We've recently finished a dub commission for Computer Music magazine. Although dub's not really our thing to listen to, we really enjoyed making the samples as it gave us a fine excuse to dig into our couple of spring reverbs for that 'boing' rhythmic sound on the drums.
As well as a rack mounted stereo spring we've also got a Great British Spring Reverb - the pic on the left. If that looks like a length of plastic drain pipe it's housed in to you, err that's because it is. Hi-fi it's not, but it does sound great.
We've had the unit for a while and initially thought it may have some loose wiring and stored it away. With the studio move, out it came again and this time we gave it (and our mixer) a proper look over. Rather than anything being wrong with the reverb it turned out to be a balanced/unbalanced connection problem (DOH!) which was easily fixed.
Strange thing is although we are children of the digital/computer/software age, (in fact with out these things we would never have been able to begin our production career, let alone make samples for a living), we do seem to be hankering for vintage gear, with all the problems and character that brings.
Of course it's also meant learning a whole new set of skills to deal with the more traditional ways of working vintage hardware - which I guess can never be a bad thing.