Behringer EM600 Echo Machine

First, you can't use it other than in a parallel fx loop because it sucks the tone. So I am reviewing it in such a configuration.

Controls are intuitive, the mix can go to completely wet, fortunately.
The dual-function footswitch I don't like, would have had a remote jack instead. (To access tap tempo you have to depress the switch for 2 seconds, hence disabling the bypass. Not practical at all)

Be way careful with the psu you use, I shot the sister reverb pedal with a bad-regulated one I think. So Ibanez Ac109 is a must here, really.

All of this make this pedal a pain to use, especially in real-life situation (no time, bad light, etc)
The rv 600 has the same problems.

I bought it for the ducking delay only, and it's cool. It means when you're playing the delay is very light, and when you stop it comes very strong, ?? la luke.
Other than that, nothing special, and since you can't use it other than in a parallel loop, well it's very limited IMO.

Basically a lottery, the reverb sister rv600 I ordered with it only worked one session, and two seconds the next one... And many other Behringer products I bought were returned because of unreliability issues. Bad.

When they respond, then totally out of subject, could as well sell ties.

Buy something else, that works. It sucks your tone too much, as many budget delay pedals.
I ended up buying the echopark, now that's the real thing. And reliable.
Frankly this is the deal if you want a ducking delay, and much more.
Buy the echopark, cheap things are always too expensive in the end.

I bought the verbzilla too, it's such a giant leap in terms of sound quality vs behringer it ain't even funny.

there are quite a lot of features in this pedal. this pedal allows different types of echo/delay, from vintage to modern. user manual is not very big, although it does cover everything so that's ok. it did take me about 15 minutes to find the type of echo sound i am looking for, but now that i found it i do not touch the control knobs anymore, i just leave it in the same position which i am happy with. the type of echo sound i was looking for was a vintage tape echo sound. the behringer pedal has a switch to choose 'tape', 'analog' or 'digital' echo modes. i did end up using the 'analog' setting to get the tape echo sound i wanted, instead of setting the switch to 'tape' echo mode like you might have expected. in my opinion the 'tape' and 'analog' settings are fairly similar sounding anyway, but with the 'analog' setting, the 'MOD'ulation control knob allows you to dial in some vibrato, which sounds very nice. in 'tape echo' mode the modulation knob allows you to dial in some 'wow and flutter' instead. in my opinion this didn't sound as nice as the subtle vibrato so that's why i use the 'analog' setting instead of the 'tape echo' setting.

well what a surprise this pedal is for me. it is not the first echo/delay pedal i have owned. i have also owned a DOD FX96, a ZOOM multi-effects pedal containing echo/delay, a belcat delay, and a very expensive Toadworks Redux Delay. This Behringer is better sounding than the DOD, ZOOM and BELCAT pedals. the toadworks pedal i had did have a very rich and quite magical echo sound, but the problem with that pedal was it was hissy and i didnt like toadworks non-standard way in which their MIX knob worked. now, although the behringer is not quite as classy sounding as the toadworks pedal, it's still very nice in its own way and for the price im perfectly happy with it. it has its own personality, as opposed to some other lower priced delay pedals like the belcat delay which has NO personality at all. i played some cover songs today with the behringer echo turned on, i played some songs by THE WHO, and trust me the sound was great. to summarise, i would say that this pedal will give you an echo/delay which obviously is not as good as the sound you might get from a real tape echo machine, or the very expensive 'boutique' echo pedals (such as the carl martin echotone), but if you dont want to spend a lot of money but still expect something reasonably good, this is excellent in it's own class. im satisfied and happy. oh, almost forgot, i tried this echo pedal through the front of my amplifier (with distortion pedal also in the chain, echo pedal last in the chain) and i also tried the echo pedal through the effects loop. i decided in this case i preferred this pedal through the front of the amplifier, as opposed to when i had the toadworks pedal which i ran through the effects loop. i have always found that some echo/delay pedals work best through the effects loops and some work best through the front of the amplifier, and that you should always try BOTH methods before choosing which you prefer. oh and another thing, another reviewer has mentioned that this pedal is noisy/hissy. this is not true, and i expect the other reviewer either has crap gear, or is using a cheap power adapter (use a Boss PSA, or failing that a DECENT regulated adapter people). finally, i did not notice any tone sucking when this pedal is in bypass/off mode. i dont hear any problems with this pedal affecting my tone in a negative way at any time. and that's the triple truth, ruth.

