|
Vintage sound doesn't always come with a vintage price tag! In this video, we're checking out the Clockwork Echo pedal by the friendly folks over at J. Rockett Audio Designs. This is a faithful reimagining of the legendary Deluxe Memory Man. It retains all of the magical juju and fairy dust of the original. But adds the modern features and controllability we've come to expect. Could this be your next analog delay? Let's check it out! Products FeaturedVideo TranscriptHowdy, friend. You're here in the studio with Luke from GuitarIQ.com. Now, I’ve owned lots of different delay pedals over the years. As we speak, I probably have about 8 or 9 of them hiding around the studio—it’s definitely a problem, I know. But in today's video, we're going to check out what might just be my new favorite delay. The good folks over at J. Rockett Audio Designs recently sent me their Clockwork Echo pedal to check out. It's basically a modern take on one of the most famous, if not THE most famous, analog delay pedals of all time: the Deluxe Memory Man. The Clockwork Echo not only gives you a fantastic analog delay but it also doubles as a really nice analog chorus. It also has a fantastic preamp on board that you can use as a boost to really drive the front end of your amp. And, as you heard in the intro, it does this lovely slapback kind of pseudo ‘room reverb’ type sound that I really like as well.
So in this video, we’re going to check out my 5 favorite things about this pedal. The reasons why, if you're in the market for a great sounding analog delay, you might just find this little unit working its way onto your pedalboard. Maybe, maybe not. Watch the video, you be the judge. Speaking of that, feel free to leave your questions, comments, thoughts, and feedback in the comments section below as you watch the video. While you're there, be sure to check out the description. I’ve left time stamps for everything in the video if you want to jump around to certain parts. And as you're watching, please click that like button if you're enjoying the content. 1) It lets me know that you like videos like this one. And 2) It helps the video out by giving that YouTube algorithm a little bit of love. So thank you for that in advance. And finally, before we jump into the demo, I warmly invite you to head over to GuitarIQ.com to check out some of the great books and other learning resources we have waiting for you over there. On topics like fretboard memorization, chord theory, warm-ups and workouts, scales and improvisation, and a whole lot more—that’s GuitarIQ.com. That’s it from this intro. Let's head over to the workbench and check out the pedal! So here is the pedal in question. And a very good looking little unit it is, I must say. This is the Clockwork Echo by J. Rockett Designs. As we go through this video, just so you have some kind of context for what we're looking at, let me briefly just go through the controls. On the top left here, we have the mix knob that blends between 100% dry and 100% wet. So you can run this in parallel in a wet dry rig, should you so desire. The top two knobs up here control firstly, the time of the delay and secondly, the number of repeats. Down here we have our modulation section. This is the modulation speed and the modulation depth. Down here we have our main on and off switch. And we will cover the level knob and these other switches down here as we go through the video. But before we do any more talking let's just hear this thing in action. My signal chain for today is my Yamaha Revstar guitar, going into a Blackstar Artisan 15w head, running into a Suhr Reactive Load. And for my cab simulation today, we’re running the cab section of the Imperial Mk II plug-in by Neural DSP. Probably more detailed than you needed to know. But all up with the pedal, it sounds like this: [Music] So as you heard, just a really lovely sounding analog delay pedal. Now, the very first thing on the list of my top favorite things I like about the Clockwork Echo pedal, has to be the inclusion of tap tempo. Now, tap tempo isn't necessarily a notable feature on many delay pedals nowadays. What is notable, is that it's really only been in the last few years (at least to my knowledge) that we've started seeing tap tempo as an added extra on analog delay pedals. Traditionally, analog delay circuits are the classic three-knob, set-and-forget style of delay pedal. Much like the Carbon Copy up here or the Analog Mini Delay that you can just see up here by Ibanez. And of course, while the set-and-forget style delay certainly has its own charm, as you can imagine the addition of tap tempo just makes this a much more versatile unit. So I probably don't need to demonstrate how tap tempo works but, just for the sake of another sound sample, let’s change up the delay time and see what this sounds like: [Music] Now, tap tempo is one thing. But that isn't the only trick this cheeky little tap tempo switch has up its sleeve. Indeed, this is a magical tap tempo switch. The good folks over at J. Rockett Audio have rather