Let’s face it: we all love delay. Sure, you can tell your friends or your buddies in the local death metal band that delay is weak and has no place in music, but as soon as you get home, you bust out your favorite delay and noodle for hours. You can admit it. Speaking of killer delays, today’s featured “pedal” just might top the list for modern analog echo recreations, and certainly holds a spot near the top of the all-time list. The Tube Tape Echo from Fulltone isn’t just a delay/echo machine – it is a true work of musical art.
First off, this thing is BIG. We don’t think there’s enough velcro in the world that would hold this thing on your pedalboard, so better make sure your amp is flat on top, or you have a cabinet that’s tall enough for you to easily reach this beast when you want to unleash its power. The bottom row of controls features separate guitar and echo Volume controls, for seamless blending of the signals at will, as well as a nice Echo Repeats knob, that will send the delays into the stratosphere with analog-y self-oscillation. There are two smaller knobs for controlling the Record Level of the echoes, and their Tone, going from dark and brooding to bright and shiny in a hurry.
A sweet, classic-looking slider up top controls the delay time given to the echoes, and although it’s not tap tempo (oh no!), it’s still relatively easy to adjust your delay time on the fly. Using 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes to control the record, playback and bias/erase functions, the Tube Tape Echo also features a hand-wired, point-to-point audio path that you’ll hear and appreciate the minute you turn it on. A High/Low speed switch lets you get even more sounds out of this box, flopping between two different sets of rate times for a vast sonic palette from which to play.
You can also choose to run the TTE in Mono or Stereo, with the latter featuring three different modes to choose from. Position 1 sends your guitar’s signal and the echo signal equally to both outputs; Position 2 sends guitar plus Strong Echo from one jack, and guitar plus slight echo to the other; Position 3 sends guitar only from one jack, echo only from the other. These all allow for a ton of experimentation and hours of exploration, and can all accentuate your playing and overall sound in some way, shape or form.
With these older units, you can get a special footswitch made by Loop Master that will control the bypass and record functions of the pedal, which just enhances it more and more (the new units are compatible with an Echo Control on/off switch only). Beautiful not only to look at but to play as well, the Tube Tape Echo has truly set the standard for achieving vintage sounds in a modern electronic unit, and has gone above and beyond anything else we’ve come across so far. Thanks to the engineering skills and attention to detail shown here by Mike Fuller and the Fulltone crew, this unit is one big, bad delay and echo monster, and if you have the chance, you really should play one for yourself. Check out the video below for a sample of what the Tube Tape Echo can do – enjoy!
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