Pigtronix Echolution Phi

The Echolution is not difficult to use, it's just not your typical delay pedal It has so many more features and options that there is a learnign curve associated with this pedal. It's not a big deal by any means. The manual is excellent but does require spending time with it. I've had mine for a couple of months and after about ten hours of serious playing it's become very intuitive to use.

Here's where you'll find that the Echolution stands out. Absolutely awesome tones are to be found in this pedal. It has modulation delay/echo with controls for both chorus and tremolo on the repeats. It has a tap tempo with switches for 1/3, 2/3, 1/4, 2/4, and 3/4 along with the tapped in delay. Then there's the golden ratio which is pretty amazing. Switch it on and your echoes line up with temselves. You can almost see it happening. You can also control the trails so if you turn off the echo the repeats fade away naturally. It can do anything any of your other delays/echoes can do and then some. Turn up the drive and get a little grit on your echoes. All of the controls have a wide range to them so you can keep things subtle or go as far over the top as you want. It's almost like another instrument instead of an effect. My only real beef with it is the tap tempo button is a little tempramental. It doesn't always activate what you tap into it. Also the light above the modulation switch flickers and fades out but this doesn't have any affect on the sound.

So far so good excepting the aforementioned flickering light. It seems to be solidly built.

No complaints here. I've called and talked directly with Dave Koltai. If I've left a message he's gotten back to me in a reasonable time. Dave's been very helpful and friendly to deal with. Can you say that about Boss, Line 6, Digitech ...?

I love the Echolution. I'm a delay/echoe freak so I've used a plethora of 'em over the last close to thirty years including Boss, tc electronic, electro-harmonix, lexicon, korg/toneworks, damage control to name a few. Nothing against most of those other brands, but the Echolution is a great pedal. It is pricey though. I play acoustic eclectric Takamines and Fishman Performer amps with other Pigtronix, Damage Control, Boss, Electro-Harmonix pedals. I play many styles form folkadelic to jam-band to classic rock to traditional acoustic stuff and the Echolution adds to my music. I do wish the tap tempo switch wasn't so tempramental. Otherwise I'm happy with my investment. Peace

This is not your typical stomp box delay, so it's not something that you'll be able to have mastered right out of the box. But ... who gives a crap? The features that the Echolution has by far blows away almost every other delay out there. It's easy to get good tones from and it is incredibly versatile. Definitely not a "one trick pony" though. Read the manual, play with it, and you'll be off and running and you'll never look back.

Whoa! Absolutely the best delay I have ever played (and I've had a Deluxe Memory Man, all the Boss pedals (including twins), Line 6, Lexicon racks, TC Electronic racks to name a few of the better brands). I love all genres of music but a few of my faves are Garcia and the Dead, Gilmour and the Floyd, Radiohead, Dylan, Garbage, Peter Rowan & Tony Rice, the Beatles, you get the picture. I always have a little echo going on with whatever I'm playing. The Echolution has modulation delay/echo with the ability to add in both tremolo and chorus to the repeats AND a tap tempo delay/echo with the ability to switch a variety of 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 1/3, 2/3 settings along with the main tempo. It's absolutely crazy what you can do with this. It's an instrument and a delay pedal at the same time. PLUS there's a golden ratio switch that aligns your echo with the cosmos. FAR OUT! It has drive to add grit and a high cut so you get the old school echoes and it can be the cleanest of digital delays you've ever heard. I play acoustic electrics (Takamines) through Fishman Loudbox acoustic amps with a variety of effects (lately I've been using Damage Control Glass Nexus, Liquid Blues, and Timeline pedals and/or the Envelope Phaser and Disnortion pedals). I can sound acoustic or electric that way and keep my playing style acoustic all the way (Itend to choke electrics out of tune). It's pricey but worth it.

So far so good. My Disnortion had a defective switch but David took care of it. I have not worries.

Absolutely the best customer service in the business. If you call, you either get David Koltai answering the phone or you get DK returning you call after you've left a message. He's a good dude who cares about his product and the customers. Can't say that about Boss, Line 6, etc. I hope he continues to be successful in his business.

