New Catalinbread Belle Epoch Tape Echo Delay Guitar Effects Pedal

Faithful sonic recreation of the EP-3 tape echo. Yes, including the preamp.

"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 — 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. The preamp, self-oscillation character, the ability to control the "record level" of the signal hitting "tape", wow and flutter, the way the repeats decay, and the way the circuit interfaces with 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 Catalinbread captured with the Belle Epoch.

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. The first repeat is strong and then it gets more and more diffused as it repeats. In a well-tuned unit, you could dial in the repeats so that it would float almost indefinitely, or cross the threshold to self-oscillation.

Record level: Sets how hard the tape gets hit. Set low it gives light and airy repeats; set high it saturates the tape hard for fat and grungy repeat tone.

Wow and flutter: The modulation control simulates the daily mechanical irregularities inherent in original Echoplex units — bumpy capstan wheels, uneven tape tension, uneven motor speed.

Head drag: When moving the delay time slider it took a moment to catch up to the adjustment, creating a Doppler-like effect. The Belle Epoch reproduces this behavior as you turn the Echo Delay knob.