WEM Copicat Preamp+Boost

This is the preamp section of the WEM Copicat tape echo, rebuilt in a pedalboard enclosure. The British-made Copicat was the affordable alternative to the rarer American tape units, and a large part of what people hear on sixties and seventies records is not the repeats at all but that preamp stage colouring everything that passed through it. Putting the circuit in a pedal gives you the same lift and the same tone-shaping without a transport to service or a tape loop to replace.

Two controls do the work. Level delivers more than 20 dB of boost, which is enough to use it as a clean lift into a console or to push a valve amp's front end into breakup. Freq sets the bass response: turned up it fills out a thin single-coil, turned down it trims an over-fat humbucker before it hits the amp. It runs at either 9 V or 18 V, and the higher rail buys extra headroom and a more responsive feel under the pick.