u/TheBear8878

Was hoping someone could help me better understand Tape Echo pedal operation:

I recently got the Catalinbread Belle Epoch (plus) which is a clone of the Echoplex, and I'm unsure if tape echo actually operates differently than other BBD/analog and digital delays, or if my pedal is defective (lol I know).

One of the controls is Sustain, which seems to be like "feedback" or "regen" or "repeats" on a traditional delay, but it behaves quite differently. If using a very short sound, like a chord stab, I will get a single delay repeat, almost no matter where this knob is set. Also, if I use a lower signal, I will get less repeats. It seems only when I hit the input harder with a hotter signal, OR with a longer note will it behave the way I would expect with multiple repeats.

Is this just how tape delay behaves? I noticed this part from the manual:

>Echo Sustain: This controls how much delay signal is fed back to the delay line to get multiple repeats

It does sound like this is the intended behaviour, because on an EP or clone device like the Belle Epoch, the sound is supposed to go over the playback head again and feed back into itself, but I'm having trouble determining if this behaviour is expected for a tape echo device or if there is something wonky with my pedal.

Was hoping someone could shed some light on this and put me at rest because it's just kind of confusing and I can't find anything online about how if this actually is how it's supposed to behave.