helpfully included a super-secret, hidden preset in the tap tempo switch. So if I hold this down for a second or two, you can see that the LED changes. And this accesses a really lovely hidden slapback delay preset. I really, really love that they've included this feature. And that's why it's well deserving of a spot on my list of the 5 favorite things I love about this pedal. Check it out: [Music] I really, really love that sound. This is probably one of my favorite sounds that this pedal is capable of. And I think it's because the analog nature of this vintage Memory Man style of delay is really, really well suited to this sound. At higher mixed settings, you get that classic slapback chicken picking delay sound. But at lower mix settings, you get this almost pseudo ‘room reverb' type of effect. And it just adds a subtle layer of depth and ambience to the sound. I really, really like it. The question you might be asking here is: How do we exit the slapback preset? Well, it’s as simple as tapping in the new delay tempo that you want. And this makes it really easy to go back and forth between the slap preset and a different delay time. So for example, you might be using the slap sound as your main rhythm sound but when you reach that epic, all-important, climactic solo at the end of the song, you might want a bit more ambience and sustain around your notes. And that leads us nicely to the third thing I love about this pedal. Because you might be sitting there thinking: I love the fact that we have a slap preset. But for my slap sound, I just want a single repeat. And for my longer, more ambient sounds, I want a longer, more ambient tail on the delay. Well, luckily J. Rockett have come to the rescue. They’ve included an expression pedal out that allows us to control the number of repeats that we have. This is a Boss volume pedal I've configured this with the help of a TRS breakout cable to be a nice makeshift expression pedal for the purposes of this demo. And as you may have noticed, we’ve had this in the heel-down position the entire time, which is just giving us a single repeat. But when we move to the toe-down position, now we get that nice, classic analog ‘infinite sustain’ type of effect: [Music] And obviously, as we roll it back, the repeats diminish. Now, this is really handy for a few things. We can push it up to get that analog oscillation-type sound. Which is great but probably only something you want to use once or twice in a set. My preferred way of using an expression pedal to control the repeats is that, it gives us this type of dynamic sustain control—kind of reminiscent of the sustain pedal on a piano. Where we can easily move between tighter, shorter delay sounds and longer, more ambient sounds. Where we perhaps might be finger picking or holding sustaining chords over a number of bars. And we just want to add a little bit of texture underneath what we're doing. So if I set this somewhere in between those two extremes, this is what we get: [Music] So before we move on, just a quick recap. Number 1 was the inclusion of tap tempo. Number 2 was the super-secret, hidden slapback delay preset. And number 3 was the expression pedal control. Now, it’s worth noting, we do have an additional expression pedal output on the side of the pedal. And this allows us to hook an additional expression pedal up to control the time of the unit—instead of using the tap tempo. So for example, we could certainly run the Clockwork Echo with two independent expression pedals. Or we could even run both of these outputs into a dual expression pedal that controls both of those things at once. Where toe-down would be the maximum time with the maximum repeats. And heel-down would be the minimum time with the minimum repeats. So a lot of versatility there. And speaking of versatility, that leads us nicely to number 4 on the list. And that is: switchable modulation. Now, modulation isn't necessarily anything new in the world of analog delay pedals. The vintage Memory Man had modulation. The carbon copy has modulation. This beautiful Teisco delay down here also has modulation. The real benefit here is that now, we have switchable control over the modulation as we're playing. Now, why is this helpful? Well, you’ve been hearing a nice, subtle modulation on all of the playing examples so far. But if I was to switch this into a more extreme mode, that’s not necessarily something you would want as an always-on effect with your delay. It might just be something that you're switching in for particular sections or particular songs. Now with that said, probably my favorite use of the modulation switch is that it allows us to transform this nice analog delay pedal into a really nice analog chorus pedal. So if I bring the delay time to minimum. Make sure the repeats are on minimum. I’ll move over to the mix knob and set that closer to 50%. Now, let’s dial in the modulation a little more. Let’s see what that sounds like: [Music] Okay, let’s bump up the depth a little bit. Knock the mix back a touch. And this is