Radio Shack Realistic Micro Sonic Speaker-Amplifier

The Radio Shack Realistic Micro Sonic Speaker-Amplifier (model 277-1008) is a small compact 200mW speaker and amplifier unit manufactured by Radio Shack during the 1960s and 1970s, specifically the Realistic company. It was transistor-based and powered by 9-volt batteries.

This device was incredibly instrumental for processing and treatments in Peter's music during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was Larry Fast who owned the Radio Shack Micro-Sonic speaker, which everyone generically referred to as the "$9.95" as he bought it for that exact price from Radio Shack: the Micro Sonic Speaker/Amplifier was listed at the $9.95 price in the 1977 Catalog for Radio Shack. He used to use it as a monitor, to tweak the effects on his synthesizers while waiting to do overdubs to save on studio time (which was expensive at the time).

The Radio Shack amp was specifically used for achieving distorted sounds heard all over Peter Gabriel's third and fourth albums, known as Melt and Security, respectively. It was mainly used on vocals, synthesizers and perhaps even the drum machine in places. The best examples of the Radio Shack sound are "Lead A Normal Life" and the opening "No Self Control". After Melt, Larry Fast replaced his original Radio Shack Micro Sonic Speaker as original became a bit battered and was held together with gaffer tape.

The sound was partly to do with plugging the output into a Moog filter and the natural "plastic distortion" of the Radio Shack itself. Peter was immediately enamoured by the distortion upon first hearing it, that he suggested having it directly miked (which engineer Hugh Padgham did with a Shure SM57). When they tried feeding the amp signal directly into the console, it didn't have the same sound, so they stuck with using a microphone on it.

As a way of further shaping the sound coming from the Radio Shack amplifier, Peter used to hold it directly to his mouth along with a microphone and move his mouth to mimic a wah-wah effect. He is seen doing this in footage from the sessions the Security album sessions (for an unused overdub on "I Have The Touch"), as featured in the South Bank Show TV special in 1982. The effect was also used for "No Self Control".