UAFX Orion: The Echoplex You Always Wanted But Couldn’t Have

The UAFX Orion is a faithful recreation of the Maestro Echoplex EP-III that wonderfully recreates the tapey vibe and goodness of the original. Sweetwater affiliate link: sweetwater.sjv.io/3eorZy
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Levy's guitar strap: sweetwater.sjv.io/LXaq7Y
Ibanez QXQM54: sweetwater.sjv.io/oqqqob
TC Electronic Polytune 3 Mini Tuner: sweetwater.sjv.io/q444Ag
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Strymon Riverside Compressor: sweetwater.sjv.io/eK4mZO
Strymon Iridium: sweetwater.sjv.io/5gb402
Morley Volume Pedal: sweetwater.sjv.io/9geOVE
UAFX Orion Tape Delay: sweetwater.sjv.io/3eorZy
UAFX Golden Reverberator: sweetwater.sjv.io/jrZB2P
Adam Audio AH8 Monitor: sweetwater.sjv.io/9gGP03
Argosy Halo Plus Studio Desk: sweetwater.sjv.io/Pyj97Q
Focusrite Clarett 8Pre USB: Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/anRm7M
iZotope Ozone 10 Advanced: Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/ZQb17k
Avantone MixCube: sweetwater.sjv.io/0ZQ74J
ART Pro MPA Mic Preamp: sweetwater.sjv.io/21kq4Q
Chords of Orion - Ambient guitar is life
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Video Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:38 What is the Orion?
01:37 Preamp: Fat Lovely Tones
02:59 Tape Age Options
04:45 Record Level
07:12 Wonk!
08:44 Delay Times
09:44 Feedback!
11:06 Self Oscillation
11:48 Playing over Self Oscillation
13:41 Orion + Reverb = Heaven!
15:16 Final Thoughts

[@samseitz9937]

Dang I thought for a second this was a signature pedal haha. Next time!

[@jfo3000]

Could very well be inspired by Bill, IMO. Bill is the delay guy.

[@Tomtoms-tomtoms]

Jeez man, you’re costing me a fortune 😂..l take no personal responsibility, my spending on gear is YOUR FAULT… seriously though, I need one of these. Love the channel, you have good vibes 🙏☘️☘️☘️

[@captaincat40]

You always have some of the best gear reviews Bill.

[@avpostbox]

So, finally Chords of Orion Signature pedal has arrived! :) Thanks for the demo!

[@GreenEyedRecords]

Great review and YES, the preamp addition is a fantastic addition that makes this quite unique

[@paulstuartbuckby5134]

Great video! Very skilled, knowledgeable and entertaining. I want one of these! Oh boy!!

[@adammindykowski6984]

That's a cool tape delay, Bill. The preamp and record level features really do give it an edge. I really liked that you could distort the repeats whilst keeping the dry signal clean, but with that lovely rich preamp tone. Nice one Universal Audio!

[@davidsummerville351]

Cool pedal for a dirty sound. Echo with tone options. Love the fullness, so many echo pedals thin out the eq. The tape age features sound great. Excellent review as always.

[@solal94]

super informative ad, thanks

[@niclastname]

Idc what they say, they definitely named the pedal for/after you! 😄 I would totally get this just to always have it set to old tape with max Wonk. It sounds awesome! It gives it a unique sound compared to other delays I've tried.

[@treyhollenbeck1966]

awesome video! I have the UAD Starlight, and this seems to be the tape section of that pedal but in a smaller, mono form. personally, I'll be sticking with the starlight, as I love the other delay options, plus all the bells and whistles like tap tempo and saving a preset. I can definitely see the appeal of the orion though, with the smaller form factor definitely being a plus. looks like it's available brand new for not much less than what I paid for a used starlight; if anyone likes this pedal but wants to get a bit more out of it, including a memory man and an excellent clean digital delay, check out the starlight! Thanks for another awesome pedal review, as always :)

[@jpdenk]

A very cool pedal, may have to pick up one of those in the future! Bill, I'm wondering why you haven't done a video on that Golden Reverberator. I'd would love to hear what you think about that pedal. IMO, it's one of the best reverb pedals ever made. It does the bread and butter reverbs as well as doing very ambient reverbs fantastically well.

[@crapmalls]

Plex of orion

[@JosephCompton66]

I feel like my volante does the same thing and it has a great spring reverb. But his pedal is cool.

[@Garflips]

Neat stuff! I've got an older Seymour Duncan DejaVu delay pedal that has an insert for the feedback which lets you inject distortion, pitch changes, modulation etc just on the delay portion. I believe EH has a similar function on their Memory Man. A highly underrated feature. Say I don't know if you ever do retrospectives on any artists, but I can't imagine Steve Tibbetts and the Yr album wasn't an influence on you as well. The opening track still puts chills down my spine after a thousand listens. Cheers!!

