J. Rockett Audio designs
ALIEN ECHO to hear audio clips of the pedal at premierguitar.com/jul2012CLICKHere…
BY dimitRi sideRiAdis
Like seagulls that can’t resist shiny objects, humans are drawn to cyclical
sounds. Whether it’s an uninvited distraction like a dripping faucet or a welcomed
pleasure like waves breaking on a beach,
repetitive tones provoke emotional response.
When this phenomenon is put to use in
music, it can wield a lot of power over the
listener. So it’s no surprise that we have an
insatiable appetite for delay/echo pedals and
their varied uses. From intrepid space-rock
excursions, to David Gilmour’s hallowed
lead tone, or spanky rockabilly slapback—
echo can add a lot of texture to a tune or
solo needing a little extra zip.
J. Rockett’s Alien Echo is capable of just
about all of these tones, but it also seems
designed with a focus on those facets of echo
and delay—things like authentic-sounding
tape warble—that have an inexplicable, but
undeniable, effect on our aural psychology.
In the Alien Echo, these intangibles come
together in a user-friendly and intuitive
pedal that also coaxes remarkable analog-like
performance from a digital circuit.
Rocket Man
In terms of layout, the built-like-a-tank
Alien Echo delay is a nice compromise
between simple 3-knob classics and the new
generation of complex, hyper-tweakable
behemoths. The compact, pedalboard-friendly enclosure and knob layout make
the Alien Echo easy to navigate—nice if
you’re new to the delay world or hate reading manuals. In addition to the standard
mix, delay time, and repeat controls, you
get a tone knob that helps you work within
a range from darker analog delay and classic
tape-delay tones, to sharper digital tones. A
separate modulation footswitch engages the
warble knob, which summons randomized
pitch modulations that simulate the sound
of deteriorating tape in a vintage tape-delay
unit. As a cool bonus, J. Rockett made the
modulation effect dynamically sensitive,
allowing you to alter the intensity with your
pick attack.
Warble control
Time Passages
With the tone knob at 9 o’clock, mix at
about 2 o’clock, and just a touch of slapback
delay, the Alien Echo and my Telecaster
became a killer rockabilly tandem. Unlike
a lot of analog units, the Alien Echo didn’t
squash the high end from the Telecaster.
But unlike many digital units, you probably
won’t go reaching for the high-end taper
knob. In fact, the effect actually contributed
a beautiful and unique high-end bloom that
preserved a lot of the guitar’s character and
detail without sounding cold or digital.
Dropping the mix knob back to noon
and lowering the delay time a little is a ticket to Brad Paisley territory. And despite the
lack of millisecond demarcations, it was easy
to get a feel for subtle adjustments in delay
time—important for generating those subtle
variations in slapback flavor that make the
difference between super greasy punkabilly
and the quick delay you need for more
nuanced and fleet-fingered country picking.
Cranking up a Jackson NewCastle amp
at the end of the chain and placing a Big
Muff between my Stratocaster and the Alien
Echo proved to be a surefire route to the
liquid sound of the solo from “Comfortably
Numb.” Just set the delay to 3 o’clock and
the repeats knob to 10 o’clock, and you’re
on the Pulse stage circa ’ 94. Like Gilmour’s
delay tone, the sound was refreshingly
Independent
modulation
switch
Tone
control
warm and enveloping, without any of the
brittle edginess or sizzle around individual
notes that you’ll hear from delays in high-gain situations. But apart from being virtually noise free, the Alien Echo preserved the
tonal purity and character of both the guitar and the fuzz. And even when I set the
Alien Echo for the deepest, most lush and
spacious settings, the pedal never squashed
my dry or wet signal.
Superior Life Form
The tone knob gives you a lot of power to
control the color of your wet signal, and it’s
especially useful for chasing signature echo
sounds. Brian May-like Echoplex harmonies
sounded awesome whether clean or dirty with
the tone knob set to 3 o’clock. And because
the first repeat is louder than the dry signal
when the mix knob is maxed out, it’s easy to
create the illusion of two guitarists soloing
with different rigs and a varied approach. I
found that rolling the tone knob back counterclockwise also mellows the tone of brighter
pickups. This sort of musicality makes the
Alien Echo an outstanding platform for long
and engrossing solo jam sessions.
The Alien Echo doesn’t have a tap tempo
function, and if you’re used to the precision
of tap tempo, you will have to do a little
extra work to match your delay time to the
song’s tempo. But it may be that J. Rockett
