What's your favorite delay pedal?

Gary Rue · Post by **Gary Rue** » 4 Jun 2018 2:44 am

looking for true bypass, extended battery life (done with wall warts,extension cords, and pedal boxes). I want simplicity. Easy battery change, no more than 3 knobs. (no loopers,poopers, or scoopers.) I have a carbon copy on my guitar rig which has been good. My favorite sound is echo plex but can't deal with the upkeep. Anything out there I don't know about?

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 4 Jun 2018 7:56 am

My favorite simple delay pedal is the carbon copy.

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 4 Jun 2018 11:17 am

Digital delay pedal eat batteries and you will be lucky if you get through 1 gig before a battery dies.

There are many good delay pedals on the market. I use a Boss DD-3.

Ken Metcalf · Post by **Ken Metcalf** » 4 Jun 2018 2:39 pm

https://reverb.com/p/mooer-echoverb-dig ... id=4609319

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 4 Jun 2018 8:28 pm

As Len said, they eat batteries - use a power supply, but make [sure it's the right type!

I prefer an older Ibanez AD9 analog delay - Analog units sound much warmer and richer than digital delays.

I have not found a digital unit I've liked. They sound too clinical with brittle overtone I don't care for at all.

The Carbon Copy, BTW, is analog.

Gary Rue · Post by **Gary Rue** » 5 Jun 2018 3:06 am

I hoped what I knew was improved on. Back to the board with power adapter or fly with just reverb.

George Kimery · Post by **George Kimery** » 5 Jun 2018 6:57 am

Always used an RV-3 for delay and reverb ,Got a Wet Reverb pedal and quit delay altogether. I hear just a little delay in it, which suits me just fine.

Chris Tarrow · Post by **Chris Tarrow** » 5 Jun 2018 7:20 am

I haven't used it, but have heard good things about the Catalinabread Belle Epoch, based on the Echoplex. Not sure there is a high quality delay pedal that doesn't eat batteries though, they all seem pretty power hungry.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 5 Jun 2018 7:44 am

I like either a Boss DD-2 or DD-3.
Erv

Michael Butler · Post by **Michael Butler** » 5 Jun 2018 8:37 am

strymon timeline.

play music!

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 5 Jun 2018 8:55 am

Is there a pedal you guys like that does a dotted-eighth note easily?
I want to Tap in the beat of the song, but have the repeat come out as a dotted-eighth note.

Chris Tarrow · Post by **Chris Tarrow** » 5 Jun 2018 10:04 am

I have the Diamond Memory Lane Jr. which will do that on the toggle switch. Nice pedal. I think their "Counterpoint" pedal has the same feature, but I'm not sure what the differences are. I see them for sale often on thegearpage.net.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 5 Jun 2018 12:02 pm

I have a cheap Rogue "Analog Delay" on my pedal steel board now. The normal MF type price is $49.99, but they have them on sale for $29.99 fairly often, and last month had them for $24.99 - I got 2. I see GC has them for $34.99 now. For this kind of thing, I'm a cheapskate.

It's not a bucket-brigade delay, which is discrete-time but analog-amplitude, which is what most purists call an "analog delay", but is not really "pure analog". The Rogue and many pedals like it (I think this is pretty much the same as a Mod and Belcat pedal) are based on the PT2399 chip, which is technically a "digital" delay in the sense that both time and amplitude are discretized. But I find the PT2399 to be somewhere in between bucket-brigade and what I think are the more standard digital delay chips. I find the delayed copies to be warmer than the super-clean digital delay pedals I've tried but not as dark-sounding as the bucket-brigades that I have usually tended to use.

For lack of a better word, I really do find this delay to be pretty "natural". Definitely not fancy at all - 3 knobs for delay level, delay time, and repeats. The battery requires unscrewing the bottom - but it's pretty easy if you just use 2 screws to hold it together. But the rated current draw is only 20ma, which should give reasonably good battery life for a delay. I use with a One Spot on my board, so I can't tell you how long an alkaline will really last. It's also true-bypass - I checked with ohmmeter to make sure. I absolutely require true bypass. The enclosure is solid metal more or less like an MXR pedal, pretty tough. The main disadvantages are

1. Delay time range is limited - something like 40-50ms to 350ms. This works for me for pedal steel, but the shortest isn't quite short enough to split the beat on a really fast rockabilly guitar tune and the longest isn't going to give really trippy space-echo guitar effects.

2. Maxing the repeats won't give self-oscillation of the repeats, if you care about that. Again, that limits trippy space-echo effects, but that's not what I use this pedal for. I have a pristine old Echoplex and various other delays.

3. Components are surface mounted on the board, so you should have pretty good soldering chops to make mods. It's possible to mod to increase the delay time range and make it self-oscillate, but most people will probably be put off by the touchiness of dealing with the surface-mounted components.

