MXR m-169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay

As gran patri Lutz used to say, of drunk woodworking, "it's easy if you're easy."

Delay time governs with iron fist the time of the delay.
Mix allows you to mix.
Regen is the same as repeats, but, unlike repeats, it can be rearranged to spell "genre," which is one of the things that really sets this pedal apart.

Few-knobbed pedals are easy to use to the extent that they feature an invisible "smile" knob, which does nothing but make everything sound and has only one setting: 10.

We dock the Carbon Copy (copy) a point for ease of use because of the oft-noted blinding LED problem. In pure-formance situations, leaning down to parametriculate can be like approaching the blue sun of Qaadraz 9--beautiful in its way but incpacitating, or like the monk who is deformed and divinely retarded by looking only upon his God). We hear this can be solved wih a bit of tape.

We shall be brief and repetitive. The very useful thing about this pedal is that the darkening occlusion of the repeats makes it a very playable sound even at extreme settings. Sometimes, when we are "on the gig," we are shocked at how high we can set the mix and regen knobs and still have a sound that NOT is unusably cluttered with the piping clones of our original misbegotten musical intent.

It is a darker delay, for sure. Warm comes to mind as well. Lush because, set to high mix and regen, you will note there is a folding over, a blendage of the repeats that does not obscure your next musical gesture, the one that is surely going to finally make it all happen for you. Who would want a delay pedal that inhibits growth? We don't want to live in the past or marry the moment; we do however want to live in the unobtrusive, mulched presence of the enriching past, informed but not tyrannized by its echoes. That is why we have chosen this lovely pedal.

So far.

Customer support is important.

Easy except for the controls for altering the modulation effect are inside of the pedal.

Excellent. I love the sound.

This is where it falls down. I've had the pedal for a little over a year (I reviewed it already quite some time ago). The other day, I fired up my amps and pedalboard, turned on the Carbon Copy, and nothing happened! The switch failed! Bummer! I don't stomp on my switches. The switch is built into the circuit board too, so replacing it may not even be possible.

I haven't called yet, and will probably use a local guy to replace the switch (if it's even possible) since the manufacturers warranty is past.

This is an inexpensive, lovely sounding analog delay, which is the size of a pack of cigarettes. Great pedal, until the switch fails. Having the switch be part of the circuit board means that replacing it is difficult if not impossible. Doing it that way makes manufacturing it cheaper, which allows them to sell it cheaply. But switches fail, and having to replace a pedal because of a failed switch sucks!

It's easy to get good sounds out of the Carbon Copy. For me, it does two things really well--basic rockabilly slapback and that spacey, Gilmour-ish delay tone.

I'm primarily using this with an american b-bender telecaster through a Music Man amplifier. It sounds best with single coils through a big clean tube amp. The sounds quality is really good. It is open, lush, and organic sounding. Just what I was looking for. A digital delay it is not, and that is exactly the point. . .
The self-oscillation is really cool too, sounds like a car getting a flat tire!
The best settings are probably the suggested settings that come with the pedal. They can be tweaked slightly to adjust to what you're trying to do. Only one I don't care for is "Custard Pie". Again, good slapback and atmospheric tones. Beautiful sounding honestly

Here's the rub. Mine just stopped working completely for no apparent reason. I'd just used it lightly at home. Maybe I got a lemon, but reliablity may be an issue with the m-169. That said, Dunlop made good with replacing the unit so it's a mixed bag I guess.

Contacted Dunlop product support, they were really helpful. Told me they stand by all products in or out of warranty, and replaced it no questions asked. Also threw in a free power supply and 2 sets of strings. Good dudes.

To my ears, analog delay sounds waaaaay better than the sterile tones coming from digital units. Price to quality is right on with this one.

Five knobs, two of which are inside. Many people seem to neglect the interior knobs. I set width high (wide?) and time low (slow?), so that I get a big difference between the two settings on the front switch. For pedal noobs, the knobs are labeled differently than your DD3, 'delay' is time and 'regen' is feedback.

Sounds almost exactly like a memory man. A little bit darker than some people are used to. I have a lot of effects, a few digital delays, a few analog, and a line6 DL4, the only things more organic that I've used are real Echoplexes and the Fulltone equivalent, which are 10x the price.
Sounds much better with a brand new and expensive battery, which is unusual in the pedal world (you may or may not have noticed this.) Has a short battery life, which isn't unusual for delays, which tend toward high current draw.

Previous reviewers believe that this pedal is not true bypass; they are mistaken. Examine the circuit board and switch structure. Examine the mathematics: true bypass pedals don't sound the same as a single cable into an amp unless the total cable length is less than 18.5 feet total; two fifteen foot cables through a true bypass pedal sound as bad as using a 30 foot cable (math required). This is a true bypass pedal.
On my pedal the regen knob doesn't turn smoothly, on one of my associate's pedal, the time knob is scratchy. Not perfect, but unusually good in this price range.

