The PT2399 is source of never ending inspiration for creative boutique pedal companies interested in delay circuit, and the Polarbear Effects Raposa is a noteworthy tape echo-style addition to the family of pedals employing this chip.
The Raposa delivers repeats as an old tape echo machine would, letting you decide how poorly maintained it is and how old the tape is. It has two modulation LFOs operating on top of each other.
The delay’s timing, feedback and amount are controlled respectively by the Delay, Repeats and Mix knobs. The LPF control is a low-pass filter that can make your repeats darker and therefore – as they say – “warmer;” it also interacts with the volume of the delay signal and the oscillation intensity, which can be adjusted to taste via two internal trimpots.
The Warp control sets the depth of the slow modulation, meant to simulate a classic wow and flutter generated by recording devices utilizing tape. The 2nd type of modulation is more “erratic” and linked to the Failure and Rate knobs, which generate random signal dropouts of the delay, simulating a failing machine. The Waveform toggle toggle switches between softer triangle wave and choppier square wave failures.
Finally, the right footswitch deals with several functions: the right one triggers tap tempo and oscillation / infinite repeats on hold, while the left one turns the pedal on and off.
We added the Raposa to our comprehensive article about the best tape-style echos.
