Catalinbread

Catalinbread
127
february 2016 Guitarist
VERDICT A versatile tone-building dirt box with two
distinct M-style flavours
VERDICT Vintage tremolo with a distinctive voice
revisited. And, yes, you’ll be mesmerised by it
VERDICT Many pedals simulate spring reverb, but few
get this close to a Fender outboard unit
VERDICT A viable substitute for the real thing at a
fraction of the size and price, with no maintenance
One of the Portland, Oregon-based
company’s most popular pedals, the
Dirty Little Secret is now in its third
incarnation and delivers Marshall-like
tone, whatever amp you’re using. An
internal switch sets the pedal to either
Super Lead or Super Bass mode: the first,
based on a later ‘plexi’ model having
more gain and a different tonestack with
more upper mids; the second more akin
to early Marshalls or the Bassman it was
based on, with less prominent midrange
and lower gain.
Internally, a presence pot dials in the
top end to suit your rig. The tone knobs
offer the sort of organic control you’d
get with an amp and both modes sound
excellent, providing a range of drive with
familiar British tonal signature. The
Super Lead mode offers enough gain to
take you into JCM territory, while the
Super Bass takes a fuzz pedal really well
for some classic 60s rock sounds.
[TC]
Over the years, Fender had three basic
designs of tremolo circuit built into its
amps and the most aurally intriguing is
the ‘harmonic tremolo’ (based around a
dual-band filtering effect) once briefly
found in early-60s ‘Brownface’ amps.
The Pareidolia offers a re-creation,
delivered via standard tremolo depth
and rate knobs, coupled with a volume
knob that hits unity gain at about
midway, so can give your amp a nice
kick (turn the depth down and you can
use it as a pure boost). An LED pulses in
time with rate and intensifies its colour
change as depth is increased.
Sound-wise, what you get is tremolo-
based but it’s not just amplitude
(volume) modulation that’s going
on here – there are elements of
both phasing and pitch modulation,
somewhat akin to a Uni-Vibe or rotary
speaker, casting a gorgeous otherworldly
haze over the tremolo.
[TC]
From the early 1960s, Fender’s 6G15
outboard spring reverb unit set the
standard for the effect, in particular
defining the sound of surf guitar, and
is still available if you have £800-plus
and don’t mind the large enclosure on
top of your amp. For a cheaper, more
streamlined rig, Catalinbread has
released the Topanga, which is designed
to replicate those 6G15 sounds with
similar Dwell, Tone and Mix knobs plus
a volume knob that can add a flavour of
the original’s valves to boost your amp’s
front end. There’s also a modulation
mode, awkwardly entered by powering
up with the tone knob at minimum, plus
full wet capability at the extreme of the
Mix knob.
You can get Fender amp-style reverb
from this, but it’s the channelling of the
crazed splashiness and presence boost of
an outboard spring tank that make this
stand out among reverb pedals.
[TC]
This Catalinbread pedal is more
niche than the recent Hall And Collins
Signature Echo, and concentrates on
the sound of that most revered of drum
echos, the Binson Echorec, as used by
David Gilmour, among others. The pedal
features a 12-mode selector dial that
offers different combinations of the four
heads to produce the rhythmic patterns
of the original plus a few extra, offering
them with a wider range of delay times
(a max of 1,000ms compared to the
original’s 300ms). There’s an excellent
tone control for darkening/fattening or
brightening/thinning the repeats, while
an internal modulation trim-pot can add
a bit of wobble if desired, simulating an
ageing drum. There’s also an internal
gain pot that has a secret full-on fuzz
setting at its extreme! Overall, you’re
getting a pretty close approximation
to the sound of a real Echorec but with
extra capability.
[TC]
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Drive pedal
FEATURES: True bypass
CONTROLS: Treble,
Middle, Bass, Master,
Preamp, internal mode
switch, internal Presence
trimpot, bypass footswitch
CONNECTIONS: Standard
input, standard output
POWER: 9V battery or
9V-18V DC adaptor
(not supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 65 (w) x
112 (d) x 47mm (h)
Andertons
01483 456777
www.catalinbread.com
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Harmonic
tremolo pedal
FEATURES: True bypass
CONTROLS: Depth,
Speed, Volume, bypass
footswitch
CONNECTIONS: Standard
input, standard output
POWER: 9V battery or
9V-18V DC adaptor
(not supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 65 (w) x
112 (d) x 47mm (h)
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Spring reverb pedal
FEATURES: Switchable
true or buffered bypass,
secret modulation mode,
full wet capability
CONTROLS: Dwell, Tone,
Mix, Volume, internal gain
pot, bypass footswitch
CONNECTIONS: Standard
input, standard output
POWER: 9V-18V DC
adaptor (not supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 65 (w) x
112 (d) x 47mm (h)
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Multitap echo pedal
FEATURES: Switchable
true or buffered bypass
CONTROLS: Swell, Tone,
Delay Time, Mix, Program
Select switch, internal gain
trimpot, internal
modulation trimpot,
bypass footswitch
CONNECTIONS: Standard
input, standard output
POWER: 9V-18V DC
adaptor (not supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 65 (w) x
112 (d) x 47mm (h)
Catalinbread
Dirty LittLe Secret £137
Catalinbread
PareiDoLia £153
Catalinbread
toPanga £159
Catalinbread
echorec £185
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Video demo http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
GIT403.peds_cat.indd 127 17/12/2015 16:17