of warped heads and last but not least , the rich sounding preamps on the input stage of these old units . Floppy Disc Delay sports all these attributes and while we don ’ t have multi-head taps or super long delay times at our disposal , we gain the ability to slow down , speed up , or even stop the motor with real musical inertia .
Even without the expression pedal hooked up , the Motor switch — my favorite switch on the unit — can be used to quickly ramp up into echo or wind down into a sloped skid-stop similar to unplugging a vinyl turntable mid-song or slowing down a tape reel manually . This feature alone is awesome for trippy breaks in a song . Hooking up the expression pedal really opens up the unit , allowing one to control the motor speed in real time from either toe-to-heel or heel-to-toe in the first two modes . The last two modes create errors — either more intense or random — as the expression pedal treadle is tapered . This sounds beautifully menacing in that Portishead kind of way . Apparently the error generation was tuned to Johann ’ s old broken-in-agood-way RE-201 , so there is some real-deal vintage tape unit DNA in the design of this pedal . Awesome .
If you are a tape or analog delay aficionado , this box will be hard to resist . Tonally speaking , the repeats exhibit bucket-brigade resonance crossed with rich tape saturation and a hint of that hovering sunburnt magnetic disc oscillation . Maybe it is a placebo effect because of the knowledge of a spinning magnetic disc inside , but there is a hint of Echorec to my ears — especially at faux-reverb settings with short repeats and high feedback . The build , graphics , pulsing multi-colored eye and rich JFET input section is all topshelf and the packaging is incredible as well . This is an investment piece for serious echo freaks to coddle and cherish . Also , there were tons of floppy disks manufactured in the world so cartridge replacement shouldn ’ t be an issue for quite a while .
This bad boy is huge and expensive ; knowing of course that this reflects the quality , necessity and build time . Also , I think some of the controls are a little bit redundant . For instance : the Mute switch . If I ’ m being picky , I think the blend could go a little bit wetter . It might be cool to see a more striped-down , less expensive variant of this incredibly unique unit at some stage . Full marks must be given for seeing this machine to production though . Obviously , no was expense spared .
of warped heads and last but not least , the rich sounding preamps on the input stage of these old units . Floppy Disc Delay sports all these attributes and while we don ’ t have multi-head taps or super long delay times at our disposal , we gain the ability to slow down , speed up , or even stop the motor with real musical inertia .
Even without the expression pedal hooked up , the Motor switch — my favorite switch on the unit — can be used to quickly ramp up into echo or wind down into a sloped skid-stop similar to unplugging a vinyl turntable mid-song or slowing down a tape reel manually . This feature alone is awesome for trippy breaks in a song . Hooking up the expression pedal really opens up the unit , allowing one to control the motor speed in real time from either toe-to-heel or heel-to-toe in the first two modes . The last two modes create errors — either more intense or random — as the expression pedal treadle is tapered . This sounds beautifully menacing in that Portishead kind of way . Apparently the error generation was tuned to Johann ’ s old broken-in-agood-way RE-201 , so there is some real-deal vintage tape unit DNA in the design of this pedal . Awesome .
WHAT WE LIKE
If you are a tape or analog delay aficionado , this box will be hard to resist . Tonally speaking , the repeats exhibit bucket-brigade resonance crossed with rich tape saturation and a hint of that hovering sunburnt magnetic disc oscillation . Maybe it is a placebo effect because of the knowledge of a spinning magnetic disc inside , but there is a hint of Echorec to my ears — especially at faux-reverb settings with short repeats and high feedback . The build , graphics , pulsing multi-colored eye and rich JFET input section is all topshelf and the packaging is incredible as well . This is an investment piece for serious echo freaks to coddle and cherish . Also , there were tons of floppy disks manufactured in the world so cartridge replacement shouldn ’ t be an issue for quite a while .
CONCERNS
This bad boy is huge and expensive ; knowing of course that this reflects the quality , necessity and build time . Also , I think some of the controls are a little bit redundant . For instance : the Mute switch . If I ’ m being picky , I think the blend could go a little bit wetter . It might be cool to see a more striped-down , less expensive variant of this incredibly unique unit at some stage . Full marks must be given for seeing this machine to production though . Obviously , no was expense spared .