idea and title for this feature. Imagine
the haunting dirty halo of BBD repeats
garnished with a white-hot touch of Echorecstyle melting vinyl UFO oscillation. Then,
add slightly unpredictable pitch wobble
and rich compression artifacts from a tape
delay and we are close. An adjustable JFET
input enables Copicat preamp vibe and
footswitchable stop-start ramps up or slows
down the motor, adding dramatic inertia
to song breaks and sounds like unplugging
a vinyl turntable for elastic pitch ebb and
flow. Wait a minute. Back up there. Did I say
T-REX
REPLICATOR
While many are coding and exploding with
DSP-driven do-it-all-delays and attempting
to capture the magic of all the defunct
technologies in a compact box, T-Rex goes
big and reel-deal with the Replicator. I love
my Strymon El Capistan and Source Audio
Nemesis tape delays to bits for authenticity
24
TONE TALK //
motor? Yes, a defunct floppy disk motor
controls this analog delay. Swirling analog
echo is the name of the game. It has a sound
all-it’s-own and unlike when you were a kid
playing King’s Quest or Prince of Persia (if
you were an ‘80s kid) errors are not only
welcome, but controllable via expression
pedal. I don’t want to rattle on too much
about this amazing delay unit, because I
need to leave some details for a dedicated
review, but I am sure if you are a delay junkie
like me, the GAS is already pumping thick.
and convenience, but having owned—
and sadly sold—vintage Copicats, Space
Echoes and Echoplexes in the past, I am still
haunted by their ghostly living realism. This
is why I am so gung-ho on reviewing the
burnished bronze beast from Denmark.
I haven’t got my hands on one yet, but all
How Defunct Technology Became State-of-the-Art Effects