Saved by the Belle Epoch

BATCH 1 LIMITED TO 40. SHIPS MID–SEPTEMBER

Saved by the Belle Epoch

$178.49

$209.99

FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING

3 YEAR WARRANTY

SHIPS MID-SEPTEMBER

Who among us hasn’t been taught life lessons about drinking and driving, peer pressure, and crippling caffeine pill addiction from the good folks at NBC? The signature television show looks just as funny as ever, defined by artwork and fashion that summarized this era so well, just as the Echoplex dominated a very particular era of music.

Faithful sonic recreation of the EP-3 tape echo.

"The Catalinbread Belle Epoch is the closest thing to a real EP-3 that I've ever played."
- Eric Johnson

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.

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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 fixed number of repeats with a great decay curve. Above noon, you start to get into infinite floating repeats and then into self-oscillation.

MIX: This control replicates the functionality of the Echo Volume control on the EP-3 and uses the same basic passive mixer circuit. Set it at minimum to get dry only. Set it at maximum to get wet only. You'll find that you'll probably want to run the Mix control lower when running the Belle Epoch into an overdriven amp or a dirt pedal due to the fact that the signals will be compressed, and therefore, bringing up the level of the repeats.

MOD: This control sets the amount of random tape wow and flutter effects in the echoes. At minimum, there is no wow and flutter. For the most realistic tape warble, set this control fairly low—9:00 to 10:00 is a good sweet spot. Of course, you can crank it up and get some serious pitch warble going! Also, with really short delay times, you may want to set this control lower for the most realistic tape sound. With longer delay times, you can get away with a lot more.

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REC LEVEL: This control sets how hard the "tape" or delay line is hit. It does not affect your dry signal and only affects the initial first repeat. Turning the knob while repeats are playing will not affect them. In practice, you'll want to use this control in conjunction with the Mix control to set your balance for the delayed sound versus your dry signal. You may find that you will end up presetting the Mix control (typically from 9:00 to noon) and controlling how present the repeats are with the Tone/Record Level knob.

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. You'll notice, especially when the Echo Sustain is turned up a bit, that the echo sound "lags" a bit, much like how the Echoplex behaves when you move the slider back and forth. If this knob worked in a linear fashion, like on a standard delay pedal, you'd miss that bit of authenticity in response! Use this knob together with the Echo Sustain knob to play complete soundscapes without touching the strings on your guitar!