usual behringer pedal, it is plastic as opposed to metal casing. this doesnt bother me personally. i mean, those zvex pedals with all the pretty paintwork on them, hand painted, and then you have to pay a fortune for them? screw that. i'd sooner settle for a plain plastic casing and save my money thanks. i'd love to get hold of all the zvex pedals in the world and paint them black.

never dealt with customer support, however behringer do have all their effects pedal user manuals on their website. you have to appreciate that.

great pedal, especially for the price. very nice echo/delay sound from it. it has personality and has a hint of analog/dreamy/magic to it, ok so perhaps not as soul stirring as a real tape echo machine or the more expensive boutique pedals like the carl martin echotone, but it's good enough, certainly for me, and hopefully for you too. for the price, you really cant go wrong. i like to play songs by THE WHO, and Pete Townshend of THE WHO used a real tape echo machine. when i'm playing the WHO songs with the Behringer echo, believe it or not you can still hear and feel that tape echo thing going on in there, perhaps toned down just a little, but it's there, and all in a nice small compact box instead of having to own a huge heavy tape echo machine. what fantastic times we are living in.. ^_^

Pretty easy to use. Only thing I felt was missing from the manual were the sample settings that could come handy. But that's not a big deal at all.

Getting the wanted delay out from this unit doesnt take a long.
The key with this pedal is the EFFECT LOOP. Using it straight to amp makes it sound terrible. But this is not Behringers fault. This thing should always put to fx loop!

I was suprised how good sound this unit has compared to it's price.
I'm using this with TECH 21 - 15 Watt amp and I can get really impressive sounding delays out of it. My favourite is the analog mode
which gives you so much softer and better sounding delay than in digital mode. It's really quiet also even when it's not off, at least in small amps.

It's made of plastic and doesnt feel very reliable. But it's cheap so you really can't complain about that. Luckily mine has 3 year warranty.

Never tried

I play mainly Yngwie Malmsteen kind of stuff and others shredders.
With this machine you can achieve really close to yngwie style echo he does live. I've been playing for 10 years and this unit was really positive suprise compared to how cheap it is to other expensive delays/echo pedals.

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

Well, it's not difficult at all to set this pedal.

How is the manual for it (if there is one)?

The manual is just a piece of paper, but it's not really necesary.

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?

Custom Fat Strat - Marshall Drive Master - Behringer EM600 - Peavey Windsor Studio (tube amp).

The EM600 it's changing guitar tone, by adding highs to original tone, and it's a little bit noisy, even on clean guitar tone, which is inconvenient for me.

Pedal features are great, you have a lot of options, but those issues I've mentioned about it, are disappointing me.

Never need it.

What style of music do you play? - Hard rock, blues, country

How long have you been playing? - Almost 19 years. I'm a semi pro guitarist.

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else? - I will never make the mistake to buy this pedal again. I returned it back to the store in exchange for a digitech digidelay which is not having the problems I've experienced with behringer EM600. So, I don't recomand to anyone buying this behringer pedal.

Just got the EM600 Echo Machine brand new, came today in the mail. It looked like a similar setup to the Line 6 Echo Park pedal; Quite a few knobs and switches to mess around with. You will need to take at least 20 minutes or so to familiarize yourself with all the different functions you can dial in, but in my opinion, the more options, the better!

Well, I bought this pedal based off of reviews here on Harmony Central, and needless to say, I was NOT dissapointed! For the money ($39.95) it is an incredible value, for all the features it contains and for the sound quality! 3 cheers for Behringer with getting this pedal to sound so good!!!! Not noisy whatsoever, no tone sucking while the pedal is disengaged, and pretty much all the effects on it sound great! Can't tell you how happy I am with this pedal, I'm using it in conjunction with my Boss DD-6 delay. The ONLY thing I've found unacceptable so far is that when you have the Mix knob cranked for the Reverse delay function, if you turn the pedal off, no guitar signal will come through...Not a big deal in the least though. Overall great sound quality, and it really stands up against my Boss DD-6!

It is a plastic casing, but as long as you dont stomp on it like Godzilla, it'll be a-ok.

Haven't had the pleasure of dealing with them, but I would say that their website is a bit slow, and trust me, I have a fast computer.

For the price ($39.95 US), the features (Tape, Digital, Analog and around 9 settings to choose from) and the sound quality (fantastic!), I really have to say this is one of the greatest pedals I have bought so far. I've purchased everything from Boss to Roger Mayer effects, and this pedal is seriously a great pedal, I'd recommend it to anyone, new guitarist, pro, it doesn't matter, it really sounds great. Fantastic job Behringer!!!!

