Deluxe Memory Man creator Howard Davis collaborates with J. Rockett on a classic-sounding bucket brigade echo with digital control.
Nuanced, complex, and organic bucket brigade echo tones. Power modulation section. Great expression pedal functionality. High quality.
Expensive.
$399
J. Rockett Clockwork
rockettpedals.com
Though I treasure it, my vintage Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man has seen better days. Its aging innards make many mystery noises, the pots wobble and crackle, and it hasn't shrunk down to a more convenient size in the intervening decades. It could really use a top-to-bottom tune-up from an expert. Or, I could just consider chasing down a Clockwork by J. Rockett Audio Designs.
The Clockwork analog delay was co-designed with one of the foremost experts in Deluxe Memory Man circuitry. In fact, it was designed with the man who conceived the original Deluxe Memory Man, Howard Davis. Pedigree aside, Davis' design input is clearly audible in the authentically DMM-like output of the Clockwork. So is J. Rockett's knack for refining already near-perfect circuits. The Clockwork is lively, feels super dynamic and responsive, and features practical improvements on the original design, like switchable modulation, expression pedal functionality for delay time and repeats, and digitally controlled tap tempo.
Putting the Rock in Rockett
Original Deluxe Memory Man pedals could be a bit fragile. The folded steel enclosure on mine cratered around the footswitch, and the vibrato/chorus slider switch bought the farm years ago. There's little risk of such fates befalling the Clockwork's hardware. While just a fraction of the size of a DMM, it weighs more thanks to the burly and bulletproof enclosure. Switches and knobs all work like features from precision scientific instruments.
The improvements on the original DMM design are smart and pay immediate creative dividends. For starters, there's 600 ms of available delay, rather than the 300–400 ms maximum delay time of an original. There are also speed and depth controls for the Clockwork's modulation, rather than the single depth knob on the DMM. The modulation can be switched in and out with a footswitch, which was not possible on the DMM.
The expression pedal functionality for delay time and delay repeats also expands the Clockwork's color palette in thrilling, visceral ways
The tap tempo switch and expression pedal functionality for delay time and delay repeats also expands the Clockwork's color palette in thrilling, visceral ways. There's only one real noticeable absence from the DMM's feature set, and that's the vibrato/chorus switch. While J. Rockett opted for the vibrato effect exclusively, the extra control makes chorus and flange-like effects possible.
Radical Replay
If there's a word to sum up the feel of the Clockwork, it's "alive." To my ears, there is a genuinely organic feel in the way the repeats decay and blend into a cohesive wash as they slip into the ether—making Clockwork ideal for spacious repeat times and multiple echoes. Slapback sounds crackle with energy and attitude, especially when you add gain from the level control, which, by itself, adds everything from a barely discernable dB bump to a hot, mid-'60s Mike Bloomfield edge. At its highest gain settings, it will kick a tube amp into beautiful mid-gain crunch spaces. And adding fast-repeat, quick-decay doubling effects from the Clockwork's delay section can make rhythm riffs and leads sound sizzling.
The Clockwork's modulation section is vastly more versatile than the chorus/vibrato on a Deluxe Memory Man. The depth and speed controls have expansive range, and you can create much more varied and weirder textures than anything from an old EHX. At speed settings of about 75 percent of maximum, the vibrato pulses like a cross between fast bias tremolo and Magnatone amp vibrato. Dial back the speed a bit more, reduce the delay time, and bump the repeats to approximate reverb, and you have a very idiosyncratic, spacey, and slightly metallic rotary speaker tone that twists Memphis soul chord progressions and melodic leads into less familiar forms. Applying these similarly strong modulation tones to long delays and repeats yields woozy, queasy pitch wobble, or, at faster speeds, ray-gun trills.
