Designed by Joe Meek himself, the unit was constructed by Raccal in the late 1950's/ early 60's.
Which is which??
The Joe Meek Society's TR50 is to the left and Joe's is on the right.
The WEM Fitfth Man Unit was a collaboration between Charlie Watkins and Joe Meek, perhaps even the earliest attempt at creating a guitar synthesizer!
The guitar was poor in performance and never passed prototype stages.
Joe was noted to have purchased the Ampex PR10 Twin Track in January 1964.
It is noted by an online source that this Fairchild 660 was once used in the original " OLYMPIC STUDIOS ". This may well have been used by Joe on his works with his Triumph label at Olympic in 1960!
Perched upon the lid for Meeks EMI TR51 , the Leak unit remains entangled in the live wire maze.
The purchase date for Joe's EMI BTR2 is noted amongst sales documents as the 25/2/1963. As the sale price was considerably lower than other machines we can only assume this unit was second hand.
EMI TR50 Handbook page 1