Carl Martin Echotone

It's pretty simple.
there are 4 knobs - one for the echo volume, one for feedback, one for delay tone and one for delay time.

then there are 3 switches. echo, select and tap. the echo switch turns the echo pedal on and you play with the delay-time that is set with the delay-time knob.
if you hit the select switch you engage the tap tempo switch and thereby you play with the delay-time that you tap in.

I use a fender jazzmaster classic player, some carl martin distortions and a t-rex dr. swamp, boss rv-3, boss tr-2, danelectro spring king and two mxr 6-band eq's. all into a peavey 112 bandit.

I like the sound of the delays. I truely dig the tone knob and the fact that the delay signal become darker darker as it fades.

BUT a major issue is the sound the pedal makes when you engage the tap tempo when hitting the select switch in the middle!!! in the official description it says that you can go from a sort af slap-back delay and then suddenly go into a huge solo-delay. and that you can! but your huge solo-delay will start off with a big, nice, nasty ****** up picth-swifting sound!!! this is not how a true Gilmoure solo would be introduced!!! IT REALLY SUCKS BIG TIME!!!! there are also some strange picthy sounds going on as you tap a different tempo, or just when you tap the normal tempo to make shure it's in time with your drummers tempo. SUCKS!

the sound is great, but i would like it if the delay-volume knob would be a wet/dry mix knob, so that you could get even more delay... I run it full on, but I would like to have the possibility to go further.

And know to the tap-tempo thing that people have mentioned. My pedal seems fine when it comes to the tap tempo switch. the tempo is the same is the tempo I tap. however, I have noticed that the pedal will not give me slow delays if i tap them in. there is a certain limit of how slow you can tap! thats stupid! the delay time knob can give you a realy slow delay, but if you try and tap in a similar slow delay time, the echotone will just jump up to its slowest platau, which is not very slow at all..!!! stupid!! but it works fine above this platau.

all in all it's a nice sound you get, but the strange-sounds/noises are just WAY to irritating to make this pedal a great delay pedal. I AM DISSAPOINTED! carl martin should make a delay pedal that is worth the high price.
you can forget the "going from slap-bacl into huge solo delay"!!! people will laugh at your grand opening!!!! seriously!!! it's useless!!!!

very good... nicely build...

don't know.

I play noise/post rock... very melancholic and melodic.. I'm very much into reverb and delay. boss rv-3 is by far the greatest reverb/delay effect ever... but I wanted something with a tap feature, and so I bought the carl martin echotone.

if it were stolen I would'nt get an other one!! I would feel sorry for the poor guy who know owns it, and at the same time feel pissed because of the amount of money i've spend on it!!

it's a nice delay pedal that realy sounds AWSOME!!! BUT IT'S NOT WORTH THE MONEY!!! DON*T BUY IT!!! CARL MARTIN HAS TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE GOOD DELAY PEDALS WITH A FUCTIONING TAP FEATURE!!!

don't buy it - maybe go for the t-rex replica if you want high-class delay.. I have not tried it yet, but I will someday.

I'm Spanish and got this unit from an eBay USA store last summer when the Euro was in its strongest exchange point "against" the USD's, a couple of months before the easter-world suddenly realized (and started to suffer) how hollow our economyc system was. So it was 200 Euros total. It was a "full working" demo unit.

In theory is an easy to use unit, BUT tap tempo on mine DOESN??T WORK PROPERLY, just as some previous reviews stated (it seems is not only mine,I BEG YOU GUYS TO POST your opinion here about this subject based on your experience with your EchoTones). The Tap Tempo feature on my Electro Harmonix Memory Man w/ Hazarai (digital) works fine, not the Carl Martin (the tempo is slower than the taped tempo, annoying BIG issue).
By the way, if you don't want too much feedback when using fx on the fx loop of the pedal you'd better cut some highs with the Echotone's tone knob, works fine for me (and be carefull with the output of the looped fx).