Only because it is so expensive I'll give it a nine. Otherwise, this is the best delay/echo pedal available. Don't believe me? Try it out. You'll agree. I've been playing for thirty years and have owned a wad of gear. It's worth the dollars. Great versaltilty, tone, creative inspiration, and quality. Keep on truckin'. Peace.

After anxiously waiting for two weeks to receive the pedal, I immediately tried to play through the pedal. This was a mistake; I got lost and was getting all sorts of crazy sounds. Pigtronix's step-by-step manual explained the pedal thoroughly and how to dial in a plethora of usable tones. In half an hour I knew the pedal like the back of my hand.

There are many dials and switches that seem daunting at first. Once you understand them they make the pedal easier and quicker to manipulate than your average digital delay.

The expression pedal and remote switch jacks make the pedal even easier to manipulate. This makes switching to a reverse delay much easier. I am going to get an additional expression pedal jack for the 'blend' control installed. David Koltai said others installed a jack for 'feedback.'

David Koltai is right: this pedal isn't going to replace a looping device. I thought looping would be a synch with the remote switch. It is still quite difficult to use if you want to loop a long phrase. You have to match the delay time with the time of your phrase. Nevertheless, you can completely alter the sample using the controls of the modulation delay. This yields some interesting results.

Considering all the tonal possibilities, the pedal is quite easy to use.

I play a Baker guitar into a Reverend Kingsnake.
My pedal setup is: Budda Wah > Maxon OD-9 > Ernie Ball Volume Pedal > Pigtronix EP-1 > Pigtronix Echolution

The sound quality is brilliant. The possibilities are endless. I'm not sure what can be written that hasn't been said before. I'll add some of my own observations:

I am able to nearly nail The Edge's tone, which is quite a feat. The 'drive' dial can be used to create a saturated overdrive tone that my Maxon OD doesn't cover. The tremolo sounds especially rich with the blend control turned up. I have to admit I am somewhat unimpressed with the depth and sound of the Chorus. Nevertheless, it provides a nice, subtle touch.

The pedal sounds perfect.

The LED that indicates the LFO speed for the Chorus/Tremolo didn't work when I received it. I am going to send the pedal in so this can be repaired. The pedal is still remarkably solid. Everything is built to last.

I called David Koltai about fixing and modding the pedal, he was very helpful. It is a breeze to deal with Pigtronix.

I play jazz, blues, classic rock and funk. I have played guitar for 11 years.

Now that I have owned this pedal I can't have a pedal without multi-taps. The tremolo and chorus are brilliant features but will not necessarily replace tremolo/chorus pedals. It is perfect to have a delay set by tap tempo and by a dial (in my case, an expression pedal). The 'trails' switch is remarkably useful. There are plenty of features on this pedal but none of them are frivolous.

I wanted to buy my final delay pedal. I think this is it.

There are a ton of knobs and switches on this amazing little piece of gear, but fear not it is very easy to use and interacts like a normal delay pedal it just has a lot more going on for it than some others out there. If you are looking into this pedal I would assume that you would want to know everything it is capiible of doing anyways so looking through the instruction manual is a good thing to do as well.

Best delay pedal I've ever used, analog or digital beats them all. I've owned around 10 different delay units but this one takes the cake hands down. I can get any possible sound out of this box it gives me all the warmth of my analog delays but with so many more options that I missed from the massive digital delay units. It also takes away the need of using multiple delay pedals like I have in the past to make crazy rhythmic patterns with the flip switches and golden ratio option (amazing feature one of the biggest selling points to me). My only possible complaint is that when the unit is activated and you switch between the tap tempo and modulation modes there is a crazy pitch shift up or down depending on the time difference. However this is the first pedal I've used that could hold multiple settings and didn't just cut out when switched between. So bravo on that in retrospect I don't even think it is a compliant anymore because I'm betting there are some cool ways I could make it work in song situations.

