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Have had an el Cap for a little while now, and can't seem to get much in the way of audible repeats when I hit it with dirt. Even with the secondary dB boost, I hear one weak repeat and very little after. Sounds fine with clean tones.

Any recs on getting more out of it, or is this just what it is?

I'm on my fourth El Cap and have never had this problem. If you only have the issue with dirt why would you assume it was the El Cap and not the dirt? I've heard of dirt pedals with weird output buffers causing funky issues with delay pedals. What dirt pedal and what is your signal chain?

insubordination wrote:I'm on my fourth El Cap and have never had this problem. If you only have the issue with dirt why would you assume it was the El Cap and not the dirt? I've heard of dirt pedals with weird output buffers causing funky issues with delay pedals. What dirt pedal and what is your signal chain?

Same result with any dirt I've tried; Pharaoh, Hoof, Blunderbuss, LSTR, etc. And not very ILF of me, but haven't been using anything else in the chain except fuzz & el cap. Also, haven't had the problem with my Hardwire or Malekko delays.

Some good advice there Vidret; I started to wonder if I needed to mess more with the secondary settings to get more cut.

maybe try turing up the secondary tape age function to remove some low end, it might just be really muddy if you're running some of that shit full bore. Also if secondary repeats function is turned too far up it starts to make the repeats quiter, so try setting that at about 9 o'clock and see if that helps at all.

I only use El Cap with dirt... The only secondary function that might help would be the middle knob which is Bias, Tape Age is the one you wanna mess with... Fully ccw on both will give you the cleanest repeats... Remember the secondary functions as L.B.C, Low Bias Crinkle...

have you tried turning the el cap buffer/trails on and off?
just to see if the repeats sound different ..

it's easy.

El Cap>Dirt

Sordid.

insubordination wrote:I'm on my fourth El Cap and have never had this problem. If you only have the issue with dirt why would you assume it was the El Cap and not the dirt? I've heard of dirt pedals with weird output buffers causing funky issues with delay pedals. What dirt pedal and what is your signal chain?

Never heard this issue in 20-some years of playing.

Seen delay pedals that couldn't handle the output that some gain puts out, but that's what a level control is for, but past that...not like the OP is describing.

I'd wager it's a combination of delay time and mix (don't have or use an el cap) - with dirt, I double or triple the delay time versus clean typically to get audible repeats of the same approximate presence.

I've only had mine a couple days, but I did notice its hard to get audible repeats using dirt with the multi-head mode. Where clean its a nice rhythmic tapping, it turned into a white noise wash when I kicked the dirt on. The single and fixed modes keep more clarity I think

I also agree about turning then wow and flutter and crinkle up to give the repeats more character.

Multi-head delays go to wash on *any* of them with enough dirt.

My Space Echo (actual), my rack stuff, etc.

You don't get into discernable "this is multihead" until you get into 5s+ times with dirt IME.

It almost seems like it's the wrong kind of delay to be trying to get well-defined repeats with dirt in it. Might want something more sterile and "digital."

I set the El Cap up to its most "pristine" setting and hit it with a Frazz Dazzler set med. gain... On Fixed mode A I can see what your talking about with the repeats but that's what "tape" is supposed to sound like cause of its awesome limitations... I tend to always errryday on the reg use at least 2-3 delays with dirt and mostly cause they all do something different... Put the El Cap first or sandwich it with dirts or pair it with a cheap digi delay and you'll see how bad she be... Multi C is where mine stays...

Thread hijack!

I'm gonna be buying/making a favorite switch soon so I can have 2 settings at my feet, but I wanna use El Cap for lush delays and the sound on sound mode, and something else for slapback. What other delays are you guys using to compliment Cappy? Something small-ish, simple-ish, and cheap-ish.

I'd go for a cheap bright analog delay for slapback. Malekko 616 sounds sweet but the bbuffer is a little weird. Haven't played an aqua puss but that seems like it could fit the bill.

i've run into this before with delays disappearing when you hit the dirt. and then sometimes being waaaayyy too much when you try and compensate. it's hard to find a balance sometimes. i tried a few before settling on the disaster transport, which does great with dirt. good luck with the el cap though. i didn't really gel with the one i played, but it seems like a really cool pedal if you can make it work.