Caroline Megabyte Lo-Fi Delay Computer Pedal

In 2013 Philippe Herndon and Caroline Guitar Co. Made a major contribution to the pedal world when they gave birth to the world’s first ever compact Lo-Fi Delay pedal. The Kilobyte was an instant success and to date has sold well over 3,000 units and is spotted on some of the most recognizable pedalboards to grace the stage all over the world. Shortly after, we began to see other companies taking a page out of their book either doing a similar pedal or adding a “Lo-Fi” preset to their delay pedals.

It was only a matter of time until Philippe and company took the original idea of the Kilobyte and removed some of its restraints to create a new and unique delay that takes all of what we loved about this now iconic pedal and adds a slew of new features that truly make it worthy of its lineage. However, Megabyte is not just an updated Kilobyte. It’s its own pedal, with its voice, and will tell its own story.

Megabyte is a “Delay Computer” not an analog delay. While the Kilo’s delay time was produced using a simple resistor, the Mega uses a microcontroller to achieve the effect. The addition of this microcontroller opened up a new world of possibilities and allowed the designers to basically “take the gloves off” and give it everything that they wanted.

For starters, it allows for longer delay time, the option of trails/true once the pedal is bypassed, deeper modulation, and tap tempo. While it used the same “PT2399” chip that produced the famous Kilobyte-sound, Megabyte has two of these in series. This gives it twice the delay time (1200ms of clean delay) as well as a darker, smoother sound than its predecessor. The bypass can either be set to “Trails” (the LED will be blue) or “True” (the LED will be red). You can choose this easily by holding down the Bypass switch. The tap works a bit differently than other delays out there. It only averages the distance between your last two clicks. This allows for quicker tempo changes as well as a beautiful, glitchy-type tape simulation if you so desire.

Sharing the tap switch is the all-important “Havok” switch (what is a CGC pedal without Havok, anyway??). The Havok trigger on this pedal is quick (really quick!). Just holding it down for two-tenths of a second will get it moving. You can even open the pedal up and adjust the Havok onset intensity via internal trim. Also on the inside, there is a Limiter Switch that controls whether the Havok clips or continues to get louder as well as a Dry Kill switch that allows for a 100% wet signal.

With all of these new features and options, Caroline has still managed to pack A TON into their standard, already existing footprint. The result is a smart, user-friendly device that is little brother to nobody.