One time I called dunlop and Jim Dunlop answered the phone. This is impressive.

******* brilliant. The closest approximation in sound quality is the memory man, which (depending on model year) isn't true bypass. No other analog delay which is true bypass A: is much larger; and B: will not run off of a daisy chain; and c: cost at least twice as much. Not perfect, but better than any comparable unit. Excels at slapback and medium times (folks who need longer than 600ms are deluding themselves if they think they want a true analog delay); sounds beautiful when overloaded. The settings on the mod switch need to be tweaked from the weak factory settings in order to understand what this does.

This is a very easy pedal to use. Three knobs.. regen to number of echo repeats (or echo depth), mix for the level of dry/wet in the sound and delay, for the level of the delay from short slapback to true echo. There is a mod button that turns the modulation on/off. The modulation is set inside the pedal with two mini pots for width and speed, which is a bit of a pain, but not a problem (unless you would like to change setting while playing). There are the standard input/outpu jacks, and 9-volt battery or plug in for power. And finally, there is the on/off button that is supposed to be true by pass.

Most of the time I run this into a Fender Blues Jr, and sometimes my Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue. Both amps have Celestion Century speakers and have been retubed with tubes that are much better than the stock groove tubes (imho). 90% of the time I play a GIbson Custom Shop CS-336 (no mods ever), but also play Fender American Standard Strat with Lindy Fralin Blues Specials. I actually use TWO MXR Carbon Copies, and run them first in the chain followed by a BBE Green Screamer and BBE Boosta Grande. I prefer the sound of boosting the echo signal rather than driving the echo circuits. The MXR Carbon copies are setup with one running the modulation (very subtle - too subtle in my opinion) and one with modulation off. The first MXR carbon copy has a shorter regen, the second a longer regen. I run the mix and delay at the same levels for both pedals. One the things I like the most about the MXR Carbon Copy sound is the softness of the delays. Other reviewers have said that is something they do not like. For me, that is the reason I bought the pedal. If you want harder/louder delay, try kicking the mix up to add more wet (echo) signal. Or, use a digital delay. I also have a Boss DD-5 that I rarely use. It is a great digital delay, but the echo is louder, more in your face, whereas the MXR Carbon Copy is analog, a more natural echo that is softer. I rarely use the short delays for slapback sounds. Others ahve mentioned that they think the MXS Carbon Copy sucks tone. Mine do not. I am not sure if they are true bypass (in the switch) and I have not torn the pedals apart to look. Regardless, mine work fine with no tone sucking. My only real complaint about the MXR Carbon Copy is that sometimes I would like a little more delay time. But that is not a show stopper.

no problems. built solid. Of course, I have them permanently mounted to a pedal board so the jacks are always plugged in and the power supply is always plugged in. The only things I really touch are the knobs (reset to setup at gig) and the on/off footswitch button. T

I have never needed customer support

I would by a couple of these again if they were lost or stolen. The emphasis is that I would buy a "couple of these" as in "two." One was wonderful, but two give more the flexibility I want to different levels of regen mixed together at the same time.

Everyone knows how to use these. The usual three knobs for delay length/repeats and mix. A small button above the controls switches in a fixed amount of modulation that is non-adjustable. The blue led is strong enough to light the area around my pedals (no board). Nice sparkly forest green paint job too. Very smart.

This one's on loan. It's a fine sounding analogue delay with around 600m/s of delay. I find the mix knob needs to be dialled in reasonably high to get the repeats to sound louder as they decay. The sound does not have the character of some earlier analogue delays; that IMO is a good thing if you want to preserve more of your original tone. Both warm and neutral sounding. The modulation adds a bit more warmth. I think the amount set is just right; no phoney-sounding warbling but just enough to enhance the sound. All analogue pedals will affect the original tone. One real bonus is that it adds no noise at all to my simple but ageing set up (JJ through an FT2,CE1, Maestro PS1a, ,Everman lo-fi filter, Ibanez AD80,DD2, CS2, Ampeg valve amp). I read one review that says this pedal does not self-oscillate. Erm...WTF on Rye? It S/Os like crazy if that's what throttles your frog.

It seems solidly built and would have confidence in using it without back up. Some of the reliability issues recorded by other users are a bit worrying though.

Couldn't say as never dealt with MXR.