Ok this is what's its about, yes its amazing, very cool and self oscillating, modulation tape sounding delay, love the sound, I have the echo park and they sound the same. One problem with this pedal is the if you set the pedal above to 100% wet so there is only delay and then switch the pedal off, the sound does not bypass and so there is silence. The echo park does not do this, and there is sound when bypassed. So same sound, but this one thing makes it not so useful live, Its solid and the switches are well made, if your looking for a delay, this eats everything up apart from the line6 forget the boss or anything else. has to be 10, because its got the sound.

Wow....lots of options here. I like it more than my old boss dd-5 i use to have. the manual is useless, so it takes a few minutes to figure out what all the settings are. took off points for the manual.

Sounds great. I did notice a VERY small amount of added noise in the signal. It's really small, and not really noticeable unless you are listening for it, but the pedal is not dead quiet like my true bypass pedals are. But in good news, the tape and analog settings sound great! The digital setting is fine, too, but the others have more personality. Lots of options too. there is a setting for a dotted eight, so you can get the edge's delay sound pretty easily.

it's a big battery drain. A brand new battery ran for an hour a day for 3 days and it was dead. made of cheap plastic....i dont expect it to last too long.

n/a

pretty good pedal. it's a good buy for the money. overall, cheap plastic casing, bad battery life, but sounds great.

as the first reviewer notes, this seems to be aplastic cased clone of the line 6 echo park. very easy to use, with some lovely delay variations and the tap tempo function is very, very, very useful.
the manula is a sheet of paper with pretty much NO information on it, so not so good there.

i use it after a boss tu-2, digitech screamin blues and bad monkey overdrives and the new behringer rotary machine pedal (a review will follow for that soon).

as it has 3 delay sounds (digital, analog, tape) that can be used with any of the delay times/types, it immediately steps past the marshall echohead (which i still use, but not as much anymore). the mod dial means you can dial in vibrato (on the digital and analog settings) or wow and flutter on the tape echo. these go from fairly cool and useful to plain daft, depending where the dial is. add to that a LOt of delay options, from ducking to reverse to two different types of multi delay, and this pedal starts to get really fun really fast.

the backward echo in conjuction with tap tempo is easily as good as the boss me-50's equivalent, which i used to use.

there's no hiss or anything, which has been the case with some of the older behringer pedals. it can self-oscillate really well also, which is very cool.

also, the sweep delay is very funny. like a wah/envelope filter effect as well as delay. maybe not 100% useful, but still cool.

people always go on about behringer pedals beign made of plastic and that they'l break them if the breathe on them, but i've never had a problem. if you're that worried about it, have a little self-discipline and watch where you're treading. or just eat less, fat***!

i emailed them to ask when this pedal was due out, and got a friendly and accurate response within 24 hours. very good.

i play pretty standard rock-and-roll, from the '50s to nowadays. well, maybe not so much from nowadays, most of it sucks! this pedal fits right in (using the tape setting, of course) and if it were stolen or lost or whatever, i'd buy another one straight away. it compares very favourably to any other delay i've used, including boss, just because it's so packed with features you can control - the opportunity to dictate how much wow and flutter you get on tape echo makes it worth the money alone, as does the tap tempo function.

on the whole, it has enough features to keep you amused for months, and the sound quality is excellent. Behringer have really upped their game by starting to clone Line 6 stuff as well as boss.

Good stuff!

Pretty easy to use. The manual is minimal, but if you can figure out the Line 6 Echo Park, you can figure this out, since it's an exact clone of it.

As far as I can tell, this is a dead-nuts Line 6 Echo Park clone. I really enjoy the tape echo simulation and the analog simulation. Tap tempo is a great feature, and the backwards and swell modes are fun. I wish there were a way to slow down the volume swells, though - they're a bit fast.

Anyway, like the real Line 6, there are lot of gimmicky things that you'll probably never use (like sweep mode), but the regular stuff that's in there is really nice. Especially the tape delay mode - the delayed tones are really beautiful. A really nice setting is taking it to 100% wet, no repeats, minimum delay time, on tape mode, and then turning up the wow/flutter. What a great sound, especially with some pitch vibrato in front.

It's plastic, but it seems fairly solid. We'll see.

At $40, this is a great value. Basically, if you always wanted to try a Line 6 Echo Park, but didn't want to spend $150 on a new one, this is for you. I hope it lasts a long while - they certainly cut some corners on the enclosure, but the actual sound quality is great.