[@chordsoforion]

Thanks! Regarding Steve Tibbitts and Yr - he made it to my "10 guitarists who changed my life" video. :-) kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIich6l-mrFjgLM

[@Garflips]

@@chordsoforion just watched that and commented. 😁

[@RyansCustomShopandGearOutlet]

I should've never sold my Echoplex or my Fulltone SSTE. I've never found a pedal that sounds as good as real analog tape. My closest favorite is the Strymon Volante. I'll have to check this one out for sure.

[@dasczwo]

No you shouldnt. But you did. I should have bought it. But i diddnt. Dang. Oh Life.

[@RyansCustomShopandGearOutlet]

@@dasczwo yes, life. Lol! The Fulltone SSTE is a much better unit. The nostalgia crowd might disagree, but Mike engineered a much more reliable machine with better features. I'm always on the lookout for another SSTE.

[@DVDFRMN]

You must be stoked they named the pedal after you...

[@willdenham]

What do you think of the Echosex Binson drum style emulation pedals.

[@jamesfoxall7413]

Great review Bill, but I have an EP-3 and this doesn't sound like mine or others I've played. The Worn option introduced a weird distortion in the video - almost a mild crispiness. That's not my experience with worn tape in a real EP-3. I look forward to the day someone nails this piece of gear but to me this is another close but not quite right option. I am in the UA ecosystem and honestly never liked the Echoplex plugin either. It's fine - but if you've played a real one then the pedals just don't capture that magic about how an Echoplex handles the degradation of the repeats. That said the Echoplex is a finicky beast at times and you need to have a good tech. You also need to demagnetize heads and clean rollers, and may even need to create your own tape loops if you can't source tape (been there). A pedal is certainly an easier experience! :)

[@lanceholland]

Versus the El Cap?

[@JeffHendricks]

How can you *not* buy a pedal called the "Orion?!"

[@johnsmith-lb4mo]

With the free DAWs that are available these days with all their effects, are pedals still value for money? are pedals actually still needed?

[@richietownsend6737]

Absolutely, pedals are needed and worth the money for finding the sounds I’m hearing in my head. I have no interest in DAWs, but pedals are a blast to play with. It’s fun to play them in different settings and experiment with different pedal orders. Sometimes I have a very small pedalboard, and sometimes NASA Mission Control. I’m a computer illiterate old dude that could never deal with computers onstage with me. ☮️☮️

[@RocketinExile]

great video..what compressor r u using?..sounds amazing

[@chordsoforion]

Thanks! The compressor was a Strymon Compadre.

[@RocketinExile]

Thank you@@chordsoforion

[@wheresallthezombies]

How is this compared to the strymon el cap?

[@thomas79marshall]

yes

[@GwynAshtonMusic]

UA Orion vs starlight

[@giulioluzzardi7632]

That Guitar is an axe with 6 strings on it!

[@brunoantony9257]

yes first comment. I like your videos BTW

[@m.u.t.e]

Hi its this not you signature?😅

[@SuperOhdannyboy]

Still can’t have it each of these pedals are $350

[@phladjki]

these are more like $220

[@noveltycrusade]

You don't make it easy to stop buying guitar pedals😢

[@iangray7904]

got mine today, kinda cheap feeling and looking. the sounds are great ...build quality isn't as good. made in china

[@dasczwo]

Sorry uafx, im getting fed up: yes bring prices down. But a digital mono pedal in 2023 is just DUMB. I was promised flying cars, you make it mono and skimp on bluetooth…. Product crippling TE style. Btw spit that plexi pedal out, ruby wants company.

[@phladjki]

It’s only about $200. That’s pretty standard for a mono high quality digital pedal. For example, an EHX Oceans 11 is $176. This is markedly higher quality and not much more expensive. The prices on these are reasonable.

[@dasczwo]

@@phladjki 200€ is not cheap. Flashback delay2? Very fine… 80 bucks. I can get a stellar real analog delay built piece by piece by loving human hands like jam delay lama for 200. My point is: they diddnt HAVE to make it mono. They did it so you by the expensive one. Its just a dsp chip running some plugin. I paid already a lot for many boxes. Inside: the same ol dsp running some plugin having just some knobs. Point: a dsp based pedal has no hard reason to be mono. Its by design. I think thats dumb.

[@eaglebauer944]

​@@dasczwoYou get the Orion for 179€ from Thomann, and the Flashback for 149€. Are these 30 bucks really worth all the whining?

[@bumbum4592]

Too much dirt