Revox A77 Mk. III

The Revox A77 Mk.III is a 2-track semi-professional reel-to-reel tape recorder, with grey paneling and silver-scale VU meters.

Stewart Copeland was known for a Revox for demoing purposes during the mid-late 1970s. He started using Curved Air bandmate Florian Pilkington-Misa's own Revox A77 in mid-1976, recording the demos of "Clown's Revenge" (14 July 1976) among others. He eventually bought it from him on 9 January 1977 for £200 (equivalent of £1,205.45 in 2023) for his own use at his Goldhawk Road home. The Revox was the first serious tape machine Stewart acquired, but other newer tape machines and recorders like the TEAC 4-track and the Sony PCM-F1 would eventually take over from the Revox. As of 2012, he still owns the Revox.

Surrey Sound Studios also had a pair of Revox A77 mk. III recorders. Besides for making 15ips copies, Nigel Gray would often use these for tape delay, for example the echo on the bass drum in "Walking On The Moon" (Stewart plugged the snare and hi-hat into a Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo). Engineer Chris Gray remembers the same technique being used previously on a record by a punk group called the Homosexuals.