Chase Bliss Big Time Automatone™ Analog/Digital Echo

It’s been 6 years since Chase Bliss released their last Automatone™ effects unit, the CXM 1978 Reverb, which followed the Preamp MKII from earlier in 2020, setting the pedal world ablaze and changing what we all thought was possible. After a long wait, I’m excited to welcome the Big Time Automatone™ Analog/Digital Echo into the fold. This powerful delay beast is also a collaboration between Chase Bliss and John Snyder from Electronic Audio Experiments, and the sonic prowess from these two great companies really shines from the moment you plug this thing in…let’s check it out!

Big Time is an exploration of the mixed-up circuitry found in rackmount delays from the early 80s, where advanced analog engineering was used to prop up crude digital systems. A handful of highly coveted and mythical echoes emerged from this era, and what makes them so special is that they did everything the hard way. Digital technology was in its infancy and – while it made all kinds of new and very fun things possible – it was also kinda bad. It needed help. So analog circuitry made up the difference – instead of digital or analog, you got both. Big Time arduously replicates the circuit design found in these early delays, but leans alllll the way into the hybrid possibilities, taking the digital/analog teamwork beyond a practical necessity and testing how far it can go.

This pedal has two separate sources of analog coloration: an analog preamp at the front of the circuit, and a clipping limiter within the feedback loop. It includes both a stereo analog preamp at the input stage, and a stereo analog limiter within the delay’s feedback loop. Inside you will find misbiased modulations, dissolving loops, sequenced echoes, and all of the space stuff you could ever want. The anything-is-possible of digital, the everything-sounds-good of analog.

What makes Big Time unique is the limiter. It lives inside of Big Time’s delay line, and it waits for something to get loud. When COLOR or FEEDBACK (or both) are turned up, your signal will begin to bump into it. With each repeat, your digital echoes take on a bit more analog character as they collide with the limiter. How this sounds – and what the limiter is set to do – depends on the STATE button. It’s all interconnected, and the preamp will also impart its own saturation at the input stage when COLOR is turned up. The result is a big, swirling, ever-changing mass of saturated space.

Big Time comes loaded with 10 internal presets, which explore a different part of its personality, and wandering through them is a good way to get a sampling of what’s possible, and how to do it. If that’s not enough, you can use MIDI to store up to 127 presets. Short/long delay, a killer looper section, big fat preamp tones, wicked modulation, true stereo…there’s not a lot this thing can’t do, and exploring it will get you lost for days. Congrats to Chase Bliss and EAE on a monumental delay achievement – I think the Big Time Automatone™ Analog/Digital Echo will go down as one of the greatest delay pedals ever created, and will be deserving of such a title. Don’t forget to check out our demos, too, cheers!