Elysium

Aion FX from Des Moines, IA has helped guitarists build studio-quality effects since 2011. They excel at rescuing discontinued designs with notorious reliability issues.

The Elysium recreates the Ibanez EM5 Echomachine (1996-2000), part of the Soundtank 5 Series. The circuit uses a PT2399-style digital chip with analog interface, heavy filtering, and a diode-clipping overdrive stage similar to the Tube Screamer to emulate tape delay units from the 1970s.

The original EM5's JFET switching was notoriously unreliable - the Aion version converts it to true bypass while keeping the signal path identical. This rare Soundtank pedal has gained cult status for its warm, degraded repeats that sound far more expensive than its budget origins suggest.