It's like a little tank. Despite the number of knobs and switches on it I feel very safe stepping on this guy (it is surprisingly small for all the things it can accomplish) I've yet to gig with it but my first chance will be later this week. I can tell this thing is going to last awhile from the overall feel, everything feels sturdy (knobs jacks switches) however I know for a fact that if anything were to go wrong with the pedal Dave is one of the most helpful and best people I have ever worked with when it comes to guitar equipment (I had mine fitted with an extra expression pedal jack for feedback control, and also a mod that made the unit self oscillate earlier/easier).

Dave is as stated before the best dude ever. Helped me out beyond reason for adding in the extra features to the pedal and made it everything and more for me. 100% amazing guy to work with, I only wish I could put more than 10 for the rating here.

I use this is various bands from stoner/doom/post-rock/European screamo/instrumental/noise and some other stuff in between all this and it makes me beyond happy. I'm recommending it to anyone who loves delay and other awesome effects. If you pick one up you will not be disappointed. It isn't a cheap investment but by all means it is a worthwhile one. and for the features and functions this little guy can do I was actually expecting to have to pay a lot more, I know there are some other boutique delays out there than accomplish a whole lot less for a comparable price.

It has so many features and the ability to make so many different textures to the sound, so I would say it takes a little time to get used to things. HOWEVER, every time I use this I feel very inspired and impressed.

I have not played with other 'boutique' delays out there, so I'm afraid I can't really compare the sound with pedals like Memory Lane or Echoczar and the many others that are popping up these days. But I'm hyper-sensitive to sound, been playing guitar for about 23 years, and have a lot of what I consider to be great gear (to name a few, '73 Deluxe Les Paul, '93 SG Limited Edition, Ampeg Gemini 6 amp, Sherman Filterbank II, Dr. Scientist's Tremolessence, Chicago Iron Parachute Wah, FMR Audio compressor, Barber compressor, Effector 13's Truly Beautiful Disaster, Death By Audio's Supersonic Fuzz Gun, and others). I feel that the Echolution is a very beautiful-sounding pedal, noise-free, and offers so many different variations in sound that are all good. It successfully achieves the analogue feel in sound but offers the digital mods. I have the Line 6 DL4, which I actually love, but the Echolution is a totally different animal. It feels so much more 'analogue' to me, has a more natural feeling to it. I can't give you a technical review, but I'll just tell you I am very happy I threw down the large amount of cash it took to buy this thing. That being said, be warned that I have the pedal-buying disease, the never-ending lust for gear...anyway this thing is really cool and if you like experimenting with sound as much as I do, you won't go wrong with this.

As a matter of fact, the first Echolution pedal I received was defective, and it was the first Pigtronix product I tried so I wasn't sure what to think, especially since there are so many fans of their gear out there. So from that experience I'm not as confident as I could be with this pedal. But it was replaced, and the pedal I have now seems totally dependable, but only time will tell. Just from other people's reviews, I think the pedal I first received was a fluke and I can expect this to last for a long time.

David Koltai has been a pleasure to contact and deal with. He really did a lot to make sure I was happy. As I said, my first Echolution was defective, and he took care of the problem with professionalism and consideration for my kind of special circumstances - I was having him mail this pedal to coincide with my trips to the States (I live in Japan), and when we dealt with the problem he ended up sending it to Tokyo and covering the mailing costs, which isn't cheap! So while I expect a manufacturer to properly take care of customers as much as the next guy, I feel David Koltai went over and above in this area and I'm very happy to have the chance to share this fact to those of you reading this.

I'm into all kinds of music, but am now in an improvisational-ambient type of band. The Echolution is as much fun to play with as any pedal I've ever used. I'm totally impressed with the range of options and I feel like it will take me a very long time to fully experience all it can do. It's so much fun, and I'm really looking forward to discovering it's potential. The mods are fantastic, the multi-tap toggle switches add a unique element, the loop feature and reverse feature are super cool, in fact everything is great. Sorry if I'm sounding like I'm praising this thing too much, but I'm just enjoying it so much, and I can't imagine not keeping it on my board for years to come. I've never written a review before (although I read these things constantly), but I felt compelled to let people know this is a very cool pedal and David Koltai is a very good man to do business with. It is an expensive pedal, but compared with others out there, I would say the price makes sense and is worth it.

