Echo pedals and boxes
Posted: 12 Mar 2020, 01:30
I've been taking an interest in echo devices other than those we know to be 'Hank' friendly of late and finding some excellent competition for the 'tried & tested' stuff that we've all bought over the years. I recently ordered the Strymon Volante which many of you know is a digital Binson Echorec clone and very good it is too. It has the four push buttons to select the four different heads, as well as four buttons to select from which head the feedback comes and you can use any permutation that you wish. Highly recommended with a very authentic vintage sound and very much like the real thing. At close to £400 I opted to return it and will reconsider at a later date, simply because it did's give me anything that I don't already have.
I also picked up a used Strymon Timeline at a price and more to my liking, in as much as the main 'Apache' & 'Wonderful Land' patches are doable at any speed, as well as 95% of all the other Shadows echo patterns and many more. The echo quality is excellent and you are able to dial in 'dirt' & modulation to make it sound vintage, as well as tweaking the echo tone.
That said, I dug out my Zoom MS-BT100 which I've had for five years and put away in a box and forgotten about for the last four years, but I came across it and found that it has all the Strymon Timeline and Eventide sounds on board as well as MXR, Ibanez, Boss and the whole shooting match of echo & chorus pedals, fuzz boxes, compressors and amps that you could ever need and damn good they are too. So much so that I have programmed the entire memory of 50 patches with my ten most used sounds, meaning that they fill the pedal and are only a few 'clicks' of the footswitch apart at any given time. That means my entire sound for any show is on a pedal the size of the small Boss sized footprint.
I have set it up for use through my Fender Twin ToneMaster and it does sound good, so I'll gig it tomorrow night with my Boss FV-500 pedal and see if it's a winner.
The echoes are easy to set up as a Meazzi, Binson or Roland Space Echo for all the Shadows stuff, Gary Moore, Knopfler, Atkins - everything needed, including compression, modulation and distortion which for £90 is an absolute bargain.
I keep threatening to bring out the Klemt Echolette tape machine but it's heavy, old and high maintenance and there's little wonder why I pick it up and change my mind.
I like the fact that I can press a footswitch and the sound appears for any tune we are performing, which is why I no longer take the Hall & Collins or Blue Nebula because they are just dedicated echo boxes, albeit very good.
I also picked up a used Strymon Timeline at a price and more to my liking, in as much as the main 'Apache' & 'Wonderful Land' patches are doable at any speed, as well as 95% of all the other Shadows echo patterns and many more. The echo quality is excellent and you are able to dial in 'dirt' & modulation to make it sound vintage, as well as tweaking the echo tone.
That said, I dug out my Zoom MS-BT100 which I've had for five years and put away in a box and forgotten about for the last four years, but I came across it and found that it has all the Strymon Timeline and Eventide sounds on board as well as MXR, Ibanez, Boss and the whole shooting match of echo & chorus pedals, fuzz boxes, compressors and amps that you could ever need and damn good they are too. So much so that I have programmed the entire memory of 50 patches with my ten most used sounds, meaning that they fill the pedal and are only a few 'clicks' of the footswitch apart at any given time. That means my entire sound for any show is on a pedal the size of the small Boss sized footprint.
I have set it up for use through my Fender Twin ToneMaster and it does sound good, so I'll gig it tomorrow night with my Boss FV-500 pedal and see if it's a winner.
The echoes are easy to set up as a Meazzi, Binson or Roland Space Echo for all the Shadows stuff, Gary Moore, Knopfler, Atkins - everything needed, including compression, modulation and distortion which for £90 is an absolute bargain.
I keep threatening to bring out the Klemt Echolette tape machine but it's heavy, old and high maintenance and there's little wonder why I pick it up and change my mind.
I like the fact that I can press a footswitch and the sound appears for any tune we are performing, which is why I no longer take the Hall & Collins or Blue Nebula because they are just dedicated echo boxes, albeit very good.