APE Analog Preamp Experiment Pedal Review

It Does The Thing!

For some of you, it's all you need to know; it does what it says, just buy it. For the rest, there's more to tell. I mean, why pay this kinda money for a 'delay' pedal that doesn't actually delay anything? J. Rockett says this pedal can turn any garden variety digital delay into a fire-breathing vintage Echoplex; can this be true? Yeah, sorta, but it's a lot more than that; you… read more can also chain other effects in such a way that each successive repeat gets more modulated, more pitch-shifted, or what have you. (try that with your EP3) Repeats will also be filtered through the APE's "rec" knob which is ostensibly a 'tape saturation' control, but with a twist or two, as we'll see. Minus the loop functions, you also get a very nice, totally accurate, fully analog and footswitchable EP3 preamp, operating at a period-correct 22.5V, whilst sucking a modest and standard 9V from your pedalboard's power supply, with no battery option, not that you'll mind, once you hear it. Compared to some all-digital echo models like Line6s' EP2 and EP3, there is no option to have the echoes WITHOUT affecting the dry signal; you either get preamp or preamp with echoes, sorry. So you hook up a delay, set it 100% wet with feedback/repeats at minimum, and use the APE's controls for feedback and mix BUT things are not so straightforward as that, because your delay's mix knob can interact with the APE's, as can its feedback control, if it's set anywhere but minimum; this means runaway feedback is easily achieved, if desired, but also that you can adjust the balance between your presumably clean digital repeats and the APE's grunged-up ones. Here's where things get wonderfully weird; the APE's mix knob makes the echoes louder, (in relation to your played notes) as you'd expect, up 'til about two o'clock on the dial, after which they actually get softer. Likewise, the record/saturation control adds head bump, volume and increases the tape-style saturation, but compression actually decreases the level for the last 25% of the knob's travel. WHY did they do that? So you can finesse how clean your played notes are as compared to the repeats, without adding more knobs. BRILLIANT! Because of this interactivity, it matters what delay you use with the APE; subsequent repeats will depend on the tonality of the first one, so I like to use an analog bucket-brigade delay. (if you wondered why J. Rockett used a Strymon delay that costs more than twice what the APE does in their demo video, this is why) Also, the range of your delay device is the range you get, and if there's any stair stepping or zipper noise in your slave echo, it'll give away the game anytime you move the delay time knob. Because the preamp is solid state, I like it best in my amp's effect loop, but if you prefer to push your tube amp's front end, as you might with a vintage EP3, that also works very well, indeed. If you need TC 2290-style ducking delay or tapped tempo with subdivisions, you can of course plug those in, or chain multiple delays with different times/tempos in the APE's loop, and slather them all with vintage Echoplex goodness at will. A more complex, more expensive and arguably less flexible version of the APE with onboard delay is forthcoming, so I hear, but for me, this box hits the sweet spot

---

Cancel Comment

Try adding it to your digital modeler

I've owned the APE for a while and tried it in multiple scenarios. It does exactly what it advertises, turning digital delays into Echoplex sounding delays, but that's not really my thing. I almost always play with compression on my clean sounds, and after a lot of back and forth decided that I liked my compressor better than the APE as a preamp. Well, I have found what I think… read more is the perfect combination. I bought a BOSS GT-1000 CORE and I think that it's a phenomenal little box. It takes compressor pedals well, but I didn't like adding extra noise. I decided to try running the APE in front of the CORE and BINGO! The APE can be configured in several ways; I'm simply going guitar into APE in, APE out into the CORE. You can also use the APE as a treble booster in this configuration, but I am not. I think that it makes everything sound better, and it doesn't add any noise. The only times that I don't notice a difference is when playing with a high gain patch that is already compressing the signal or when using a compressor. It's not inexpensive, but it's the easiest sound improvement I've ever found. I would hope that it would have the same effect on other digital modelers, but I don't own any to try it out. The fact that the APE will also make a digital delay sound like an Echoplex is a nice bonus if you like that sort of thing.

---

Cancel Comment

Makes the clinical sound sublime.

I loved my Eventide h9 for its stereo delay, but after a few years, it started annoying me with its overly accurate and sometimes clinical precision. I was looking for an analog stereo delay pedal to replace it when I discovered the APE and decided to give it a try. I'm extremely pleased with the way it saturates and degrades the repeats. The filtering is very much like a real echoplex,… read more but with all the sonic gymnastics of an H9 or timeline in the loop (with expression pedals)- makes it a whole new instrument to explore. I can't really comment on the APEs standalone feature as a preamp or how that part compares to a real echoplex, but if you want to turn a digital delay pedal into an inspirational piece of analog heaven- I highly recommend this pedal. Btw, I bought two of them for the left and right stereo parts of my wet/dry/wet rig so I can preserve the h9s stereo algorithms. Enjoying it immensely!

---

Cancel Comment

I didn’t know that I NEEDED this

The ol’ echoplex preamp. It gives your tone that special something. This pedal accurately recreates that tone. I love it for some vintage blues and some added grit to modern tones. It’s definitely a keeper.

---

Cancel Comment