Catalinbread ECHOREC Multi-Head Delay Guitar Effects Pedal with Swell Knob and Tone Knob (Purple)

The resurrection of the legendary Binson Echorec multi-head drum echo with the Catalinbread ECHOREC Multi-Head Delay Guitar Effects Pedal in Purple. The Binson Echorec was so cool, that there was no choice but to bring it back. And Catalinbread wanted to bring it back right. They wanted to take all the goodness of that huge Binson Echorec and squeeze it down into a standard-sized stompbox without losing anything. In fact, in addition to not losing any of the qualities that made it such a compelling musical device, Catalinbread wanted to extend its capabilities because the original Binson hinted at possibilities that it couldn’t realize.

Swell

The Swell knob is essentially the feedback control of the delay. When this control is fully counter-clockwise you will get one repeat (well, 1-4 repeats depending on which playback heads are active.) As you raise the control you’ll get more repeats, giving you that famous ECHOREC swirl. The repeats float off over the horizon rather than falling off into distorted echoes. Towards the end of the sweep, the ECHOREC will begin to self-oscillate for spaceship sounds and runaway feedback. Somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 and you can get a beautiful ambient pad that doesn’t take off in oscillation and doesn’t completely fade out. The Swell control regenerates the sum of all the heads being used (set by the Program Select knob) to create its complex swirl of repeats.

Tone

The Tone knob controls the timbre of the echo repeats. It is a tilt-style tone control. Around 12 o’clock you’ll get a relatively flat, neutral EQ. Turning the knob counter-clockwise will give you darker, thicker repeats, from mild burnishing, or all the way to deep, murky repeats. Turning the control clockwise will result in brighter, thinner repeats making it especially good to bring out the attack on rhythmic repeats or to just add a shimmer without muddying up the fundamental note of your playing. The Tone control can be a lot of fun when the ECHOREC is self-oscillating. Turning it counter-clockwise the repeats will slowly bubble to the surface, like a behemoth rising from the deep, and turning it clockwise will bring out a siren-like effect when you adjust the delay time as well.

Delay Time

The original ECHOREC had a maximum delay time of 300ms. The delay time on the Catalinbread ECHOREC goes from about 40ms to 1000ms. And the cool thing is you can twist the Delay Time knob in real-time to get speeding-up and slowing-down, spaceship warp landing sounds. A lot of modern delay pedals don’t do that. They just stop echoing while you’re turning the knob.

Program Select

The original ECHOREC had a 12-position switch that controlled the various playback head configurations. Since the original was mechanical with the disc only able to go one speed, not all combinations were available for use. The Catalinbread ECHOREC changes all that. With the ability to vary the delay time on the single playback head, Catalinbread was able to include all combinations, which includes rhythmic patterns not available before. Programs 7, 10, and 11 are these programs.