Catalinbread Belle Epoch EP3 Tape Echo Emulation Effects Pedal

Catalinbread Belle Epoch EP3 Tape Echo Emulation Effects Pedal

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 we love about the EP-3 in a small, maintenance free pedal format. We felt that a “tape echo” pedal was much more than just a standard digital delay with some “filtering” on the repeats. There are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle traits of the Echoplex that needed to be implemented in order to be authentic. The preamp, the self-oscillation character, the ability to control the “record level” of the signal hitting “tape”, the wow and flutter, the way the repeats decay, the way the circuit interfaces with the amp and other pedals - all these things were important to get right. The original unit was used as a musical instrument unto itself and this is what we captured with the Belle Epoch.

Key Features

• Mix: This control replicates the functionality of the Echo Volume control on the EP-3 and uses the same basic passive mixer circuit
• Tone/Record Level: This control sets how hard the “tape” or delay line is hit. It does not a?ect your dry signal and only a?ects the initial ­rst repeat
• Sway/Mod: This control sets the amount of random tape wow and utter e?ects in the echoes. At minimum, there is no wow and utter
• Echo Sustain: This controls how much delay signal is fed back to the delay line to get multiple repeats. From minimum up to around noon you’ll get a ­xed number of repeats with a great decay curve
• Echo Delay: This controls the delay time, from about 80ms all the way up to 800ms. It was designed to be manipulated in real-time, as you are playing, to get the same sounds as an EP-3