Tap Tempo, how do you guys use it with steel?

[James Mayer]

After a long and expensive search, I have two delays that I love and can't replace. Ibanez DE-7 and Maestro EP-4 Echoplex. Neither have tap tempo.

What am I missing? Is the point to hide the delay while still being effective or to emphasize the delay in some experimental fashion? I don't hear a lot of steel recordings that emphasize the use of delay, so I'm guessing it's the former.

[b0b]

I tap it in time to the music, or sync it via MIDI to the drummer's clock. If you don't have a tap button or footswitch, it's hard to get it in sync. Random echo length unrelated to the music tempo doesn't sound very musical, in my opinion.

[James Mayer]

I tap it in time to the music, or sync it via MIDI to the drummer's clock. If you don't have a tap button or footswitch, it's hard to get it in sync. Random echo length unrelated to the music tempo doesn't sound very musical, in my opinion.

I hear ya about the random length. I either have the delay mix turned down pretty low or am using the echo as an obvious effect in which the length is set to taste and has little to do with the tempo.

So, with it in sync, it is "hidden", more or less, right? It's like a less muddy reverb?

[b0b]

Well, it depends. If you tap it on the quarter note and play 8th note licks or arpeggios, you can get low volume harmonies going. But for slow songs, yeah, it's like reverberation.

[Bob Hoffnar]

Depending on the music I generally go for a dotted quarter note ( beat and a half ) for a light delay setting. It blends with the music with being distracting.

[David Mason]

It can be a less-muddy reverb, because it's not reverberating the initial attack right away. If you have a delay with "ducking" it's a godsend - it lowers the volume of the delays below the picked notes, and it only comes back up on the longer notes.

I use a delay a lot as a practice tool, short delays instead of a drum machine, and longer delays to check intonation and try harmonies. A steel guitar lick can be pretty excruciating if it keeps coming back out-of-tune, so it's a good nazi that way.

[b0b]

Depending on the music I generally go for a dotted quarter note ( beat and a half ) for a light delay setting. It blends with the music with being distracting.

Yes, some tap tempo devices give you that option. You tap the quarter note, and the echo setting can be an eighth, dotted quarter, half note, etc.

The coolest one, I think, is a shuffle where the echo is on the third note of an eighth note triplet. Set it for just one repeat (no feedback). Very rock-a-billy.

[Ben Jones]

Im jealous of your echoplex James. i have a real space echo and love it.

Two units that have tap tempo and give emulation of tape delay are the Boss Space echo pedal, and the Line6 DL4. Both are kinda pricey. The DL4 is known for being somewhat prone to breaking down. I want one anyway..they sound really good ot me. huge footprint tho.

boss space echo pedal on forum now at a good price:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=165068
no connection to seller.

[Olli Haavisto]

The new Seymour Duncan Deja Vu, check it out !
The best delay pedal I`ve tried.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/s ... deja_vu_t/

[Bob Hoffnar]

Bob

Yes, some tap tempo devices give you that option. You tap the quarter note, and the echo setting can be an eighth, dotted quarter, half note, etc.

I tap in the dotted quarter note.

[Marc Jenkins]

I happen to like slightly out of time delays in some cases. I find it sounds better with really warm analog pedal, however.

[David Mason]

I think 50-60ms is pretty much standard for a doubling effect; slapback should be a single repeat, adjusted to the tempo but starting around 110ms and up to 220ms or so. With an adjustable rack reverb, I think of a short reverb ("room") as being out to about 700ms including all the repeats inside that, and a long reverb (hall) as being out to 2 or 2.5 seconds, inclusive. But on the reverb boxes where the engineers specify the combined sounds, the longest repeats are very subtle, it rolls off volume as they get longest.

I listen to a fair amount of furry-chested guitar trio stuff - Eric Johnson, the Steve Morse band of the 90's, John Petrucci's solo album etc. Those guys very often kick in the "random" delay to fill out solos. Eric Johnson famously uses 397ms, but it can go up to five or six hundred milliseconds. David Gilmour uses a loo-oong one. I used to really dislike that use of delay when my heroes* did it, but then when you try to play the furry-chested solo style, it can sound pretty lonely out there... However, if you're playing a steel style with a lot of slides between notes, I think you have to be really careful with what the delay is for. If the delay is repeating all the microtones in between every one of your long slow slides and you're playing with a piano, ouch.

*(:roll:)

[b0b]

What is "the furry-chested solo style", David? I'm not familiar with that term, or with the artists you mentioned (other than Gilmore).

[David Mason]

A man... a guitar... dragons to be slain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5llfHPzt ... 9F8AAE3624

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjH118NwQRk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t25AOSxZZkI

(FWIW, Petrucci stole his "bagpipe lick" in "Glasgow Kiss" from Morse's "Highland Wedding".... these guys all sleep together and trade picks n' stuff. You can hear those long delays pinging around in the background on Petrucci & Johnson's cuts particularly.)

[Dan Tyack]

Bob

Yes, some tap tempo devices give you that option. You tap the quarter note, and the echo setting can be an eighth, dotted quarter, half note, etc.

I tap in the dotted quarter note.

Showoff

[Bob Hoffnar]

Showoff

Except for that my motivation is that I'm to dumb to understand the manual.