Hands On Review Of Behringer EM-600 Echo Machine

If you are familiar with the Behringer line of guitar effect pedals, then you know that they are mostly BOSS clones. They are basically plastic versions of our favorite BOSS pedals. So what BOSS pedal is the EM-600 Echo Machine? It's actually a facsimile of a Line6 Echo Park. You may have know that. Actually, If you are reading a review for the EM-600 then you probably already knew that.  So, is the EM-600 a decent replica of a Echo Park? Let's see...


Old School

So, just like all the other pedals in this line. It is very similar to the size and shape and function of the BOSS format. However, that format is old. If you look at the pedals of twenty years ago, you'll see that a lot of companies made pedals just like that. DOD, Digitech, Ibanez, and others made pedals just like that. However, form and formats have changed over time. BOSS is huge and doesn't have to change, but inexpensive pedals attracts younger players and younger players follow trends. Those that want trendy pedalboards will have to weigh economy against style.

Where's It At?

Just in the past few weeks, this pedal has become hard to find. Most of the main online retailers have gone from 'item backordered' to 'no longer available'. You can still find this pedal on the used market, but there are few to be had and people are already asking more than street price. It may be easier to get a hold of an actual Echo Park.

The Sounds

So, this has been a pretty solid Ugly Truth post, but we have to talk about how the pedal actually sounds. This pedal have a ton of modes, but the ones that matter to me are the Taps, (quarters, eighths, and dotted eighths) Swell, Multi 1, Multi 2, and Reverse. The taps are super basic. I'm just stoked to have a tap tempo on a $50 delay pedal. Swell is a key feature of the Echo Park. It was a big deal when the pedal came out and its still cool to play with. The Multi (pattern delay) setting are really cool. I wish they were a little more flexible. Reverse is a pretty standard feature, but when you add all the feature together, then you have a deep mode selection for minimum cash. If that wasn't enough, you have a Analog and Tape filter. And you have Mod control. There is just a stupid amount of feature packed into this pedal. I wouldn't say that all the sounds are 100% convincing, but just the fact that they are there is impressive. It's close enough to fake it in a pinch.

There Is A Problem

There is always a problem. There problem with this pedal (other than the plastic construction, old format, an unoriginal design) is that with the mix knob is at 100% the bypass signal can completely drop out. I noticed this on the Swell setting. On the swell setting the mix knob works like a mix know rather than a effects level, so when it is at 100% then you have 0% dry signal. However, even when the pedal is in bypass mode the signal is lost.  So, if you are using the Swell feature, then you can kill your entire guitar signal. Unless... you turn the tails to off. So, there is a work around. But in that particular circumstance, it is a little annoying.

Conclusion

I've tried out a few delays lately. This is the only one that I've thought about adding to my board. It does some things that I can't do with my current delay (swell) and I'd like to have a number 2. If I did add it to my board it will probably be a place holder until I get one of those uber delays, then move my number 1 into my number 2 slot. That all said, this is a solid delay. I might even recommend it higher than a DD-6. When its half the price of any pedal that objectively beats it, and it can compete with any delay under a hundred dollars its hard to put it down. Check one out, if you can.