Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Twelve Days of Chorus - Part 6

On the 6th Day of chorus, my true love gave to me..The Chandler Digital Echo.

Yes it doesn't rhyme, and yes it's not technically a Chorus unit. It's a Delay/Echo unit that has a modulation section in it.  Danny Gatton supposedly used one to retire his "Magic Dingus Box"/echoplex rig, and Eric Johnson said in some interview that he tried one, and he liked it, and "didn't screw with the tone". Chandler put that quote in their Ad's, which I'm sure helped them sell more of them. Joe Satriani had a few as well, retiring some delay and chorus pedals. He used a couple of them for delays (one short, one long) and an additional one for Chorus.

This is one of my "one that got away" items. In my neck of the woods these didn't surface often. Daddy's Junky Music in Nashua had one, used for $250. I made the guy pull it out of the display rack, so I could try it. He was the kind of guy that probably only had a Wah pedal in his rig. There's nothing wrong with that. I can cook, but don't ask me to make a 4 course meal. He had a tough time going through all the cables trying to connect it. I finally said, let me try to hook it up, I'm in no rush. He went back to the counter, and within 2 minutes I was up and running. I really liked how the delay/echo worked with the modulation section.



So why didn't I get it? Well I wasn't using alot of rack gear at this time, as I was more getting into pedals. The price was a bit out of my range of comfort, and my rig wasn't stereo. Also I kind of liked my DD-3 Delay alot, and it kind of filled my delay needs nicely.

It was nice as the delay & chorus was in 1 unit, analog controls, and with such a spacious sound. The delay was rich, and even at low levels the modulation was full and dynamic. It was like someone just took a couple of great sounding pedals, and just put them in a rack format.

I brought the unit, and it's cables back to the Daddy's Salesperson, and he was pissed he went through all that effort, and I didn't buy it. I felt bad, so I bought some strings. That transaction was marred by some computer glitch they were having, so my act of kindness in buying those strings just aggravated the guy even more. I slinked out there, knowing the salesperson was cursing me.

During the week I started a "non-buyers remorse" and I came up with some justification to buy it. If I sold this pedal, and ate Ramen for a week, and didn't buy any CD's that month, well you get the idea. I went back to Daddys and it was gone. The same sales person was there tho, and I asked where the Digital Echo was. He replied, Sold it. The day after I was there. Bummer.

I've seen some people that do have these, actually fit the guts into a larger format stomp box, like the larger EHX pedals. In that form, with that sound, it's something that has put my ear to the ground in search of one for myself again.

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