what it sounds like: [Music] And for a slightly more extreme modulated sound, let's ramp up the speed. Bring down the depth. Knock the mix down just a little bit more. A touch more speed, maybe. Touch less depth. And this is what we've got: [Music] So the key takeaway here is, just because this is branded as a delay pedal doesn't necessarily mean you have to use it as a delay pedal. And that leads us very nicely into my fifth favorite thing I wanted to talk about. And that is the preamp section of this pedal. The Clockwork Echo has this really lovely preamp section that I can use to drive the front end of my amplifier into really nice, organic-sounding saturation. So for example, I can switch off the modulation and the delay. And I can use this as a preamp-style, colored-boost pedal. If I bring this up to about 75%, listen to how it changes the character of my amplifier. So far my amp has been set relatively clean with just a little bit of that edge-of-breakup sound. But listen to what happens when we use the preamp on the Clockwork to drive the amp harder. I haven't changed anything on the amp and this is what it sounds like: [Music] Now, let’s dial in a little bit of slapback just for shitz and giggles: [Music] So I'm playing a little bit differently in those examples. And obviously, I’m pushing the amp a little bit harder, so I might need to level match things in post a little bit. But hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of the sound and character you can get from the preamp of the Clockwork Echo when you use it as a boost pedal—depending on the amp you have and how you've got it set, of course. So those are my 5 favorite things about this pedal that make it a real standout in my opinion: The inclusion of tap tempo. The secret slapback delay preset. The ability to control multiple parameters from an expression pedal. The addition of switchable modulation. And of course, the great sounding preamp. Now, for those of you who like the sound of this pedal and are potentially looking to purchase the Clockwork Echo, there are a couple of things that are worth keeping in mind. Remember that this is an analog pedal that’s designed to be an updated version of the classic vintage memory man. And because of that, it shares a few of the same quirks. You might have noticed on those chorus examples I was playing before, the higher we have the mix knob the more noise we're going to hear from the delay circuit. Now, with the way I had the mix control set, that certainly wasn't really an issue for me. But it is something to be aware of. Particularly, if you're coming from the world of high-fidelity, pristine digital delays with a very low signal-to-noise ratio. Also, speaking of the mix knob, the higher you have this set, the more you might notice an audible drop in volume when you click on the delay pedal. Remember, the mix control can go to a 100% kill dry. So the higher we have that up, the quieter our dry signal is going to be. Again for me, that wasn't really an issue with the types of delay settings I was demonstrating today. But just something to be aware of. And finally, like the original vintage Memory Man units, the preamp section on the Clockwork Echo is always on. It's not something you can switch in and out. Now for me, I actually like that about this pedal. I like the idea of having an always-on, tone enhancing preamp at the end of my pedalboard that all of my pedals go through. But if that is a potential issue for you, then you might want to look at setting this up with an additional loop switcher. But all-in-all, a fantastic analog delay pedal. I hope I've been able to demonstrate just how versatile this is. Not only live but also as a great tool to have in the studio. So if you dig the sound and character of a vintage Memory Man delay, but you don't want to pay the price tag of a vintage Memory Man delay, then I would definitely recommend checking this out. That was my look at the Clockwork Echo by J. Rockett Audio Designs. Well, here we are once again. We're at the end of the video, thank you very much for sticking around! As always for complete transparency, as I alluded to in the intro, this pedal was sent to me to check out and to feature in this video. But this wasn't a paid advertisement or a sponsored promotion. No money's changed hands. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. If you would like to check out the Clockwork Echo or any of J. Rockett's other pedals, I'll certainly link to their website in the description. If you liked this video and you want to see more content like this, then please consider subscribing to the channel. And finally, before you go, just another reminder to head over to GuitarIQ.com to check out the books and other resources we have waiting over there. There's been a bunch of new readers coming in recently which has certainly warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart. So thank you very much for that. That’s it from me. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video! Comments are closed.
|
|