Echoplex Evolution
Strymon’s standalone emulation of an Echoplex offers a host of adjustable parameters to tailor your sound
Words Trevor Curwen
Photography Phil Barker
STRYMON EC-1 SINGLE HEAD DTAPE ECHO £279 CONTACT
Strymon Europe WEB
www.strymon.net What You Need To Know
1 EC-1? Is this an Eric Clapton signature pedal?
Nope, it’s a different EC. This pedal emulates tape echo and is modelled on vintage Echoplex units.
2 Hasn’t Strymon already done tape echo emulation?
Yes, we first saw it in the company’s El Capistan pedal, which is currently available in V2 guise.
3 So how is this pedal different?
Well, where the El Capistan modelled fixed-, multi- and single-head echoes, this pedal focuses purely on the single-head type. The starting point for its development was the algorithm in the El Capistan pedal, and this evolution puts it all in a nicely compact enclosure.
The Echoplex single-head tape echo is right up there in the pantheon of iconic guitar effects, not just for its obvious echo functionality but also the sound of its preamp, used by players like Jimmy Page and EVH, to enhance guitar tone with or without the echo. Strymon has previously released pedals offering the tape echo sound – in particular the twinfootswitch El Capistan that features three different tape echo types, including single-head – but the company has now released a smaller pedal, the EC-1, which puts the focus solely on that single-head sound, building on the algorithm and the ‘dTape’ technology used in El Capistan.