My fascination with oil can delay units began many years
before I founded Catalinbread. I don’t even really remember exactly where I first ran into them, but
when I did I would buy ‘em whenever I could. My first unit was a Fender Dimension IV “Sound
Expander” that plugged into the reverb loop on Fender amps. This particular unit created a reverb
drenched vibrato that was difficult to actually use! So I asked around the budding young DIY
websites (any of you DIYers remember The Ampage?!) to see if anybody had any information
about modifications that would give control over the reverb and vibrato levels. The answer was
unanimous, “that’s just the nature of the beast!” Along the way I discovered other tidbits of
information where people claimed that the oil in the cans was a mysterious and carcinogenic oil
that you can’t find anywhere. Over the years I stumbled onto other units including an Acoustic
Reverberato, Tel-Ray Organ Tone, Tel-Ray Variable Delay and Gibson GA-4RE that actually
offered some control and an inspiring usable echo and vibrato.
Catalinbread 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,
bright, 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 in a neat way. There were many not-so-good
behaviors with these units such as a short delay time, as the unit warmed up the modulation
and repeat quality changes dramatically, and for the most part a limited amount of actual
control over delay time etc. So we put it on the back burner and occasionally thought about it
for what turned out to be a number of years!
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 by 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 achieve. The dual playback head is continuously
balanceable (BALANCE knob) to favor one head over the other for interesting syncopation feels.
-Nicholas Harris
You’ll notice that each of the ADINEKO cases have been aged. It seemed fitting for this pedal,
which has been inspired by the old oil can effects, to physically look weathered and a bit stained.
Designer’s Notes
The ADINEKO must be powered with center negative, regulated 9-18v DC external
power supply.
Summary of Contents for ADINEKO
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