650ms Analog Delay Pedal

The EKKO 616 DARK: muted, brooding, syrupy nastiness resides under your clean sound in a glorious mass of rich delay and heavy overtones. Gloss black on flat black, the menacing look of the EKKO 616 DARK is the perfect reflection of its heart of darkness. The sound is infused with the legacy of our long-discontinued hand built ECHO 600 DARK.

The inception of the EKKO 616 DARK was the forehead-slapping moment when Josh, while riding his bike somewhere (in Portland), was angry that he didn’t have an ECHO 600 DARK from five years ago. “Why can’t we make a new dark delay?”, he thought. “We do all the manufacturing in house, our enclosures are powder coated and screened locally, plus I know what I’m doing!”, again, he thought. So into the laboratory he went to create this incredible sounding pedal!

The EKKO 616 DARK is a full featured yet compact delay with external modulation controls, an optional buffer, internal level pot and 650ms of pure analog bliss! Every detail of the E616 DARK was scrutinized, data sheets compared, parts swapped, and hours of listening followed before we were satisfied. These resulting hand picked components of the highest quality are used to achieve what we consider the nicest sounding, darkest analog delay pedal we’ve made!

The EKKO 616 DARK is based on the EKKO 616 MKII yet voiced to have delays with the high frequencies rolled off, like a low-pass filter set to about 400Hz. This allows sparkling guitars to reside over a dark background of morphing overtones (when set to high regeneration amounts), or a super-fat chug sound at less regen, shorter delay times and just the right amount of effect mixed in.

The E616 DARK’s specially voiced repeats create a much heavier and muted delay sound than most traditional analog delays. Turn the mix pot all the way up and the repeats will be just louder than unity with the dry signal. The regeneration pot will take you from a simple slapback to a nice gentle decay of a few repeats then all the way to taking off into inner space with just a turn of the pot! Engage the modulation button and the EKKO 616 DARK takes on a whole new personality, from subtle chorusing or beautiful vibrato to way WAY beyond. Choose between true bypass or buffered bypass. The EKKO 616 DARK’s buffer circuit is smooth and transparent, even with many pedals on your board. Tired of annoying volume drops? An internal trimpot (labeled “gain”) will allow you to set the EKKO 616 DARK’s level to your specific setup.

At Malekko, we are constantly looking at ways to improve our products. Our EKKO 616 DARK uses the highest quality components to provide you the ultimate expression of our vision. Enjoy. Well, I say, enjoy.

Check out Dennis Kayser’s great example of what this delay is all about HERE.

BYPASS CIRCUIT:

The bypass circuit is only active when the effect is off. Choosing buffered will light the LED; true is LED off.
If you have the buffered bypass circuit on and the LED goes out when you engage the effect, the pedal is working correctly.

DELAY TIME FIDELITY:

In any analog delay, its longest time settings result in lower fidelity and may even generate odd sound artifacts. And that’s why we love this design!