Pure beauty,I love the degradation of the repeats although I'd prefer them to go into oscillation not so early (a trimmer woul'd be a dream come true 4me).
This +and the fact that the fx on the loop doesn't affect the first repeated signal (I hate it!!! I thought I could have my "custom" Deluxe Memory Man,but only the second repeat and subsequents are affected by the fx on the loop, making it too lighly noticiable...hate it!!) excludes this delay to be, well, perfect, and turns it into a Great (undenyable) Sounding unit that doesn??t deliver its promeses.
I have to add, that I LOVE the way it reacts to your picking dynamics. I love it !!! You can make it "crunch" in a very charming way. Love that flavour. A great plus for me, setting it appart from digital units (and I love some digital delay sounds, specially on my Korg A2, awesome, ask U2).
I love analog delays pitchshifting when turning time knob on the fly, in this unit it works so that if you turn it too fast you??ll "cancellate" somehow the oscillation effect (well,not instantly,but it works better if you turn the tempo knob slowly). Plus, when you decrease the pitch (by turning the knob counter clockwise or tapping slower than current tempo)the oscillation effect is much more abrupt.
A previous reviewer marked this as annoying, for some uses, I guess he's right, I find it really interesting sounding anyway.

Seems sturdy and so, BUT the tap tempo issue doesn't add points...

No idea.

Other gear to compare, only digital delays: Electro Harmonix and Korg rack unit stated above.
Overall rating: read my comments above.
Anyway I love it sound (and looks).
I??m going to try the tape delay simulations on the Boss GT-10 unit I've ordered and further comment here.
(I play Clapton, Peter Green, Stones ---- U2, Radiohead...)
Great feature: trails on/off switch,tone control, dynamic response-organic feel,the sound itself,yeah the FEELING,musical and most of all Unique Personality.
Hated: tap tempo issue. Plus, 2cond light could glow in time with tempo.
If stolen I'd try a new unit on a store,chek out the Delayla XL,EH Deluxe Memory Man, Diamond Memory Lane (2nd hand,too xpnsive I guess), Pigtronix Echolution and Maxon??s AD-9 Pro+. The Echotone surely would be a great challengher (specially sound wise) at some 2nd hand price.

I try not to post any reviews until at least six months have passed, but I have to use this site as a forum so that Carl Martin and Co. might listen to their customers, since their U.S. customer service is unresponsive. Yea, this unit is easy to use. But, as Philthethrill noted below me, the tap-tempo doesn't work- It is slower than you tap. Super annoying, and actually quite useless. This is an expensive unit!!! I paid $360.00 on a promotional deal, but I've ne'er seen them that cheap anywhere else. Anyway, everything should work! Since the tap-tempo requires that you guess how much faster than the tempo you have to tap in order to get things to repeat in time, it is a difficult pedal to use.
The other thing that's weird about the pedal is that the two modes of operation (you can toggle between a tap-tempo setting and a manual setting via the middle footswitch) are siamese twins. Joined at the hip and inseperable. What I mean is that although you are given two settings, the only thing you are really given is two delay times, but they share the same mix, feedback, and tone. So can you really go from a slapback to a huge solo echo? Kind of. I like my slapback to have one repeat, while I like the "huge solo" to usually have about three. Not with the Echotone. You gotta split the difference, and that takes some getting used to. Another annoyance that makes me have to say, yea it's easy once you figure it out...

Easy but annoying.

My rig does not apply. It is a very good rig, and I play professionally. The pedal sounds awesome. The repeats sound very tape-like, and they stay out of the way, which is cool. Some pedals, like the BOSS DD series delays, can get in the way, which can be cool. That's what I use my DD-6 for. It's repeats are very prominent. The Echotone sounds more ethereal, although it's slapback sounds are great as well.
There is a weird problem with mine- when I move the delay time knob counter-clockwise, the pedal makes a loud farting sound, as it audibly reminds me that it's moving. That's what happens in manual mode. In the tap-tempo mode, it farts as I tap. Right through the amp, at whatever level the repeats are set at. Another excellent feature of a $400.00 pedal!!!
Also, the effects loop is squirrely. I have tried it with a BOSS flanger that I had laying around and the pedal wouldn't stop feeding back the high-end swirls of the flanger. Useless. The flanger works just fine by itself.

The repeats sounds awesome. The farts are completely lame, and the effects loop sucks. I expect **** like this to happen on a Danelectro pedal, or some old DOD delay, but not on an expensive, high-end unit.

I don't know because I just got it. Like I said, I would normally wait at least six months to post anything, but I just want people to know what they are about to spend $400 or so on.

