Guitar Pedal Reviews - Marshall Echohead EH-1 Delay Pedal

Marshall Echohead EH-1 Delay Pedal

Delay - an essential tool in your musical arsenal. Delay adds repeats of the notes you have played and will echo them until the delay fades away. There are different types of delay sounds and each one is tweakable.

There are lots of great delay pedals around, but I didn't have the inclination or money to pay out £200 for a new Line 6 DL4 or anything similar, so read reviews about the Marshall Echohead. The reviews were good and so I bought one for around £55.

Build quality:

As with all the Marshall pedals, they are built like a solid metal beast. The metallic and shiny knobs for the settings are very annoying as it's hard to see the settings! But this is a trivial matter! The pedal takes batteries which can be inserted via unlocking underneath the pedal with a screwdriver or even a coin - a nice touch. Take a regular 9v power supply.

Features:

There are 6 settings on the delay - Hifi, Analogue, Tape Echo, Mult Tap, Reverse and Mod Filter.

There are 4 knobs across the top of the delay (left - right) to select the delay mode, delay time setting, feedback and level.

The delay time is the speed of the delay which can be adjusted manually. Of course this can be tapped in as well, via the tamp tempo input. This can a keyboard pedal, something like a Boss FS5 momentary pedal, or something home built!

The feedback is how long the delay keeps going. This can be adjusted from small amounts through to a long delay creating a wall of sound.

The level is the volume of the repeats - a high volume will mean that the 'wet' signal (the delays) are as loud or louder than the original guitar chord or note. I usually have mine set around 10-12 o'clock.

As with all of the Marshall pedals, the underside of the pedal has a rubber coating which doesn't easily sit well with attaching it via velcro to your pedal board.

The sound:

Outstanding and a very analogue sounding delay, unlike some pedals I've tried (like the EHX Memory Boy for example - a brilliantly eccentric pedal but quite digital and without tap tempo).

The Echohead has 6 settings for the delay - Hi-Fi, Analogue, Tape Echo, Multi Tap, Reverse, Mod Filter. The Hi-Fi sound is nice as is the tape echo. The analogue sound has a great breaking up decay as the sound falls away. The Multi Tap delay gives a load of delay taps with a complex sound. The reverse is really nice and creates a great ambient soundscape. Mod filter gives a unique sound.

Conclusion:

Some Echohead pedals have had issues with reliability, namely that they occasionally don't work despite being switched on. The sound passes through no problems but no delay. A solution is to disconnect the leads. Not ideal, but it happened once to me and the disconnect work.

That having been said this is a fantastic pedal, especially for the price. Excellent and varied delays, with a completely clean bypassed sound via the bypass output (separate output with spill if needed). Great little piece of kit.