylor and Zoran all discussed ways to make the original template better, from the appointment of a vacuum tube, a new time reader screen, and MIDI capability that could be used to change presets.
As Zoran explains, “Having the ability to swiftly access stored parameters aligns with David's preferred working style, and the opportunity to design a guitar pedal for him was an incredible privilege that I couldn't pass up. So, naturally, I accepted the challenge.”
Though it sounds simple on paper, the task was no walk in the park. Components that were “nearly impossible to find” were required, for example.
Zoran was forced to learn new engineering approaches, cough up large sums of money for premium parts, and even travel around Europe in order to source NOS Magic Eye vacuum tubes.
“I made a million telephone calls and emails across the globe, and spent a small fortune to build a certain stock,” Zoran recalls. “Crazy, some would say, but I was so determined to make it 100% authentic that I didn't want to make any compromise.”
Covid lockdowns and the skyrocketing price of electronic chips created further hurdles for Zoran to overcome, but eventually a final prototype was sent to Gilmour for testing.
A few tweaks were required – one involving Gilmour’s need for preset switching – though before long the Boonar Tube Deluxe was signed off.
The result is a completely new Boonar unit designed wholly from the ground up, complete with an authentic Binson Echorec triode tube signal path, delay times from 12ms to 950ms, and an OLED screen for improved UI.
It also has 16 re-nameable onboard presets and up to 127 accessible via MIDI, individual playback and feedback switches, and a USB port for firmware updates.
“In the end, I believe it made me a better engineer and taught me, sometimes through challenging experiences, the virtues of persistence, patience and discretion,” Zoran concludes.
As you may expect, the Boonar Tube Deluxe is highly limited and composed from some serious components, so it’s got a price tag that reflects that: $1,199, to be precise. The original Boonar, by comparison, is for $349.
To find out more about the Boonar Tube Deluxe’s creation – and how to preorder one – head over to Dawner Prince.
