Product Review
The Catalinbread Belle Epoch Tape Echo, has tape echo sounds so authentic you’d swear there was tape inside the pedal! Inspired by the Maestro Echoplex, EP-3 model, perhaps the most famous tape delay ever, the Belle Epoch features everything that was loved about the EP-3 in a small, maintenance free pedal format. There are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle traits of the Echoplex that needed to be implemented in order to be authentic.
- Preamp: Famous for making your guitar sound better even when the echoes are turned off.
- Quality of repeats: The Echoplex was not necessarily 'hi-fi'. As the echoes repeated, the signal got progressively degraded, losing low end and gaining a shiny, percussive top end with a bit of grit.
- Record level: There’s a control on the EP-3 that sets how hard the tape gets hit.
- Wow and flutter: The Belle Epoch’s modulation control was designed to simulate the daily mechanical irregularities inherent in original Echoplex units.
- Head drag: The original unit had a unique quality that when moving the delay time slider it took a moment to catch up to the adjustment, creating a doppler like effect.
