01—Strymon
Volante
The Echorec sound from Pink Floyd's Meddle and More — every multi-head delay sound in one box.
The deepest tape-echo pedal Strymon has ever made. If El Capistan didn't go far enough, this does. Worth the price for the Echorec emulation alone.
02—On the bench
A multi-head tape and drum echo emulation modeled on three vintage units: the Maestro Echoplex EP-3, the Binson Echorec drum-disk, and a generic studer-style reel-to-reel. Volante has four virtual playback heads that can be combined in 15 patterns, each with independent feedback, and a sound-on-sound mode that turns the pedal into a vintage-style overdub looper. Stereo I/O and a full sequence of tape-age, mechanism (motor noise), and saturation controls. Where El Capistan is one focused tape sound, Volante is the encyclopedia — every multi-head delay sound from 1965 to 1985 is in here, with the rhythmic, dub-style possibilities front and center.
- 01four-head combinations create rhythmic patterns
- 02Echorec drum mode is more accurate than the original Binson at this point
- 03tape mechanism noise adds organic hiss
- 04sound-on-sound looper is the bonus killer feature
- 05stereo head panning is genuinely useful, not gimmicky
03—In the room
Where else this pedal lives.
- The Edge
- Adam Granduciel
- Brad Whitford
Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe if you only want EP-3 territory; Volante if you want every vintage tape echo.