The Verdict
I'm not the only person I know who is reluctantly retiring their Deluxe Memory Man to special-occasions-only usage. It's hard to imagine a more intriguing replacement than the Clockwork.It's a lot more fun than most digital DMM emulations. It feels more lively, more responsive, and interactive. Your opinions may vary if you like immaculate repeats. And if your pedalboard is stacked with a zillion other devices, the Clockwork's colorful, sometimes hazy and dirty delays might lose some magic and nuance in the wash of 10 pedals. The Clockwork still sounds amazing under such conditions, and you don't need a streamlined pedalboard to get the most out of it. But players who make the Clockwork a centerpiece of a smaller rig might be startled by how many pedals the lush and limber device renders redundant.
J. Rockett Audio Designs Clockwork Echo Demo - First Look
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It’s almost over, but there’s still time to win! Enter Stompboxtober Day 30 for your shot at today’s pedal from SoloDallas!
The Schaffer Replica: Storm
The Schaffer Replica Storm is an all-analog combination of Optical Limiter+Harmonic Clipping Circuit+EQ Expansion+Boost+Line Buffer derived from a 70s wireless unit AC/DC and others used as an effect. Over 50 pros use this unique device to achieve percussive attack, copious harmonics and singing sustain.
Neil’s brother-in-law Billy’s Ovation, before Neil’s repairs.
Reader: Neil Crump
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Guitar: King of the Road
When his brother-in-law passed away, this reader made it his mission to repair his old damaged Ovation guitar as a gift to his niece.
My brother-in-law passed away in March. He was a talented keyboardist and, in his heyday, played in bands that toured internationally. As a musician, he naturally had a guitar—a 1974 Ovation—and a “friend” put an unauthorized abstract paint job on it. That guitar had an extremely hard life: Its top was broken and the frets were completely worn out. As an aspiring luthier, I took the guitar to repair it then pass it on to his daughter. This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.
A heat gun and thin spatula knife worked fine to remove the top and the bridge. I did my best to glue the new top halves together—but that left a visible seam, so I put a herringbone center strip over it (to match the purfling I would install later). I had no radius board, so I just clamped the pre-radiused braces I bought and was quite pleased that the new top did have a radius! Once I felt the bridge was sanded perfectly, I glued it down. I then replaced the plastic nut and saddle with bone. A hot soldering iron got the old frets out without damaging the fingerboard. (That said, next time I will clean those slots out better before installing new frets!)
“This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.”
I was happy with my progress until I started routing the purfling channel. I had no workbench, and the concave Ovation body made things a bit awkward. While basically “bear hugging” the body with one arm and holding the router with the other, I heard a faint “pop.” The edge of an X-brace had come loose. I was able to squirt glue into the void with a syringe, but the concave guitar body made a brace jack useless (without fabricating a complicated caul). I removed the phono jack and jammed a pencil into the brace, keeping pressure on it with a rubber band. It worked!
Neil gave the Ovation a new lease on life with his extensive repairs, the end result of which can be seen here.
I also learned the importance of channel depth with purfling—I did lots of scraping to get everything flush. I am pleased with the finished product and my niece is so happy! I also put a new label inside the guitar body, with a dedication to her father on it.
Overall, there are multiple wins on this project. I gave tribute to my brother-in-law, made his daughter happy, and learned enough to build a guitar from scratch.
Two horns? It must be a Bison!
Our columnist links a few memories together to lead us to another obscure guitar model—one he remembers from his childhood and came to acquire as an adult.
Do you have any “click and stick” movies that you love? Like when you are channel surfing and see a movie that you’ve watched a lot, and then just watch it again? Lately, for me, it’s been the 2015 movie The Revenant. It’s a truly brutal tale of survival set in 1820s frontier America. My gosh, that movie just draws me in every time. There’s one scene where the main character goes flying off a cliff while riding a horse! He just sort of falls/rolls through a pine tree and lands in the snow … and he still survives! It’s crazy!
It makes me think about an old childhood friend who lived up the street from me. Jerry and his parents lived in an old house on their grandparents’ large plot of land. On one part of the land there was an old orchard filled with all types of fruit trees and pines, and I remember how we would climb to the top of the pines and just roll ourselves down the side, Revenant style! If you fell the right way, the branches would kind of gently let you down to the next, but if you hit it wrong and got in between the branches, you’d be wrecked. It’s like we enjoyed getting hurt, and, of course, when you’re young, you can snap right back. Ah, the days when pain really didn’t hurt. Now I wake up with injuries, for real.
