Help me understand this.

[Boy Howdy]

I recently bought a delay unit that supposedly has a vintage Echoplex sound. I like it a lot, it gets a nice big sound. But, it dulls the high end too much. I'm trying to figure out a way to get more treble.

I figured the easy way would be a simple Y-cord arrangement: just send straight signal right around the delay unit, bypassing it.

I tried that, but the result was a big reduction in echo volume. What's going on here? I've had this issue with Y-cords in the past. Does splitting the signal cut the volume in half or something? What's required to make this work? I need more treble. Is it a matter of boosting the gain before splitting the signal? I'm at a loss.

(I'll be offline till Thursday, FYI)

[Randall]

Part of the sound of a tape delay such as an Echoplex is that it does roll off the high end. There are digital delays that have settings that roll off the high end to simulate a tape delay sound. It seems like an Echoplex type sound is not what you should be starting from.

[Mick Bailey]

Your original signal is reduced when you split it in this way. Also, you're reducing the overall impedance of what your guitar is seeing and this in turn rolls off even more top-end. With delays I like to use a parallel FX loop and set the delay to 100% wet and mix it in with the dry signal. That way you preserve the tonality of the dry signal even if the delayed signal is lacking in treble. Many modern
vintage-style FX units deliberately roll off the treble but this should only be done on the repeats and not on the dry side.

If you don't have a parallel loop then you'd need to buy or build something.

[Justin Thomas]

As far as the problems with Y-cords, I ended u up buying an ABY box. I didn't realize it took a 9V battery, but a small hole & added jack and now I run it from my pedal power brick. No more signal loss, no more batteries.

The treble loss is designed into Echoplex-simulating delays because of the natural treble loss that came from signal degradation because tape toes that.

Justin

[Chuck H]

It sounds to me like the complaint is a loss of top end on the dry signal when using this effect. I guess we'll need to wait until Thursday to find out.

[Ben N]

ROG Splitter-Blend

Build one. Done.

[Chuck H]

Oh, and Mick is absolutely right. In order to take best advantage of any sort of parallel dry/wet arrangement you always want to achieve unity for the dry signal, then have a control to balance wet/dry after that. The signal out of the effect unit should be run full wet. Or at least as "intense" or highest "effect level". You want as little dry signal coming out of the effect unit as possible. The idea here is that the effect is only that and the dry signal remains pure.

[Boy Howdy]

I'm back!

Thanks everybody. Great answers, just what I needed.

The unit I'm using here is a Hughes and Kettner Replex. It's a great sounding delay, that purportedly has an EP-1 tube Echoplex preamp as part of the circuit. And given the vintage design the treble will be rolled off. It's been awhile since I owned an Echoplex - early Eighties (I'm a lot older than my name implies). I had forgotten about the treble rolloff. But even given that, the unit sounds so good it's a keeper. I have a second delay on my pedalboard that I can use if I need more high end.

It's good to know from a technical perspective what's going on with the y-cord situation (thanks, Mick!).

It looks like Ben's splitter-blend is the solution to my problem (thanks, Ben!).

This is a problem I've run up against for literally decades. I finally understand it! Thanks, everybody. Ya'll rock. I can always count on Ampage to pull my shorts out of the fire.