Mythos Pedals Oracle Analog Echo review: old-school delay tones with modern convenience
Looking for a vintage-style analogue delay with pedalboard-friendly features? This is it.
Review Overview
Our rating
9
Our verdict
Since establishing Mythos Pedals in 2010, Tennessee native Zach Broyles has carved out a niche in the market with a range of toneful and sensibly priced boutique stompboxes. Previously built at home, Mythos units are now manufactured in a workshop right next door to Novo Guitars in Nashville, and the range has expanded from just fuzz, overdrive and boost pedals to include this attractive analogue delay.
The Oracle Analog Echo was designed in collaboration with John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments, and it takes inspiration from much-loved analogue delay pedals of the 1980s such as the Boss DM-2 and Ibanez AD9, without being a direct clone. Groundbreaking in their day, these pedals utilised bucket brigade chips to deliver warm, musical repeats without the physical bulk and reliability issues of the tape echo units that preceded them.
With a pair of reissue MN3205 BBD chips at its heart, the Oracle’s modest control layout of delay time, feedback and wet/dry mix echos the simple and intuitive controls of the pedals that inspired it. In addition to that, you’ll notice a tap tempo footswitch, offering settings beyond that of the 600ms range of the time control – but more on that shortly.
In use
An original 1982 Ibanez AD9 has graced our pedalboard for over 15 years, outlasting countless board revisions and modern alternatives that all fell short sonically. However, based on the quality of Zach’s drive pedals, we have high hopes for the Oracle.
With a Les Paul into a tweed combo on the edge of breakup, the Oracle immediately nails those vintage analogue delay tones we enjoy so much. The repeats are perfectly voiced to melt effortlessly into a band mix, never dominating nor rhythmically intrusive – regardless of gain level.
At the turn of a knob, the Oracle effortlessly provides everything from perfect slapback to epic solo tones, reverb-like ambience and doubling effects. And it does all this with less background noise than our vintage unit, and the convenience of top-mounted jack sockets, true-bypass switching and tap tempo.
Utilising the super responsive tap-tempo switch to increase the delay time beyond 600ms, the repeats degrade in a satisfyingly glitchy way, with a gnarly lo-fi character. And of course, on-the-fly tempo tweaks with higher levels of feedback can create epic psychedelic self-oscillation for a set-closing wall of sound if you so wish. It’s hard not to love.
Key Features
- PRICE £259
- DESCRIPTION Analogue delay pedal with tap tempo and true-bypass switching. Made in USA
- CONTROLS Time, feedback and mix knobs, footswitches for tap tempo and bypass
- ADDITIONAL FEATURES Jack socket for external tap tempo control. Powered by 9V centre-negative adapter only, current draw approx 35mA
- DIMENSIONS 118 x 92 x 42mm
- CONTACT mythospedals.com
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