“The action was way high and the fret ends were sharp. It was basically a painful affair.”
So why am I talking about my click-and-stick movie and stupid childhood escapades? Well, let’s get back to memories of my old friend Jerry. First, the house he lived in was so old that it had real wooden siding, but it hadn’t been painted in forever so the exterior took on a worn, faded, haunted house vibe. Second, his carpet was so tattered that it was being held together with duct tape. Lastly, I remember his dad had a cool, old electric guitar in the living room. His dad would let me play it sometimes, and I remember that it actually hurt to play! The action was way high and the fret ends were sharp. It was basically a painful affair. Not falling-out-of-a-tree painful, but as bad as it comes with guitars. It had the label “Conrad,” and young Frank didn’t realize that he’d be looking for that guitar again one day. I mean, it did have four pickups and lots of knobs and switches!
Made at the old Japanese Matsumoko factory in the ’60s, this Conrad Bison 1233 has four pickups and a 27" scale.
Years later, I would discover that his was a Conrad Bison guitar. The model came in a few different configurations, but the four-pickup design was designated as the 1233. Primarily featuring a lovely sunburst, these Bisons were made at the amazing old Matsumoku factory in Japan and were imported by the David Wexler Company that was based in Chicago. Matsumoku always had a good supply of aged wood, and many of the guitars made there are resonant and built well. The Bisons first appeared around 1966 and had a rather good run into the early ’70s.
Simple volume/tone knobs are paired with preset solo/rhythm switches that power alnico magnets. There’s an on/off switch for each pickup, and the sound really covers all the bases. Thumpy lows and crisp highs are all there. And, the pickups handle fuzz and distortion with ease. The Bisons also came in one- and two-pickup configurations with a normal scale, but the four-pickup ones have a longer, 27" scale, which is common for Matsumoku-made electrics.
So there it is: pain, survival, American frontier, Bison, haunted houses. It all sticks together like a duct-taped carpet. Click and stick, baby!
A 1000-watt speaker cabinet crafted for musicians who demand power and precision. Sunn Amps intends to reinvent the standard 4x12 configuration with the introduction of this new cabinet.
The Sunn Amps DoomBox is built to accommodate both guitar and bass, offering an impressive 1000-watt handling capacity—making it the first commercially available 4x12 cabinet with such high power handling. With four specially designed 12” drivers rated at 250 watts each, this cabinet provides clean, unrestrained sound levels that can maintain power integrity across all frequencies, ideal for high-volume performances.
Inspired and developed using feedback from artists and bands who rely on the depth of lower tunings and high volume genres, the DoomBox was engineered to meet the unique demands of professional musicians looking for a robust, high-efficiency cab that can translate the raw power of their sound without compromise.
Premium Craftsmanship and Materials
The Doom Box cabinet is crafted from solid finger-jointed Baltic Birch plywood, ensuring both durability and tonal clarity. Each cabinet is constructed by hand in the U.S.A. using original 1930s machinery, the DoomBox reflects Sunn’s historic commitment to quality, contrasting with some of the mass-produced, MDF-based cabinets on the market today. The cabinet’s aluminum basket, ferrite magnet, and custom Sunn weave Tolex with a custom grill design complete its professional-grade build.
Technical Specifications:
• Power Handling: 1000W
• Inputs: 1 x ¼”
• Impedance: 8 Ohm
• Drivers: 4 x Sunn 12S250
• Construction: Marine Grade Baltic Birch
• Dimensions: 29.25” X 30” X 14”
• Weight: 107 lbs
• Price: $2399.00
With clear low-end punch, even sound response, and ample air movement, the Doom Box ensures that every note reaches the audience with clarity and power. This cabinet is a game-changer for musicians who need high-performance, road-ready equipment that enhances their unique sound.