gilmourish | 6 years ago

Foxgear Echosex Baby, Muffin, Maitresse review

Signal chain intro:
Effects: guitar - Echosex Baby 310ms - clean amp

Signal chain solo 1:
Effects: guitar - Maitresse - Echosex Baby 750ms - slightly overdriven amp

Signal chain mid section:
Effects: guitar - Dunlop Cry Baby (reverse connected) - Echosex Baby 310ms - clean amp

Signal chain solo 2:
Effects: guitar - Muffin - Maitresse - Echosex Baby 750ms - clean amp

Guitar: Fender Stratocaster with D Allen Voodoo 69 neck and middle and S Duncan SSL5 bridge pickups
Amp - Laney Lionheart L20, Laney LT212 cabinet with Celestion V30 speakers
Amp settings: clean channel, bright, bass 3:00, mids 3:00, treble 8:00, tone 11:00 (o'clock)
Mic - Sennheiser e906 mic

Follow Gilmourish.Com here:
http://www.gilmourish.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gilmou...
http://www.bjornriis.com

Foxgear
https://www.foxgeardistribution.com

_________________________________

Italian companies Gurus and Baoni Lab has joined forces and come up with Foxgear. The brand specializes in replicatig classic pedals in an affordable package.

I've done several reviews of Gurus units, including the much praised Echosex. Baroni Lab mostly focus on David Gilmour oriented effects, with several replications of his classic pedals.

Muffin
The discription of this pedal says that it's based on David Gilmour's 1980s Big Muff. At that point he rarely used Big Muffs, although an early 70s Ram's Head was often spotted in his studio and live rig. The Muffin definitely has that bright, saturated Ram's Head character, although it seems to be a mix of the Ram's Head and the slightly darker sounding early 90s Sovtek Muffs.

The Muffin's got a very well balanced tone, with just enough top and bottom end and a hint of mids shining through. The gain character has some really nice harmonics taking the pedal almost into fuzz territory.

Maitresse
The Maitresse feature NOS MN3207 chips and is based on the flanging effect from old tape decs and the Electric Mistress. A very unusual and unique approach although Foxgear claim that Jimi Hendrix used the Electric Mistress. It was introduced to the market six years after his death. He did use tape flanging a great deal though.

Like the original '76 Mistress the Maitresse is a bit noisy but it's got that vintage mojo that few of the modern replications manages to capture. You can also hear that almost jet-like tape flanging coming through making the Maitresse truly unique.

Echosex Baby
I've done reviews of both the Echosex 2 and Echosex 2 TE7 and the Echosex Baby is, surpringly, right up there with both of them.

Inspired by the Binson Echorec Baby, the Echosex capture that almost reverb-like haunting echo of the old Binson. Like the bigger Echosex units, the Baby is on the darker side, placing it right between a Binson and a vintage Memory Man.

The Bayby's is limited to a single head repeat but it can be set up from anything between a fast slapback to almost 1000ms, with lush repeats and a very natural sounding modulation. Definitely one of the better sounding echo pedals out there!