T-Rex Replica Delay Pedal Review

Hiya!

I have tried oodles of delay pedals over the years and have had some fun with them but never found one that I really liked. Mostly because they did not work terribly well or sound very good, so they ended up being more trouble than they were worth. But, the T-Rex Replica delay pedal has made me a believer in delay pedals again.

The Replica is made by adults in Denmark, not by little kids or giant robots in a third world country. It is very sturdy, and it is not as big as these pictures would lead you to believe. It measures about 4” x 2 ¼” x 5”, and it weighs about 11 ounces.

On the face of the unit there are four switches: ON/OFF, Subdivision, Brown and Tap Tempo. There are also four knobs: Volume, Tempo, Echo and Repeat. On the sides of the Replica you will find ¼-inch Input, Direct out and Output jacks, as well as a 5-pin DIN MIDI in and a 2mm power jack.

You can probably figure out what the knobs and jacks do, but a little explanation of the switches may be needed. The Subdivision switch toggles between quarter note and eight note triplets. The Brown switch provides a high-cut filter that makes the Replica sound like a tube tape echo. The Tap Tempo switch might be the coolest feature of the unit, in that it allows the user to follow the beat and tap-in delay times with the footswitch, and track the changes with an LED. This is very valuable for having the delay stay in time while changing tempos on the fly.

The Replica is a digital delay, and it uses a 24-bit Burr Brown AD/DA converter. This allows up to 2000ms of delay (that is 2 seconds for us normal people), and it samples at rate of 200kHz, which is ungodly fast. It has true bypass switching which seems to actually be a true bypass of the input signal -- it comes out just as clean as when it went in.

And though this pedal is digital, it is not a one-trick pony and it sounds marvelous. The delay is clean all the way up to two seconds, and it can sound hi-fi or fat and sassy like a tube preamplifier. It really is the best of both worlds, providing either a digital delay or a tube echo tone. In all of this it does not mask the original tone, but enhances what is already there. The knobs and switches are easy to figure out an manipulate to provide just the tone you are looking for. There is no added noise from this unit and the Replica would be equally at home on the stage or in the studio.

In other words, the T-Rex Replica is a winner, and the best delay pedal I have ever used. An, of course, it is priced accordingly. It has a list price of $539 and a street price $399, so start saving now, or maybe you should ask Santa Claus to bring you one for Christmas – it is just that awesome.

Mahalo!

T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon Power Supply Review

Good day!

Ok. I do not have any powered pedals on my pedalboard (except for my Boss tuner), as I endorse Cave Passive Pedals, but if I did have some I would be first in line to pick up a T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon power supply. This is the best-looking and most versatile/flexible portable power supply assemblies I have tried, and is also one of the more spendy ones. T-Rex offers a few different power supplies, and this is one is their best offering (in my opinion), even though it not the top of their line.

The Fuel Tank Chameleon It is not as big as it looks in the photos, but it will still take up a few spaces on your pedalboard, measuring 6.3 x 1.6 x 3.2 inches. It is solidly built with a green-finished steel case, and come in a bit over 3 pounds. Their products have always been bulletproof, and this one also appears to be made to last.

Let’s look at power. This T-Rex product comes with an industry standard removable IEC power cable, and it is switchable from 115V to 230V. So you can take this to Europe, switch out the input cable and still be in business. It has the capability of 1500mA of total power output through its 6 isolated outputs (only 5 can be used at a time) which should be plenty for most any pedalboard setup. Keep in mind that those outputs can be daisy-chained, so you can run a lot more that 5 pedals off this thing.

And you can run a bunch of different voltages from this unit at the same time. Outputs 1 through 3 can be individually set at either 9V DC or 12V DC, and output 4 can be set to either 9V DC or 18V DC. Output 5 is switchable for 9V DC or 12V DC and output 6 is solely for 12V AC. Outputs 5 and 6 cannot be used at the same time. All voltages are switched via little tiny dip switches.

These outputs put out 300mA at 9V or 12V and 150mA at 18V, so read the directions carefully, and do you math if you are going to daisy-chain things together. You don’t want to overload any of the circuits…

So, you can pretty much get the correct power for any of your pedals, and chances are also good that T-Rex provided the cables you will need to attach them too. This product came with 9 DC pedal link cables between 8 and 40 inches long, a 30-inch 5-pedal daisy chain cable, a blue AC cable for Line6 pedals, a 30-inch DC to mini jack cable and a red AC cable for the T-Rex Replica Delay. That is a huge wad of cables, and I have not found any pedals in my stash (or my friends’) that this thing will not power up. All of the outlets are center negative, BTW.

I broke out all of my old pedals, and borrowed a few more, and ran them together in all different configurations using the T-Red as the sole power supply. Pedal types included delays, distortions, a wah pedal, tuners, choruses, octavizers, and god knows what all. Brands included Boss, Ibanez, Dunlop, DOD, and Line6, among others, and they all worked fine with this unit.

The Chameleon was nice and quiet and did not make any interference that manifested itself as noise in my signal chain. It also did not seem to get ungodly hot, so pretty much it did everything it was supposed to while providing a level or versatility that most guitarists with big setups would appreciate. A winner, in other words!

The T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon power supply is a great product, and is priced accordingly. The list price is $249, with a street price of $149.99. If I was running a larger pedalboard with a ton of power needs I would be all over one of these, even at a bill and a half.

Mahalo!