FOXGEAR ECHOSEX BABY VINTAGE DELAY | REVIEW

Foxgear Echosex Baby Vintage Delay
MSRP: (UK) £119 / (US) $TBC

Nick Jennison reviews the Foxgear Echosex Baby—the smaller protégé of the original award-winning Gurus’ Echosex—producing enchanting echoes with a distinctive, ethereal, almost primordial sound, all without hauling around an original, vintage Binson Ecorec unit. The Echosex Baby has all the same controls and features that bring to life expansive lush tones of its predecessor, all without the tube of the larger Echosex.

When it comes to delay, the main food groups of “digital”, “analog” and “tape” are well catered for. But when it comes to drum echo, well, that’s more of a rarity. In fact, many guitarists aren’t even aware this kind of delay even exists! You’d be wise not to sleep on drum echo though, since some of the best delay sounds ever recorded come from this the legendary Binson Echorec. This is not hyperbole - the Echorec is responsible for everything from Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” to the delay on John Bonham’s drums on “When The Levee Breaks”.

The Foxgear Echosex Baby is a compact take on the award-winning, valve-driven Gurus Echosex and offers up authentic-sounding Echorec delays in a pedalboard-friendly (and wallet-friendly) package. Don’t let its size and price fool you though, this is a very serious pedal. Steve Lukather has one on his board, and if it’s good enough for Luke…

The five knob interface is refreshingly simple while still offering a ton of versatility. You have the usual controls for time, repeats and level, along with a tone control for taming (or emphasising) the high end along with an “age” control that introduces a killer organic sounding modulation.

The range of delays available is very broad, and while there’s no tap tempo option, it’s easy to achieve everything from crisp rhythmic echos to washes of ambience on the long side, through to country slap and even pseudo chorus effects at the other extreme. However you set this pedal up, it sounds great, and it’s hard to find a bad sound.

The enclosure is super compact, with a rugged metal back and sides and a cool plexiglass style front that illuminates when the pedal is powered on. The slim profile and top-mounted jacks make this pedal easy to fit on any board, and it runs on a standard 9v centre negative power supply.

With so many great old school delay tones in such a small and relatively inexpensive package, it’s difficult to find a reason NOT to own one of these pedals. If you’re a delay user, you need one in your collection.

For more information, please visit:
jhs.co.uk/collections/foxgear