Retroman KopyKat (Revised!)

[ShredCow]

http://www.retroman-music.com/Retroman Delay.htm


And yes, that's a picture of my pedal which would be just @ home right now... hehehehe...

Very cool, the original had some shortcomings, spoke to Retroman about it and he was very accomondating with my requests/suggestions. In fact, it turns out, this is the new model and I think it will ROCK.

In the 1st place, it sounds very nice. I mean, its got to right? Round, warm repeats... can get quite pristine clean/bright-ish to a very dulled, bassy echo but at all settings it maintains a round, compressed tone for the repeats. Its also more towards the darker tonality.

Also to note, its not as ambience-ish or reverb-ish as things like the Ibanez EM-5 or DE-7... its more delay delay so to speak. Different tones & this really works with distorted leads, your leads can stand out without having to contend with the repeats. Of course you can up the repeat level and have the repeats just wash over your main signal.

I like what he has done, the switchable delay time has been enhanced by having 2 delay knobs - something that was lacking the 1st time round. This and the effects loop plus repeats expression jack, could be just IT. Cool thing about the efx loop, you can choose to have the looped efx affect only the repeats of the Kopykat or the original signal only. Its like having e.g. distorted leads but clean slapback repeats.

I'm quite excited about the new one... going to go home and test out the new dual delay time knob thing... optimistic about it though.

 

[j_m_s]

whoah daniel, how many delays do ya have? Whats the price for this?

 

[ShredCow]

Uh.

At the moment.

I have... 5 delays? Ibanez EM-5 x 3, Danelectro PB&J x 1 and the Kopykat.

However, I'd only use 3 delays (2 x EM-5 and the Kopykat), which I did when I had the older Kopykat model. Reason for so many? The EM-5s handle the reverb-ish side of my tone, think 80s kind of delay tones esp when stacked, while the Kopykat is for straight up rock delays. Or mix and match.

One EM-5 is held for a friend while the PB&J is for fun.

Cost of kopykat on the website.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

whats the power spec, 9v or 18v?

The stomp switch for delay A/B, when you switch, does it ramp up/down smoothly to the other delay setting or in discrete steps?

Nice features for this new version!

 

[guitarsan]

"SWEETNESS" knob? Hee hee, what does it do? :roll:

 

[ShredCow]

Aiyo, gentlemen, got link leh, i posted above...

http://www.retroman-music.com/Retroman Delay.htm

Heheheh.

Pathein, I don't know what is the power spec, I (or you) could drop him an email to ask; his website does state there is an "internal voltage pump for better headroom". Wacking away at the strings and all that, no distortion from the unit - then again, I am using lower output pups and didn't test the headroom of the unit.
Toggling between the A/B delays, you do get a step up/down. By "ramp" you mean the equivalent of turning the delay time knob to get that pitch shifting effect right? This guy doesnt' do that.

guitarsan, according to the website the SWEETNESS does this: "Alter the personality of the delay though this adjustable filter matrix. Full anti-clockwise offers very clean, bright repeats .... moving clockwise, the timbre becomes more mellow and eventually "dirty-head" dark."
And it WORKS. More, much more noticable than say, the Carl Martin red repeat or the johnson analog echo/delay/can't-rem.

Actually, I'm very pleased with the SWEETNESS control. It works, its noticable and its USABLE! Up the SWEETNESS and you do get nice, distortion free, nearly pristine repeats that are kind of thin sounding. Going down, it starts to go fatter, kind of "blunt-er" as the treble gets chopped off, the tone starts to have slight distortion to it. This one stays totally out of the way of your main signal.

Anyway, I just had about 1 1/2 hours with it. I'm pleased to say that the friggin a/b delay time control thing WORKS! Like a charm! Very usable.

I have mine set to a very quick (e.g. 30ms) slapback and the other to say... 300ms? About 4 repeats... Sweetness to taste. 2 x EM-5s in the loop, affecting the wet signal. WOAH. I actually get to True Bypass the EM-5s, which affect the tone with their bypass circuits, something that's been irking me since I got them...

Doodling around on it now.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

heh, no trouble send him the mail man, i didnt see the internal voltage pump part. That extra headroom wud be useful.

Oh, just remember one more thing, if theres individual repeat knob, this pedal wud be one hell of a delay. Perhaps if theres another deluxe version, that cud be a nice add on.

One setting at oscillation, the other at normal delaying. The switching wud create interesting texture. Throw in a pitch shifter in the loop, play muted strings, can do some pseudo random beats on guitar.

the effect loop in a delay can do lotsa majik, nice add on

 

[ShredCow]

Actually, I thought about that Pathin, having a "slam" function effectively eh?

Which is like, minimum delay time, maximum repeats = WOAH Wall of thrashing sound!

Hence.....

It has an expression jack to control number of repeats! Its on the right of the pedal...

So you can have an expression pedal plugged in, set to a number of repeats you fancy (really, for me, 1 repeat setting suffices for BOTH delay settings), then you can just switch to a short delay setting, make the expression pedal.

OR.

Have those mini pedals with preset knob settings, very cheap to do one right?, basically an expression pedal sans foot paddle, having knobs instead, and a toggle footswitch. Stomp, osciliate, stomp back to normal.

As for how it works and whether its beautiful and so on so forth. I can't say. not enough experimentation.... I would see a compression pedal after the unit would make a hell of a lot of sense if I were to go UFO.


If you are interested in a delay with 2 sets of controls, check out DonneR's delays.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

i too outta touch. DonneR doing his own line of effect?

heh, i have enough of delay for the time being. Ever since the udstomp, not much fire liao.

The rage now is nintendo ds lite, that one rocks like geetar!

 

[ShredCow]

Yeah, DonneR has a delay of his own... one has 2 sets of settings, the other has modulation. Both has 2 footswitches.

Man that ds lite and that guitar game thing... weird. But yes. Embrace the new.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

the guitar game english version coming out soon, got more features than the japan version. Shud be fun. But can only do strumming, no single notes.