MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay

What can I say about this wonderful little green gem that hasn't been said before? Amazingly beautiful sounds, from quirky slapback to dreamlike delay soundscapes, organic feeling that doesn't alter the core of your sound and on top of that a mod button that gets you even further.
I was amazed by how naturally this pedals sits in the mix with a full band and also how it plays well with other pedals. I often use it for slapback delay with the Malekko trem and the Boss FRV-1 reverb in my surf/rockabilly band for both riffing and soloing and I always get praised for my sound and other times I use it with my psychedellic rock band and mix it with some vibe or wah or fuzz, it always delivers....
Another thing, the oscillation you can get out of this pedal is absolutely wonderful! I've experienced musically heavenly intros and outros just by using it as an oscillation machine!
The quality is great, I bought mine years ago from thomann, have used at home, in studio and live and so far absolutely zero problems and not even a nick on its wonderful colour!
Above all this pedal has character. It's one of those pedals that are destined to become classics one day. It's a permanent addition to any of my pedalboards and expect it to be for years to come.

I bought the Carbon Copy for the warm analogue sound and was using it in front of the amp. That worked and sounded fine. Recently I switched to Marshall for my amp and I now use the 410h for my distortion. Having the CC before the amps distortion does not work, the echoes get muffled and distorted. So the solution is to put the CC in the (parallel) FX loop, so the distortion comes before the delay.

That will create a lot of issues depending on the amp and other effects you are using. The CC does not have a Kill Dry switch what you would like to use in this situation. The Mix knob will help somewhat to make it work. Putting the CC between two buffered pedals helped as well in keeping the CC as my favourite analogue delay. Search for it online and you will find many many hits of people having this issue. It could work for you too, but all depends on your other pedals and amp.

A good tip, use 12V it will give you some more headroom and the repaeats are a bit clearer.

Hey fellow guitar players,

This review will be about the MXR Carbon Copy and will represent my experience and subjective opinion about this wonderful delay pedal.

First things first: The Carbon Copy is far beyond what I imagined it would be like to work with. (FYI this was my first real delay pedal ever. Thus far, I had only digital substitutes.)
My overall impression is really positive. From sound, to handling, to quality and to feeling it is one thing: A pedal with an unique character. Just from the first time I plugged it in and until now after a recent concert I did with it, it never ceased to amaze me. I have it for about 2 months now.

Sound:
Well, I didn't grew up in the late 60s or 70s, but I'm feeling like this is the real deal. It gives me the charming pleasure of warm, wobbling, floating delay sounds with decreasing volume to the end of the delay time. With the "mod" button engaged the soundshape dives into a marvelous chorus/vibrato like mood, which I have on nearly everytime.
In the mix, with other pedals such as reverb or a Volume/Wah turned on, the Carbon Copy stays brilliant and the character of its sound is organically noticable.
It also has pretty sick self-oscillation going on, which always amazes me and never gets out of control!

Features:
It has nothing less or more than needed for a creative use I would say. You can get familiar with its possibilities really quick and theres nothing bad to say about it. Everything works great.

Quality:
Beautiful (spacy green color is soooo fancy), Solid, Heavy. No reason to not love it.


In conclusion, I can only say one thing: I fell in love with it. Give it a shot if you adore analoge sounds and an organic feeling. You will love it.
The price is a bit higher than other brand's delay pedals, but it is reasonable and it is totally worth it!

Enjoy music.

I bought this product mainly for playing leads and for that it works perfect. It makes the sound more full, it pops out the mix, so it does perfectly what I wanted.
An analog delay has a natural decay, so it is soft, perfect for leads. If you want a real delay the repeats the signal multiple times over a longer time, then you need a digital delay.
It also easy to tune. Set the number of repeats, the length of the repeat a how much it should be blend in. I have put them all around 10-12 o'clock and just does the trick with overwhelming it. For slow leads you can give it more, but for faster stuff, don't overdo it.

I bought this pedal about a year ago. I don't have much to say except that I like it very much. There is a quality to the sound that I enjoy. It sounds very tactile to me. I totally forget that it is an electronic device. I mainly use this pedal either as a kind of analogue reverb for my tube amp, or as a medium length delay when playing unaccompanied guitar arrangements.

The mod button is also nicely done. I use it to just give my sound a little twist. Sometimes I like to mess around with the delay at maximum to create minimalist type textures. This works well too.

Most of my pedals come on and off my board depending on my mood but this one almost never comes off. I would recommend it.

It's plain to see why the Carbon Copy is so popular. It's a fantastic sounding analog delay, very simple to use but also surprisingly versatile.

When played clean, it can product a gorgeous chorus-like delay effect with modulation to provide width and body to the sound all the way through to short slap-back delay sounds or small-room reverb, and the internal trim pots are a great addition and allow the speed and depth of the modulation to be adjusted.

Using it with overdriven sounds requires more conservative settings to Keep the sound tasteful, but the Carbon Copy can easily give you a great delay for both rhythm and lead playing.

Build-wise, there's nothing to complain about. It's solid, well-built and great-looking and compact, and a great addition to any pedalboard.