New Gear Review: Slap-Back Echo by Electro-Harmonix
Check out this new take on a time-tested classic by Electro-Harmonix.
Long Island City’s Electro-Harmonix has been a household name in guitar effects for decades, and remains an ever-present force into the modern age. Be it a brand new design, or a current take on a time-tested classic, EHX’s constant output keeps their products on the pedalboards of novices and pros alike.
The Slap-Back Echo is a new take on a beloved past design harkening back to 1978. The slap-back effect on the whole can be found in countless recordings dating way back to the 50’s, adding depth and personality to any source, from guitars to vocals to keys and even drums.
Not a single mix exists in my archives that doesn’t have a dedicated slap-back effects return. And having one at the source for guitar, bass and keys—which can also double as an analog option for reamping—is right up my alley.
Let’s see what this bite-sized reimagining of the popular vintage design has in store for us.
Features
The first thing to note about the Slap-Back Echo aside from its very modest footprint is the fact that it is all-analog. Measuring in at just 3.65×2 inches, this unit can likely squeeze its way into just about anyone’s pedalboard regardless of available real estate. It features an input impedance of 220KΩ and an output impedance of 7KΩ, with a 15mA draw at 9VDC power supply with center-negative polarity. The manual notes to not exceed 10.5VDC on the power jack.
The pedal’s tactile controls are as simple as can be, with a knob for Gain, a knob for Blend, and a three-way Time control for your delay speed—nothing variable there.
The Gain knob boosts your dry signal into the Blend and Time (echo) circuits. There is up to 20dB of available headroom here which is handy for solos or prominent leads where you need to cut through the mix that extra bit. The Blend knob is your wet/dry ratio; all the way counter-clockwise produces no echo, while fully clockwise is echo-only. It’s important to note that since this circuit comes after the Gain circuit, the pedal’s output signal reflects whatever boosting may or may not occur at the Gain stage.
As mentioned, the Time settings here are not variable. I see this as a plus. Set to the down (shortest) position, there is a 45ms delay; the middle position produces a 65ms delay, and the up position is at 100ms. In my experience, this is plenty of room to play with, and I am all for less fiddling around and micromanaging settings when also thinking about amp tone, choice of instrument, and everything else during tracking.
There is an LED which displays clearly whether the pedal is bypassed or not, and when bypassed, the pedal’s input jack connects directly to the output jack—true bypass.
From a tech standpoint, that’s all there is to know about this super straightforward pedal. Now it’s time to put some signal through it.
In Use
Naturally, guitar was the first instrument to go through the SBE. The first thing I noticed upon tweaking the knobs through their full spectrum (aside from the generous extra 20dB of headroom) was that when the Blend is set to full-wet, there was a noticeable loss of high end. I asked EHX if there’s a LPF built into the circuit, and it turns out there is—at 1.5kHz.
Cutting some high end on a slap-back is a very common move, so I back this. You’ve just got to watch out once your wet/dry blend begins to favor the effects side. Your signal will get duller and as a result, and will produce a perceived loss in volume, but nothing that a goose on the Gain knob can’t remedy.
In a mix setting, I tend to tune the delay time of a slap-back pretty finely, sometimes even down to the millisecond. However having that depth of option at the source seems a bit overkill, and I found the preset Time settings on the SBE to be perfectly handy. And moreover, any means of expedited decision making at the tracking phase is always welcome. Between 45, 65, and 100ms, the SBE is sure to find a comfy place in various tempos and applications.
Bass through the SBE was fun as expected. When a song calls for it, I’m a big fan giving my bass some “space”, and the pedal here delivered. Medium to low dynamic finger picking called for a pretty heavy-handed Blend setting in order for the character of the pedal to come through, however the transients of a more aggressive picking style called for more conservative settings.
In the past I’ve achieved a sort of chorus effect on bass using a quick setting with slap-back. Although plenty quick for traditional use, I found the minimum 45ms delay time available on the pedal to be not quite quick enough to produce this effect.
Putting mono keys through the SBE was fun and a lot like my experience with guitar. In general, I tend to not like my effects returns for keys to be quite as bright as the dry signal, so the inherent darker tonality of the SBE put me right where I wanted to be.
Rerouting some mono drums out of ProTools and into the SBE was a fun little experiment. Since I don’t need the dry signal for printing the effect back in, I set the Blend to 100% on the pedal and recorded 3 passes; one at each time setting. And for fun, I jacked up the Gain on the pedal, padded my ProTools input, and printed that too, which produced a nice subtle crunch. I found the tonality of the the printed effect to have a slightly obscured character (but in a good, effect-y way), probably due to the LPF. This can also be a result of the extra stage of conversion, but I tend to color my effects returns anyway, so this was cool to me.
And of course, once printed you can nudge the effected waveform to be any delay time you’d like, but again, the less minutia the better, and I’m confident the three available speeds on the pedal can find a home in most tempo applications.
To Be Critical
My only critique on the Slap-Back Echo is that the built-in LFP on the effects side renders the pedal slightly less versatile than others if you’re looking for a very in-your-face, present slap effect.
Since your wet signal is always going to be darker than your dry signal, a 50/50 blend of these won’t produce a true mirror image—and if you wanted to lean even heavier on the effected side, your overall tonality will darken a bit.
However, the extra 20dB of headroom of gain can help push your instrument to the forefront when the pedal is active. And further, at more conservative settings, this built-in dulling of the effected signal can be handy on the mix end of things when space needs to be reserved for other present sources like vocals.
Summing it Up
The EHX Slap-Back Echo is a handy and easy-to-use option for a widely used effect. Its economic and simplistic design will save you time micromanaging settings, and save you space on your pedalboard due to its very unobtrusive tiny footprint. Priced accessibly at only $81, it’s a worthy contender if you’ve got your longer delay solution sorted.
The SBE found its place with ease on sources far beyond the assumed guitar, and its inherently darker tonality will leave space at the source for other elements to cut through the mix. Hats off to Electro-Harmonix for delivering yet another very useful tool for players to add to their arsenal.
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