Red Witch Pedals has unveiled the Magesteria, a handmade high-end delay pedal that was inspired by a trio of classic tape echo units – and the electric guitar tones they equipped delay pioneers such as Brian May, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen with.
There is no mistaking the Magesteria for anything other than the handiwork of Red Witch’s Ben Fulton, who once more has crafted a real work of functional pedalboard art. He describes the Magesteria as “the embodiment of of tape delay glory” and presumably that means you step on it and the sounds you hear will have you swearing that there must be some kind of mechanical tape gizmo under the hood.
That, however, is just the illusion that this circuit was designed to cast. Fulton does not hide his inspiration here. His tastes in vintage tape converge around the most musicial trinity of the Maestro Echoplex EP3, Roland Space Echo and Watkins Copicat. This draws its inspiration from all three.
There are four knobs, all arranged around the top of the enclosure, with only the footswitch mounted on the front of the pedal. That way it doesn’t obscure the artwork, which is typically baroque (is it just us or would be be particularly fastidious with our choice of footwear when stepping on one a Red Witch pedal?).
While vintage tape echos are amazing, the Magesteria does have a number of advantages over them. One, it will require no servicing, as opposed to the tape echo whose moving parts demands some periodic TLC. Two, the maximum delay times on vintage units was limited.
Here we have no moving parts, and a ridiculously generous range of delay times, from a Scotty Moore slapback 55ms all the way up to an ethereal, spaced-out 1100ms.
This would not be a tape delay without some means of pushing it into self-oscillation; this lets you go all-in with that noise and chaos. It will be guaranteed to make your dog howl.
Controls-wise, it is a familiar setup, with a wow/flutter knob your go-to for dialling in some of that mechanical wonkiness that makes the original repeats so musical, and when you adjust that delay time dial you’ll get that same warble, as though something magnetic is heaving a new sound into existence. Lovely.
There is a switch allowing you to select between Echoplex and Watkins modes. Internal trimpots are there to fine-tune the gain to best complement your electric guitar pickups. Neutrick sockets have been hand-wired, and the footswitch sits independently of the PCB making for a more durable proposition.
Red Witch is only making 89 of these. Each is signed, hand-made, and numbered by Fulton. Once they’re gone they’re gone. Priced $349, the Magesteria is available now. Head over to Red Witch Pedals for more.
