Catalinbread Adineko - Oil Can Delay

Catalinbread Adineko - Oil Can Delay

We started working on an oil can delay pedal (only later to be named ADINEKO) in the summer of 2012, about the same time we began working on the ECHOREC. We identified a number of very cool behaviors of the old units, though the differences could be dramatic from unit to unit and day to day (even hour to hour!). The positive behaviors were a cool, thin, but dark sounding echo with a vibrato modulation that lined up with the echo time, and a repeat quality, that had a fog which can hover before self-oscilation in a neat way.

Oil can delay units were manufactured by a company named Tel-Ray who later became better known as Morley. Tel-Ray mostly focused on being the OEM utilizing their oil can technology (Patent US3530227 A), branding units for Gibson (GA-RE4), Fender (Dimension IV), Acoustic, etc. They employed an electro-static storage method where the signal is “recorded” to a spinning disk, a layer of oil (for years rumored to be a mysterious carcinogenic oil) prevented this signal from leaking into the air before a “pickup” moments later played back the signal recorded to the disk. This was certainly a novel approach to creating a delay line long enough to generate echo and reverb effects. Compared to the counterparts of the day (tape, drum, wire delay machines), their sound was more low fidelity, murky, often with a more consistent musical vibrato that correlated to the spinning disk speed. We like to describe the sound as mysterious. The Catalinbread ADINEKO pedal is an echo/reverb/vibrato pedal that faithfully models the sonic experience of these oil can units…

As we always strive to do when making something old, new again, we want to honor the old experience and expand upon it. Our ADINEKO is no exception: the murky warble of the old units, traditionally only achievable when the oil’s thickness is incorrect, can be conjured a twist of the VISCOSITY knob. The warm echo quality has an expanded range of delay time (TIMING knob), more so than any oil can unit could ever hope to achieve. The dual playback head is continuously balanceable (BALANCE knob) to favor one head over the other for interesting syncopation lobe feels.