Waltham, MA (January 15, 2012) -- Gig-Fx inc. has announced the release of the Pan-Ec echo-panning pedal. Designed with input from top players such as Adrian Belew, three years of R&D has produced an effect that's designed to digitally emulate the character of classic tape-loop echo units such as the Wem Copycat and Echoplex and adds a unique feature of smoothly panning the echo left to right instead of an unmusical ping-pong echo. This novel approach is said to produce a dreamy, atmospheric sound.

The pedal has an on-board expression pedal that can be assigned to adjust the speed, decay, or volume of the echo in real time. The user can pan either the entire signal (effect + dry), or just the effect in order to create a subtle ambiance. Finally, the Pan-Ec also offers a sweet-sounding reverb that can be left-right panned as well, giving the illusion of sound swirling around a room.

Gig-Fx founder, Jeff Purchon, whose first echo effect back in the day was the Klemt Echolette NG 51 S, wanted to digitally recreate the fun aspects of tape echo units and recapture the spacy, ethereal effects that those devices produced. "I was always fascinated with tape head delays, but at the same time frustrated by their unreliable tape loops that often snapped or degraded as they whisked around the heads and that also suffered from tape head build up and alignment issues," he explained. Just as with tape head units, the Pan-Ec can speed up a “tape” loop in real time but can provide the convenience, clarity, and reliability that digital brings.

Gig-FX reports that during the Pan-Ec’s research phase, Purchon demoed a prototype while also panning the signal with a Gig-Fx Chopper pedal. "The sound was amazing," he says, "totally unlike the tiresome and commonly available stereo ping-pong. Panning the echoes is a totally different sound altogether. The echoes swirl around like sound bouncing off cathedral walls or spiraling through a canyon. The spaciness is mesmerizing - more like real-life echoes with varying Doppler effects created as sound randomly bounces off walls at different times from different places. No other echo pedal does this."

In order to take full advantage of the on-board signal processor, a top-quality reverb function is also included. Like all gig-fx pedals, the Pan-Ec features "Better than true bypass," which presents a constant impedance to guitar pickups and amplifiers when effects are switched in or out and also tends to reduce high-frequency cable losses. The switching is seamless and pop-free.

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