MXR Carbon Copy
A Big sound in a Small Package
Effects pedals have always changed rapidly. The amount of circuitry that can be fit into a small package has increased exponentially over the last few decades and pedals of the 21st century can do things never imagined in the 1980s. In the late '70s and into the early '80s analog delay pedals were common but their circuitry limited them to relatively short delay times. During that time period I can remember hearing about digital delays on the horizon that would increase delay times substantially and decided to wait until these came out. In the '80s delay was used commonly and these new digital units contributed greatly to the sound of that decades music but at a cost. Digital delay was considered sterile sounding by some musicians and used analog delay pedals were popular in some circles.
Eine Kleine Delay History
The first delay unit was said to be invented by the late Les Paul as he experimented with multi-head tape recorders in the late '40s. By the late '50s there were at least two commercial tape echo units available, the Echosonic and the Echoplex. These created delay by temporarily recording a sound with one head and playing back that sound with another head. The spacing of the heads controlled the amount of delay and that could be manually set to fit the tempo of the music.
Tape echo units worked well and sounded great to boot. The electro-mechanical nature of the devices introduced some warble into the sound and there was plenty of tube-driven warmth sweetening the mix. However, that same electro-mechanical nature made them require maintenance and the endless loop tape cartridges had to be replaced from time to time. Most successful tape echo users developed their technical skills to be able to keep these devices running at top performance and not everyone wanted to deal with these issues. That is almost certainly the reason that compact, solid-state echo devices sold briskly when they hit the market.
If some was good, more was even better and the early analog delay pedals were soon eclipsed by digital delays with ever greater delay times. At this point these have even evolved into loopers that allow you to create a background track in real time and then follow up by playing a live part over this. Still, some have longed for the warmer sounds of the analog delay pedals and even the tape delay units, most of which are no longer produced.
Forward to the Past
In recent years vintage analog delay pedals have commended higher and higher prices on the used market and pedal manufacturers have taken note. The "bucket brigade" chips used to make these devices are once again being produced and new products using these chips are gaining popularity. My particular choice is the MXR Carbon Copy, a very compact pedal that has a warm analog sound and a lot of versatility.
The Carbon Copy has three knobs and one push-button switch. The first knob is the Regeneration control followed by a Mix control and a Delay control. The pushbutton controls the Modulation feature. Regeneration controls how many echoes are returned, Mix controls the level of these echoes in the output and Delay controls the delay time. Mod activates a mild modulation effect that simulates the warble of a tape echo machine.
In my experience the Regen control seems to sound best in the 10 o'clock position and the Delay and Mix controls are strictly a matter of taste and matching the delay interval to the tempo of the music. If the Regen is set too high it can get distracting, almost like dealing with runaway feedback.
The Mod control sounds to me like a bit of tremolo working in conjunction with some chorusing or perhaps even some light phase shifting. This is only evident when you strike a note and listen closely to the decay. In real-life situations it is very transparent sounding.
So What'll It Do?
I've tried to achieve three basic sounds with this pedal and was satisfied with all three of them. The first, and most straightforward is the tape echo sound you might hear on a Chet Atkins recording. All it seems to take is a clean amp, light reverb and a little tweaking of the Delay and Regen controls. I found that the Regen at 10 o'clock and the delay at about 10:30 was a good starting point for this sound. I also had the Mod button in and the Mix to taste but fairly high, 10 - 11 o'clock seemed to do it for me.
The second sound I worked for was a very generic sound I use for any number of clean guitar sounds. This is probably closest to the digital delay sound of which we've all heard so many examples but the analog delay makes it much less harsh. I've heard Pat Metheny use a sound similar to this at times and I find that it's a great sound for making a clean guitar sound full and rich. If you've ever heard Metheny's "Question and Answer" CD you'll know the sound I'm talking about. The settings I use are not much different than for the Chet Atkins sound but usually I tighten up the delay time setting that control closer to 9:30 I turn the Mod control off.
The third sound I tried was overdriven and the echo was fairly prominent. Paul Cotton of Poco uses this sound often on songs such as Indian Summer. The biggest difference between this and the Pat Metheny sound is the introduction of overdrive but it is tolerant of much more variation in delay times, regeneration and even mix. The Mod button is fair play for this sound too, it's a very flexible thing once some overdrive is added to the mix.
Conclusions
This is a pedal I expect to use a lot. The mix control can make it very subtle and there is no harshness added to the sound so it becomes very flexible being useful for everything from Rockabilly slap-back to a subtle way to add depth and interest to the sound of a clean guitar. The quality seems quite good and the dark green metalflake paint job makes it quite striking. It uses the same 9 VDC, center negative plug as Boss pedals so you can power it directly from a 1 Spot adapter. In my opinion this is a very fine, very cost-effective analog delay pedal that should do well in the market for many years to come.
