QUICKRiffs
In Remembrance: Mike Battle
BY TOM HUGHES
Premier Guitar regretfully reports the passing of Echoplex inventor
Mike Battle, on April 7th. Mr. Battle was 90 years old.
The Song Remains the Same is indelibly imprinted in the minds of
many aspiring rock guitarists.
Mike Battle began a lifelong dedication to electronics at age eight
by building a simple crystal radio receiver. After learning to build
radios and repair appliances, Battle was drafted into military service where he received further training, earning several licenses
and certifications in radio and communications.
In the late-fifties, along
with guitarist Don Dixon,
Battle began developing
what would become the
most popular and well-known echo machine of
all time. The Echoplex
was not the first tape
delay unit to hit the
scene, but it had the
right combination of features and a user-friendly
design that made it an
instant success. The
most notable feature at
that time was the movable tape head, which
allowed the player to
adjust the delay time.
Another convenient
advantage was the
Echoplex tape cartridge
– an endless loop of
tape loaded inside a
self-contained plastic
housing. Battle and
Dixon worked on various
prototypes for a couple
of years before developing a unit they felt was
worthy of production.
The arrival of the EP- 3 also coincided with a change in distribution
when CMI, who owned the Gibson, Maestro and Lowrey brands,
was acquired by Norlin Industries. While the previous models
were branded only with the “Echoplex” logo, the EP- 3 wore an
additional Maestro badge on the front. By the late seventies,
there was an “improved” model Echoplex, the EP- 4. Most players
didn’t care for this
model, however, as
one of the improve-
ments involved the
addition of a noise
gate/compression
circuit that seriously
affected the overall
tone. In addition,
analog delay pedals
had become avail-
able by this time,
offering more or less
the same effect in a
less expensive, more
compact and main-
tenance-free pack-
age. Thus began
the demise of the
mighty Echoplex.
The original Echoplex went into production in 1959 and was marketed and distributed by Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI). This
was the model that was later designated as the EP- 1. A deal was
made with Market Electronics of Cleveland, Ohio to manufacture
the device. This arrangement continued into the eighties and produced a total of six different Echoplex models. By the mid-sixties,
an improved version of the Echoplex – the EP- 2 – replaced the
former model. Both the EP- 1 and the EP- 2 were tube-driven tape
delay units. The Echoplex was redesigned to use solid-state circuitry sometime around 1970, and the ubiquitous EP- 3 appeared.
This is the model that most players are probably familiar with, and
probably has the highest production number of all the Echoplex
models. The image of Jimmy Page and his Echoplex in the movie
There were two
more original
Echoplex models
that were produced
in the heyday of the
seventies – the ES- 1
Sireko and the EM- 1
Groupmaster. The
former was a budget
version EP- 3 and is
not highly regarded;
the latter was something along the lines of a 4-channel EP- 3. Mike
Battle continued working on his original design throughout the
decades, eventually launching Battle Electronics in the mid-nineties to manufacture his latest take on the concept, the Tubeplex.
Shortly before his passing, Battle was still producing the Tubeplex
in limited and somewhat irregular runs, as well as offering repair
service on all previous models of his famous design.
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