Catalinbread Belle Epoch EP-3 Tape Echo Guitar Effects Pedal

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 that was loved about the EP-3 in a small, maintenance free pedal format. There are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle traits of the Echoplex that needed to be implemented in order to be authentic.

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.
Record level: There’s a control on the EP-3 that sets how hard the tape gets hit.
Wow and flutter: The Belle Epoch’s modulation control was designed to simulate the daily mechanical irregularities inherent in original Echoplex units.
Head drag: The original unit had a unique quality that when moving the delay time slider it took a moment to catch up to the adjustment, creating a doppler like effect.