DeltaLab Echotron

The delay part is easy to operate. It also has nice features, like the soft versus hard feedback. There's no programmability, but i can live without that. BUT... the bypass switch works off of tip and sleeve(!) of a stereo plug - you'll have to wire one yourself if you want bypass, coz you'll never buy one that way. And it's only an output bypass, not an input, so if you have the long delay set up as a looper (which i like), things are getting looped even when bypassed. This could be good or bad. My solution is to put a volume pot on the input and run the output into a mixer, but that's a lot of effort and extra hardware. There's no tap tempo or other good way to set the delay time, although there is a convenient visual metronome (using LEDs to mark the beat) on the face.

It doesn't have the hi-fi quality of modern digital delays, but it isn't "lo-fi", either - it sounds an awful lot like a good old tape delay. Certainly, it's sufficiently warm for guitar or analog synth work.

Well, mine still works! I'd use it without a backup just because i don't have another.

Out of business long ago. I was lucky enough to scare up a schematic on the web somewhere (search Google for it), but if you want it fixed, you'll either have to fix it yourself or find some crazy tech who can deal with it.

I'm a guitarist playing ambient-jazz-rock-noise-whatever. I use it as a looper, and it works well for that. The organic sound quality is very nice for what i do, which is really about texture and tone. If anything ever happened to it, i'd miss it but i'd live.

I'd say if you run across one and you dig that sort of thing, pick it up and use it. Just don't expect it to last forever.

This loop/delay effect is quite hard to use. It took me about a week to master it... But once you're able to understand the logic behind loops, it begins to offer more great possibilities..

I give a six because it was hard the first days... My first loops were full of poppings and clickings..

I use it with a Fender Concert amp (all tube) and a strat... I sold my digitech RP-7.. So, right now, I only have the echotron, a crybaby and another delay (Ibanez HD-1000)...

I bought the 2 delays together.. Why ? I wanted the possibilities of the Echotron and the sound of the Ibanez.. (Digital vs. Analog)... What I found is that the Echotron is great, great, great about sound and dynamic... It's a little more "arid" and "cold", but it's a lot warmer than the Digitech RP-7.... It is not very noisy but I don't use the Echotron with the Ibanez... I don't want to have the two same things in the path together... When I use them, I use them in the effects loop..

Well, in the best of worlds, I would have the old E-H 16 seconds digital delay.... I only have 4 seconds of looping possibilities... But that's enough to make some cool little grooves....

Oh, by the way, there is one thing I love about the unit... The feedback knob has two sides with the zero in the center.. One side is a hard feedback (the sound remains the same), the other side is a soft feedback (some degeneration in the quality of the feedback)... Great feature...

One thing I don't like: No footswitch for the infinite repeat... You must turn it on and off with your hand (while you cannot play your instrument)... I'm thinking about doing a mod on it....

It's a great unit for little loops or longer delays... It can do some amazing sounds when you turn the knobs... With a couple of muted strings, if you boost or cut the delay time, the signal will detune and you can make some very cool industrial/techno loops with that trick...

No, I can't depend on it very much.. maybe that's why I bought two old units... to make sure I can rely on the another unit if there is a problem

Deltalab is closed now.. So, I have no idea.

I play experimental guitar and I also love Jazz, indian music, rock, techno...

For indian music, you can make a lot of drones with the Echotron...

It's a great little unit... but it's quite old... It doesn't make the job of a 3'000$ unit but I love the sound of it... It got a personnality the Digitech RP-7 doesn't have...