Otherwise, I really like this delay for pedal steel and most guitar applications. I yanked a much more expensive delay pedal off the steel board because this one just sounded better for pedal steel to me. And when they're on sale for under $30, I don't see how one can go too far wrong. I see videos of Ashley Kingman with Big Sandy using one, it's just a straightforward, clean delay. Don't know how it handles being overdriven since I try not to do that.

But YMMV - some people really like these, and others don't.

Cartwright Thompson · Post by **Cartwright Thompson** » 5 Jun 2018 12:17 pm

If not the Timeline then the El Capistan.

Tommy Shown · Post by **Tommy Shown** » 5 Jun 2018 1:39 pm

I have a Boss DD3 I use- depending on where I am playing. Or sometime I hook up to my Pro-Fex.

Jack Ritter · Post by **Jack Ritter** » 5 Jun 2018 1:59 pm

Boss DD3

Joseph Napolitano · Post by **Joseph Napolitano** » 5 Jun 2018 6:43 pm

I've always been happy with carbon copy.

Gary Peaslee · Post by **Gary Peaslee** » 5 Jun 2018 8:32 pm

Hey Pete - Randy Beavers recently posted about the Strymon Dig pedal. It can do what you want and is a great sounding pedal.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 6 Jun 2018 4:15 am

My favorite DDL pedal is a tiny Guyatone MD2 that I bought years ago,I only use it when I'm trying to mimic Sneaky Pete,I use long delays with 3 repeats.I lent this pedal to a guy a few years ago he gave it back without the the battery connector like I couldn't tell,Fellow steel player and Forumite Bryan Daste was kind enough to fix it for me so I'm back to using it.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 6 Jun 2018 4:17 am

Oh?I use a boss power adapter with the Guyatone MD2.

Jack Hanson · Post by **Jack Hanson** » 6 Jun 2018 5:19 am

All I use a delay for is a little slapback, so I don't need anything fancy. I have a couple digital BOSS units (DD-5 & DD-7), and a Digitech Hardwire DL-8. Although packed with features, most of which I would never use, the digital units all sound sterile and clinical to my old ears. A year or so ago I took a chance on an inexpensive Joyo JF-33 unit, which is supposedly based on the Carbon Copy. Although these cheap pedals get a bad rap from some, mine still works fine and it sounds far warmer than the digital units from BOSS and Digitech. I've always used a BOSS PS-120 power supply, so I have no clue how fast it eats batteries. For under $30.00 delivered, it's a nice little pedal in my opinion.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 6 Jun 2018 6:33 am

FWIW, the Joyo JF-33 is in fact a 2399 based unit like the Rogue. This freestompboxes.org thread shows gut shots - http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17484 - I don't know of any of the cheap Chinese-made "analog" delays that are true bucket-brigade discrete-time, analog-amplitude circuits. All the ones I've looked at are digital delays that emulate an analog delay's tone.

As I said in my synopsis of the Rogue, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I think the Joyo has a bit larger delay range (specs say 440ms). I assume that trades off some noise - usually getting longer delays raises the noise floor. I opted for the Rogue due to far fewer "DOA or died early" reviews than some of the others, and of course the price. I've had one for the last 3 years with no issues, and both of the ones I got last month worked as expected out of the box.

David Sheads · Post by **David Sheads** » 6 Jun 2018 7:14 am

Not battery-operated (and a hefty price tag, but the same price as a strymon timeline), but I love my Empress Echosystem Dual Engine Delay.

You can dial in two delays, that run either parallel (they process and output the original sound independently of one another) or in series (output of one goes into the next engine), and they can be synced to a single tap, or one can be synced to tap while the other stays locked. There is a bit of a learning curve to get it all programmed to your liking.

My favorite setting is to combine a long-ish (less than 1/2 a second) single repeat delay using their echoplex simulation, and also run a very short, quiet, longer feedback delay on their "delay+reverb" setting, which I prefer over the reverb available on the NV 112.

While it does have way too many knobs, it also has presets and a tap tempo, so once you dial in what you like and save it, it's nothing to call up one of your favorites and quickly adjust it to the tempo of the song.

It also has a "whisky" setting, FYI.

nice demo video here: https://youtu.be/cc_FogsZkrY

Pete - this has a "ratio" setting that would let you tap in a tempo and get out the correct ratio. Other pedals do that as well - look for one with both a tap tempo and ratio knob.

Karen Sarkisian · Post by **Karen Sarkisian** » 6 Jun 2018 7:15 am

Wampler Faux Analog Echo gets my vote.

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 7 Jun 2018 7:42 am

I keep a Wampler Tape Delay pedal in my seat for quick gigs that I don't bring my Benado Steel Dream--I use the battery and it will last for multiple gig uses....

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What's your favorite delay pedal?

What's your favorite delay pedal?

thanks

What,'s your favorite delay?