Carl Martin's US support has been unresponsive to me. I have sent two emails, spaced out by about a week and a half, and am still waiting after another month. I want them to fix this pedal in three ways:
(1. Make the tap-tempo work
(2. Give me a new delay time pot that doesn't fart.
(3. Fix the effects loop so it doesn't feed back when you use it in ways the manufacturer recommends.

I can live with the fact that the pedal shares mix, feedback, and tone settings between tap-tempo and manual mode. But they really should fix that in future versions of this pedal.

The repeats sound awesome. If you must have a Carl Martin delay, the DeLayla XL is better. The repeats aren't quite as interesting sounding, but I remember that everything worked fine on it. This pedal it still in Beta testing and is not finished. It works best if you set it where you like it and don't use it's other features.

It's pretty basic delay pedal. I especially like the trails switch feature. However, there are 2 reasons I gave it a 7 instead of 10. 1) I really don't like the fact that the only way to get power to the pedal is to use the built in power chord. How hard is it to put an AC jack on your pedals? #2 is HUGE, since the main reason I bought this pedal was because it has tap tempo: the tempo that the pedal registers is noticeably slower than the tempo you tap. I'm not sure if this is unique to my pedal or a universal problem, but it kind of defeats the purpose of the tap feature.

My rig is either a custom built Fender Custom Tele or a '72 Gibson LP Deluxe into a board of about a dozen pedals (old school Rat, FD2 w/mosfet, EHX microPOG, 535Q wah, giga-delay, RV-2, EHX nano stone, EHX small clone, Roger Linn Adrenalinn 2, etc) into either a Matchless Phoenix head w/Marshall cab (2x12 w/greenbacks) or a Fender Bassman 70 with 2 x 15's. As much as I use delay, I gotta have a tap tempo. And as much as I was comfortable with my DL-4, after 4 of the failed on me, I had look for something new, so this is my first venture outside my comfort zone. This thing has excellent tone. Very musical. If it weren't for the tap-tempo problem mentioned above, I would consider myself in love. The sounds you get with the tone knob cranked are amazing. I guess my only beef is that you don't get as much of that muffled analog sound as I'd like when the tone knob is all the way down.

Only had it a couple of weeks, but seems extremely solid. I'll withhold my opinion for now...

I've not tried to contact them yet...

If it weren't for the tap tempo issue, this thing would be pretty close to a 10.

It has the standard delay controls and they give just the right amount of control. The knobs move freely but not loose like some other pedals.

Setting up delays is very simple and all of the sounds are excellent.

So far I have played this with my Anderson Atom and my Ron Kirn Tele through a Swart AST and a D13 JRT. I tried it with a Keely comp in front and a Sweetsound PI fuzz in the loop.

The pedal is very quiet, when you are not playing and you engage the pedal you would not know it's on which can be a problem with some other delays (although to be fair not really at this price point).

This delay sounds great. It is a vintage sounding (repeats get darker) delay but you can turn up the tone to get cleaner and brighter repeats like a more modern delay. It really is a studio quality effect.

I just got it and I've never owned a CM product before so I can't say yet. I will gig it this weekend without a backup but I never have a backup of any of my pedals. Maybe when I have a roadie or a clone to carry it for me. ;)

N/A

I play in a rock band but we are fortunate that we get to play a lot of different styles, (funk, country, classic rock, swing, latin) And I think delays lend themselves to most of those styles. So I use them about 50% of the time.

I have been playing since I was 12 and I'm 45 so 33 years (ouch) And I have too much gear to list but the main things now are the D13 and Swart amps and an Anderson, a Kirn Tele, and a Tyler. I also have a great wah pedal (Area 51) and a few other pedals that go on and off the board.

If it gets stolen I'd get another but I have a few other delays to fill the gap.

I love the sound and the way it looks too. My only real complaint is that the LED should flash in sync with the delay but that's just a preference, I don't think it matters in the end. It would be nice though if it wouldn't mess up the sound. My favorite feature is the trail off thing. When you turn it off it plays the effect on the part you played before the switch was turned off. It's a cool way to get back into the other sound.

I have owned most of the good, high end delay pedals and I like a lot of them OVerall this is one of the best I've played definitely top 3. And all 3 are great so I am not sure which I'd choose as 1, 2, or 3 on any given day.