This pedal is high, quality, simple to use and sounds pretty damn good. No analogue delay pedal will give you the tape echo sound - when these pedals first came out, no pros really liked them to begin with - but this one's great for slapback-like stuff and 'lush' Cocteau Twins with a good chorus - and anything else. There's nothing bad about the sounds. Get hold of a tape echo if that's the sound you're really looking for. As good as the DM2s and 3s of this world with twice as much delay time and no noise. And they look great. What would I consider better? Only the original EH MMDlx (but only just) and the one that beats all the other analogue pedals ever made to date; the gigantic but underrated 18v Ibanez AD80.

I wouldn't pay the asking price for these as bang-for-buck this pedal ain't quite there for the RRP. Luckily you can snaffle one of these on ebay second-hand for more reasonable money. Definitely worth it too.

3 knobs, and a mod switch...

Sounds amazing, it is one of the best sounding delays i've ever heard, (I currently have a dd-5 w/tap tempo, eventide timefactor, and rv-3, just so you know where i'm coming from)

all you analog delay snobs need to relax.

and who wants to sounds exactly like someone else, or another pedal, that is unoriginal and lame, there is not one bad sound out of this thing....

great

10

go buy one, and ignore all the haters below!

3 knobs, I guess getting to the internal trimpots might be a pain, but I dont feel the need to mess with the modulation. Mine is a version 2.

Les Paul or strat into various amps, mostly through an effects loop running off a 1spot. I cant believe some negative review-this pedal is excellent-no tone loss or noise. Repeats a bit dark, but you can work the mix knob to get the sounds your after.If you want a toy to make alien landing sounds and want to whack the only 2 chords you know to listen to "cool or atmospheric" sounds, this pedal might not be for you. If you want a great slap back-tape echo or nice modulation this pedal is excellent.....This pedal sounds great when actually playing with the guitar, maybe not for toying with the guitar.

6 months steady gigging-no problems.

had a question-they answered

Been playing 30 years, this pedal fits the bill, no volume drops, just analog goodness. Dont listen to these noobs with any tone complaints with this pedal

Pretty easy to dial in, just like any other delay pedal. The modulation function is sorta cool, but definitely requires adjusting the internal trim pots to taste.

I run this last on a quite large pedal board into a clean mesa boogie F30. I'm a country player, I use a B-bender tele with a Duncan Broadcaster pickup. My pedal board is big, but I'm very picky about having my signal buffered correctly entering and leaving my effects. Other than input and output, the whole board is true bypass.

I bought this pedal at my local, chronically unhelpful Guitar Center. The sales guy told me it was true bypass. It is obviously not. Big time coloration of my tone (loss of high end) when disengaged. I tried running with a battery, with a power adapter, by itself, with other pedals, with buffered pedals before and after, all to no avail. This thing just sucks tone when off. I looked up on their website, and it is advertised as 'true hardwire bypass.' Shoulda known better.

This is not a big deal for me, as I use this pedal for slapback delay (always on), and use a Boss DD-6 in a TB looper for long delay, but it is still really annoying to know I can't turn it off without killing my tone.

I give it a five, it sounds ok when on, nothing spectacular, but a pedal in this price range being deceptively advertised as true bypass should do better in the "tone-sucking" category.

From the looks of the other reviews, it seems MXR/Dunlop has some serious production consistency issues on their hands.

Been using it about a month, so we'll see. I never switch it, like I said, its always on.

Website was a pain to navigate, never dealt with MXR or Dunlop otherwise

I play country, rock, blues, pop, jazz and whatever else pays the bills. This pedal does ok, I stupidly sold a keeley DD3, I want it back after a month gigging with this thing. The buffered bypass is worth it in comparison. I almost wish someone would steal it, so I would be forced to find a worthwhile alternative.

Easy, 3 knobs, one button to push. More difficult with the internal settings, but the factory presets worked fine for me.

My gear:60's Fender Strat and PRS Custom with Seymour Duncan Phat Cats - Korg DT10-Cry Baby Classic - Xotic RC Booster - Xotic BB Preamp - Fulltone Supa-Trem - Carbon Copy.
Various amps, clean settings only.
I was looking for an analog sounding, small unit that uses 9V DC. It's ok, but not terrific. Sounds dark, as an analog delay should, but too lifeless for my taste. I can hear no sound coloring when it's turned off. This one seems to be really true bypass, not the usual half-*** true bypass the MXR people try to get away with.

Broke down after two months, just died. Is bucket brigade technology simply unreliable? The best solution is probably a digital delay with an analog type sound like the T-Rex Replica. But that one is big, very expensive and needs 12 V.
I give it a 2 for the 2 months it was in use.

Didn't bother, tossed it.

I have played Rock & Blues for 30 years, 20 years on the road. Reliability is a big issue for me, therefore I am not going to replace it. I'm back to my Boss DD-3, which has a terrible buffer circuit but has never let me down. Gonna try the Carl Martin Red Repeat.