Tone Report Weekly 164 | Page 28

I picked up this pedal when I worked on Denmark Street in London shortly after it came out and I knew within seconds it was a game-changer , more specifically , it was my game changer . My roots as a surf punk guitarist run deep into the idiosyncratic realm of tape delays and as a long time real Echoplex abuser , I am extremely picky about tape algorithms . The El Cap was the first to nail the non-cyclical pitch variations of real tape repeats and give us control over saturation , wow and flutter and all the other characteristics we crave from magnetized musical repeats . Everything about this silver staple stomper is authentic . The time taper exhibits elastic inertia as the knob is turned , just like the real deal . The self-oscillation ramps up into saturated climaxes of beautiful destruction , summoning crescendos of apocalyptic proportions with a hold of the tap tempo button . In short , this is my desert island
effect and that is no small thing for me to say considering my ongoing flirtatious pedal escapades .
The way I use my El Cap to get a huge sound is to have it always there , but never in the way . In fact , I only turn it off on one track in my current live set . Unlike my old tape delays , I run the El Cap in the effects loop of my Victory amps , so that the repeats never obscure the beautiful original signal source . I dial in three or four repeats from a single tap and tune them to have only slightly less high frequency content than my guitar going in the preamp . I get all the diction of my picking dynamics and none of the mud . I basically tap into each tune , riding the rhythm and occasionally swell into bigger parts of the tune . With the wow and flutter dialled in heavily , I get a ghostly avatar haunting my tone always . It still gives me chills of ecstasy .

STRYMON EL CAPISTAN

I picked up this pedal when I worked on Denmark Street in London shortly after it came out and I knew within seconds it was a game-changer , more specifically , it was my game changer . My roots as a surf punk guitarist run deep into the idiosyncratic realm of tape delays and as a long time real Echoplex abuser , I am extremely picky about tape algorithms . The El Cap was the first to nail the non-cyclical pitch variations of real tape repeats and give us control over saturation , wow and flutter and all the other characteristics we crave from magnetized musical repeats . Everything about this silver staple stomper is authentic . The time taper exhibits elastic inertia as the knob is turned , just like the real deal . The self-oscillation ramps up into saturated climaxes of beautiful destruction , summoning crescendos of apocalyptic proportions with a hold of the tap tempo button . In short , this is my desert island
effect and that is no small thing for me to say considering my ongoing flirtatious pedal escapades .
The way I use my El Cap to get a huge sound is to have it always there , but never in the way . In fact , I only turn it off on one track in my current live set . Unlike my old tape delays , I run the El Cap in the effects loop of my Victory amps , so that the repeats never obscure the beautiful original signal source . I dial in three or four repeats from a single tap and tune them to have only slightly less high frequency content than my guitar going in the preamp . I get all the diction of my picking dynamics and none of the mud . I basically tap into each tune , riding the rhythm and occasionally swell into bigger parts of the tune . With the wow and flutter dialled in heavily , I get a ghostly avatar haunting my tone always . It still gives me chills of ecstasy .
28 TONE TALK // Build A Wall Of Sound With Just A Few Bricks