The pedal more or less explains itself. The knobs are all labeled very clearly, and it would be difficult not to know what they'll do. As soon as I plugged into it, I was hearing things I liked. The manual is concise and easy to follow, and it even gives you seven pages of ideas for pre-sets that are all great starting points to see how far you can really push this pedal.

To see what this pedal could do, I played a semi-hollow Ibanez (ags 83b) through a Marshall 800.

I was really impressed with how this Echolution avoids the confines that restrict most delays. When in the long delay mode, you have up to 20 seconds to play with. The multi taps are layed out in a way that makes it really easy to manipulate the sound without giving up the origional signal. I found it very useful to be able to emphasize different beats in the delayed signal and move between them. The trem covers the spectrum from super rigid to soft and emplied, and the chorus is great for manipulating the repeats. The tones are really big. If you add too many multi taps the signal can get a little confused, but that is to be expected.

This is the 3rd delay that I am integrating into my pedalboard, but it is exactly what I've been hunting for. It's my new main echo, and I would feel uncomfortable playing without it.

I've sent emails to which Pigtronix were very quick to respond. I've also had a few conversations with David over the phone, and he was great. A good guy with all the answers I needed.

I use my pedals in numerous projects on various instruments. Everything from a spacey rock band to gospel-country, and I find delay is the most useful effect for all of them. I own mostly boutique pedals... but the occasional boss stomp might find its way onto my board. This Pedal gave me two separate echos that I have full control over. The tap tempo was the main reason I first looked into this pedal, but the expression control over the modulated delay was more than I could have asked for. I am especially happy with the option of a foot controller for the loop and reverse functions. I think after having and using the Echolution, I would be far less comfortable on stage without it. I find it's great for adding subtle textures, but just as useful as a noisemaker and for segues between songs. I've not found anything comparable.

The thing sounds great, without really having to work with the knobs you can get a nice meaty yet lush sound. Doesn't have any of that typical digital brittlness at all, there's some very nice natural saturation and filtering that warms the sound up considerably.

There are a LOT of sonic possibilities with this pedal, the global controls feature blend (effect level), drive (analog saturation), Hi cut (high frequency filtering) and feedback (delay decay) and those of course are very intuitive. The high cut can be rolled off to get a more crystally sharpness or rolled on to get more of a tape echo or memory man kind of sound. The drive really helps to get some nice girth on the sound, overloading the delay gives you this wonderful completely saturated delay sound that is UNIQUE to this pedal for sure.

There are two modes, tap tempo and modulation. The modulation side offers controls for Delay time (set manually, and controllable by expression pedal) and Tremolo and Chorus depth which are themselves controlled by a master LFO speed.

The Tap tempo allows for tapping the tempo in on the dedicated tap tempo switch and then offers a huge range of multitap combinations. The switches in the middle of the pedal allow for taps of 1/4, 2/4. and 3/4 (quarter note taps) and 1/3. and 2/3 (triplet note taps) then a reverse delay switch, a Loop switch (holding the curent delay in the memory) and a trails swich (toggeling wether or not the delay will continue to decay when the pedal is turned off). Also the PHI switch is located in this portion of the pedal which rearranges all the fractions of the delay to be in line with Phi which is the golden ratio... more on this later.

As you can see this is a VERY DEEP pedal and At first it can seem daunting, but truly, most of the time that i use this pedal I am using it in a very simple way, setting the delay manually with maybe a bit of modulation to get just a NICE lush delay. It's as simple or complex as you want it to be, and It's all extremely logical and you'll get it in no time at all. The manual is fantastic, it is written in a very user-friendly way which explains all the funtions clearly and explains all the inter-relations of the various elements. Also it offers useful tips on how to achieve certain sounds.

So of course it is more challenging than the average pedal just because of the amount of options but if you just read the manual its actually relatively simple. There are just a couple quirky things that you have to figure out, then its no big deal.

As I mentioned above, it just sounds great. It can be crystalline and sharp or dirty and squelchy and everything inbetween. I've been able to dial up that great early 70's (think Meddle era) David Gilmour sound, or through the multi-taps get the famous Edge (U2) sound with minimal tinkering.

