Preamp and buffer pedals seem to get swept under the rug these days a bit, in part due to the incredible modulation, delay and drive pedals seemingly coming out every other week. However, these pedals are an absolutely essential part of any rig, and today’s pedal harkens back to a classic circuit and tone that has yet to be almost exactly replicated – until now. The Epoch Pre EP3 Preamp Buffer from Catalinbread emulates the preamp circuit from the original EP-3 Echoplex, puts it into a modern enclosure and gives you all the control you could want to drive an amp into glory territory.
Made famous by Duane Allman, Chet Atkins, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and Andy Summers, to name a few, the EP-3 Echoplex was a tape delay, but one with such a distinct sound that it has been the standard of echo units ever since. The preamp circuit is what the Epoch Pre focuses on, including the 22V power supply and JFET preamp, and gives you many options to achieve that classic tone. The Balance knob is a sort of volume adjuster, but after 12:00, it goes into a thick, low-end heavy type of sound. The Boost knob, in contrast, is activated only by the Boost footswitch, adding an instant push and oomph to your signal.
The Bias knob controls the overall gain of the Epoch Pre, but there’s so much headroom, you never really get a very distorted signal, but still a little crunch. Make sense? The Early/Later push button refers to the different voicings the original units had. The Early voicing (the first 400 units) had a tighter bass and more upper midrange boost, which made it perfect to enhance the big cranked up Marshalls everyone was playing through at the time. The Later voicing has a bigger, looser bass and more of a flat frequency response, with a thick and creamy kind of vibe.
Meant to be used as the LAST pedal in the chain, the Epoch Pre acts as a sort of mastering device for any pedalboard – its a boost, for sure, but also an overall tone enhancer, making your rig bigger, wider and much more lush. Activating the buffer gives your pedalboard a low-impedance, high-current feed to your amp so you could run 100’ cable and it would be just fine. Plus, you can you use the Epoch Pre as a sonic enhancer/boost, turning DOWN the volume of your entire pedalboard without losing any tone or that cranked-up feel, which is perfect for late night playing.
While perhaps not as fancy or exciting as it’s older brother, the Belle Epoch Deluxe CB-3 Tape Delay, the Epoch Pre EP3 offers a wonderful counterpart to the echo effect, driving your amp and pushing your overall tone into the most vintage sweet spot you can imagine. Versatile yet subtle, rocking yet warm and inviting, the Epoch Pre EP3 Preamp Buffer really does it all. If for some reason you haven’t checked out the Catalinbread website, do yourself a favor and get over there STAT for more info on all of their wondrous creations!
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