Echo Cat by Waves Factory (5 Features You Should Know)

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Based on a classic

Invented in 1958 by Charlie Watkins*, the Copicat* delay was an instant hit. Featured in countless albums from the 60s and 70s and used by great bands like The Shadows and Pink Floyd. Primarily designed for guitar, it’s now a sought after piece of equipment in studios around the world. Echo Cat brings back the sound and behaviour of the original unit with authentic tape simulation and three playback heads. With added extra features that any modern delay plugin should have. These include M/S processing, tempo sync delay times, filters on the feedback path, varispeed, modulation and ducking.

One of the best tape echos perfectly replicated as an audio plugin. Retaining the original sound and offering modern features like ducking, M/S and tempo sync. Echo Cat is all that you ever wanted a tape echo to be.

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Why You'll Love Echo Cat

Drive the input to get that crushed tape sound. Push the sustain up to 100% to get that typical self-oscillation. Vintage sound with modern control.

Authentic sound

Tape simulation

Modern features

Authentic sound

Tape simulation

Modern features

Let look at the Echo Cat's features

1. Main

In the main section, you can see a representation of the original Copicat* with the record and erase heads, and the three playback heads. You can also see the tape loop that spins continuously.

On the top, you have the navigation tabs and on the bottom, you can see the commonly most used parameters.

2. Heads

Each head can be controlled in great detail. You can either have it time synced to the tempo of your host or you can set the time freely in milliseconds. With volume, pan and LP/HP filters for each head.

On the left, you can see that there are three LED indicators which show you if there is signal on the selected head.

3. Tape

Control the sound of the tape loop. Includes mono/stereo hiss, artefacts (or cat-ifacts) containing wow and flutter for recreating the fluctuations on the tape speed, tape age with asperity noise and erasures, and signal loss which is random high-frequency compression.

The “Loop Gap” parameter mimics the tape loop joint, where the tape is physically looped.

4. Motor

In the “Motor” section you can find control over HUM (low-frequency noise produced by electric current). There was a Copicat* model in the 70s that featured Varispeed, with which you could control the speed of the motor at will.

With Echo Cat, you can also modulate the Varispeed amount using an LFO.

5. Master

Lower the volume of the wet signal when the dry signal is presently using Ducking and don’t let the delay signal get in the way of the main signal. Apply filters outside the feedback loop. Control the mid and side volumes separately.

Make Echo Cat mono, stereo or fake stereo with a 5ms delay only on the right channel.

Audio Demos

– Analog Analect – Minimal-esque dance elements, where you can hear where I used ramping up of Sustain for transitions.
– Chillaxologie – Lots of Echo Cat for a dreamy, relaxed vibe.
– Echo Pianos – Echo Cat really shines on this, to fill in and add depth during the spaces in-between!
– Elastic Reflections – Starts with 8 bars dry-ish, then Echo Cat kicks in. Repeated figure which gets additional layers.
– Listen for Trails – Sequencer burbling with Echo Cat, then drums kick in. I use some dub-style on the snares and such later on.
– Cloning Kittens – Centered on the dance floor, Echo Cat helps this production with warbly transition effects.