The real strength of this pedal is the multi-taps. You can create incredible morphing textures through the various combinations, and with the Phi switch engaged you can realy get some wonderful cycical grooving sort of sounds. The sounds that I personally use more frequently are the modulation delays, expecially the TREMELO delay, because it's just such a lush and unique sound. Even if I'm just using it lightly as a kind of reverb effect, its just a pleasure to play with.

You CAN get some kind of strange sounds on the modulation side if you're not careful, the LFO rate/Chorus depth relationships changes as you change the duration of the delays (short range, medium range, long range) so you have to watch out of that or you can get some "seasick sailor" kind of sounds....which can actually be really cool if you want that sound.

IN general though, I really just keep the thing on all the time and am always just tweaking things a little bit to get some more warmth and depth out of my sound. This thing does SO much that i could literally talk about it for 10 pages and not get to all the possibilites, so i would just rather stress about how well it just gets a nice warm sound no matter what. You really have to try it to see how deep it really is.


I am using:

D'Angellico EX-DC or a 1998 Strat

Dr. Z Maz 38 amp or a Polytone Mini Brute
TS-9 Tubescreamer
Pigtronix Disnortion
Pigtronix EP-1
Line 6 DL-4 (for looping)
T.C. Electronics G-Major (for reverbs etc)

Haven't had a single problem with it. Have used it on many gigs without backups.

Dave at Pigronix is great to work with, always prompt when getting back to customers for any reason, also takes suggestions and feedback very well.

I play a lot of different kinds of music, but It generally lies somewhere in the vicinity of improvisational jazz/rock with a stress on african rhythms but large guitar textures. This pedal works very well with everything I'm trying to do, especially incorperating polyrhythmic textures into my arrangements.

I have been playing for about 12 years now and am a semi-professional.

If it were stolen i would ge another in a heartbeat

I love the sound in general, just plugging into it and getting a warmer, bigger sound. I think the Drive control really adds a great sound to the pedal, so that would have to be my favorite feature.

I have used MANY delay pedals over the years, as I'm a delay addict. I've used (and still have in many cases): Line 6 DL-4, Boss Digital Delay, Digitech Digidelay, T.C. Electronic G-Major delay and many others. Though each of the pedals had strengths and weaknesses i felt they all had in common this kind of lifelessness of sound, a brittleness or hollowness in the way the sound was repeated. There was no girth or warmth to the sound. The Echolution has all the advantages of those digital delays with the sonic characteristics of analog delayss.

I REALLY wish that it has an expression pedal input for the "blend" control, just because thats the knob that i use the most on delays.

It definetly helps me make music and get closer to my ound.

Despite the many toggle switches and knobs, the echolution is pretty easy to use. Take the guided tour from the manual and midway through the tour you know exactly what you are doing and it is easy to get the sound you need - and BOY can this thing make sounds!

pigtronix effects = 10 in sound quality period.

only had this for a week or two so rating at no opinion, but took it out for its first show the other night and had no issues. built solid though so i'd be surprised to have any issues.

had the pleasure of meeting dave in person which was my intro to pigtronix. immediately fell in love with the echolution and put a deposit down on it months before the first one was out and picked up an ep-1. dave added several mods to my ep-1 and was extremely helpful and friendly. unfortunately, the echolution was massively delayed and a wait that should have been a month turned into several months for the release, but dave was kind and helpful and updated me on the progress of the first shipment whenever i asked and sent me out a pedal as soon as they were ready.

i've been searching for the right delay for a while. when i first heard the echolution, i was sold on the rhythmic options and golden ratio, but then i learned that the pedal also can handle reverse and the capture of an audio loop (and you can use a footswitch to access these features!!!)...then i learned it could handle 3 modes of tape delay. but wait, it gets better! in tape delay, you can sweep the tape speed with an expression pedal!!! that's right...sweep the delay time with an expression pedal. if that weren't enough, this bad boy also allows for a "trails" option which lets your delay gradually fizz out when turning the effect off for a smooth transition. this pedal really does it all. i don't see a reason to even look into a different delay pedal.