Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay Hyperspace Pedal?

[rbc]

I was curious if anyone here has started working on modifying a Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay into a Hyperspace pedal? I'm not even sure you can buy these yet. It just seems bound to happen sometime eventually.

[GuitarBuilder]

I think the tricky part is to get control over the repeats.

[GuitarBuilder]

The Fulltone Solid State Echo would be my first choice where it not for the $1,299 price........

[GuitarBuilder]

Another, more affordable candidate would be the Catalinbread Belle Epoch. It has an "Echo Sustain" control that potentially could emulate the Echoplex Repeats control. At $199 it's worth a try!

Couple that with a 4E Dual Axis Expression pedal and you might have yourself a Hyperspace Pedal! Who's gonna try it first?

[rbc]

I think the tricky part is to get control over the repeats.

Would it be that difficult? Listening to and watching the hyperspace pedal in use, it sounds like a delay with expression pedals connected to the delay time and repeat, along with a bypass.

The delay and sustain knobs on the EP3 might be simple variable resisters. If that's the case it seems like you could use passive volume pedals in some kind of parallel resistive network that replaces the stock variable resistors. You'd probably have to do some experimentation with the parallel resistive network to get the values right.

I might be oversimplifying things.

[RockmanCentralBob]

It's a digital unit, so it might not be so straight forward to just replace the internal controls with external controls, though as you say, if they are just simple photometers, it may be possible.

The other issue is how well does it "warp" the sound when you adjust the delay time? In a demo video I saw (with Bob Cedro explaining it), it did warp the sound a bit, though it's hard to tell how good it will do it with infinite repeats.

Finally the issue of how does it sound when it becomes over saturated? Does it clip nicely like a tape would, or does it get really nasty sounding? Given that Bob Cedro was likely involved in the design of this, I have to believe that he did it right.

so yeah, it just might work!!

[iZheil9152]

There's a video on youtube where a guy essentially makes a HSP out of a EHX memory man. It's an older video so you guys probably might know about it. In the comments he explains how to tweak the trim pots to make it sound like a memory man.

I personally was going to buy an EP3 and modify it to a HSP, but a cheaper route would be to get the MXR carbon copy and mount the parameters on a rocker pedal, while running the Dunlop Echoplex preamp before it for the tone.

As a side note: I have a Line 6 DL4 and an Eventide timefactor, neither of which replicate HSP sounds. The closest thing you can get to replicate the sound without a tape delay would be a BBD delay.

[RockmanCentralBob]

There's a video on youtube where a guy essentially makes a HSP out of a EHX memory man.

LOL!! Yeah, I figured this out with a Rockman Stereo Echo back in the late 80's, I just wasn't sure how to control it.
I finally figured that out around 1995 after I came back from Japan and built my first HSP, and even posted instructions online for a while.
Later I built one out of an MXR Time Delay pedal that worked pretty good.

Eventually I just built one out of an EP3, and that was the best sounding, though not the easiest to build.
I traded it for a PGE2, and then tried for probably 10 years with various BBD delay pedals to build another one, but none of them really worked as well.
a few years ago I finally built another one out of an Echoplex again and it's been my main HSP ever since.
I have another one I'm working on, but I need to get a new drive belt for it, and just haven't gotten around to it.

[rdkendrick]

RockmanCentralBob,
I've been scouring the internet, trying to find how to build one.
I have an EP103 Echoplex box coming in the mail, but haven't really found an Electro Harmonix hot foot pedal, or the 3rd hand pedal to control it, per this video:
https://youtu.be/PsI2I5UIZ8k
How did you make yours? I'd really like to build one.
I've been a Boston fan since 77/78, in high school.

[RockmanCentralBob]

Interesting timing on this thread... I just picked up the new EP103 pedal and played with it a little to see if it would work as a HSP. The short of it is yes, it will work, but no, it won't sound like a real one.

It does sound VERY close to a real echoplex when it comes to just straight up delays and echos. But when you get into trying to warp the sound and do HSP effects, that's where it falls short. I mean, some effects aren't bad, but pick slides just don't sound right for sure. It definitely has the warble, which works great for some effects, but not so great for others.

I'm pretty convinced now that nothing will ever sound the same as using a real tape echo.