Boss Re-20

UnclePsychosis

Quite fancy one of these---I've always been into the whole dub/reggae/noiserock/postpunk thing.

Will the Re-20 float my boat or are there betterererer options these days? Bearing in mind I already have a DD-7.

ICBM

The RE-20 is excellent and does things the DD-7 won't, if it's that actual Space Echo sound you want. It's very accurate and even nails the original's brilliantly terrible reverb perfectly. I've nearly bought one a couple of times but been put off by the sheer size of the thing compared to a standard Boss pedal… but now I've stripped my board down I've been thinking about it again.

Flanging_Fred

If you want dub then the RE-20 is definately a good pedal for you.  I've had both the dd7 and re20 (at the same time)  and as @ICBM says, the re-20 can do stuff the dd7 can't get close to and really excels at them skankin' dub sounds. Chuck a phaser in front of it and it gets even more authentic.

UnclePsychosis

Yeah, its freakin' huge but to be fair DD-7 plus tap tempo switch is a bit awkward anyway. Although add in an expression pedal and the RE-20 is getting up to stupidly big.

Hmm.

Grunfeld

The RE-20 definitely has a unique thing going on -- the crappy reverb somehow just works wonderfully in this pedal. 
Connect an expression pedal to it and you can control self-oscillation (or a few other things too).
Also worth a mention is the Ibanez ES2 because it can do the self-oscillation thing really well at the flick of a switch.  A nice pedal but doesn't do multi-head or reverb.

Dopesick

Weird - there's been a lot of interest in this pedal the last few days all of a sudden from many different places (including interest from me).

There's one in the classifieds at a good price. The size does put me off though.

EricTheWeary

I've dreamed of an RE20 in a better form factor or that the prices would tumble but no sign of either happening, over £200 new now  which is getting close to all singing all dancing delay territory. 

Even bigger and a bit more expensive is the Korg SDD3000, bear with, the Boss is popular for dub type stuff because the Space Echo was the best known dub tool but the first rack mount Korg delays basically replaced them in Jamaican studios. The SD3000 has analog and tape and digital voices as well as it's own voice and smart use of how you could use an expression pedal. At the point I ever feel I have any money I'm quite tempted but it wouldn't so much be on my board as be my board! 

The EQD Avalanche Run is delay+reverb with a lot of dub style options. Excellent for the well heeled knob twiddler although the delay voicing is rather modern. Really covers the live dub stuff well though.

Plus there's the new Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe and the DOD Rubberneck which is analogue based rather than tape emulating but same price as an RE20. Both also big. Not seen a price on the Deluxe yet although I'd guess £300.

Ooh, nearly forgot, the Mooer Ocean Machine is out soon  which has more knobs than a Tory government but you get up to two delays and reverb at once. Seen as an ambient effect I guess but on paper lots of dub noise potential. Big,etc,etc.

To my way of thinking all of these, including the RE20, need an expression pedal to get the best out of them. Although as these are passive devices they don't really have to sit on your board if space is tight, just plug in as required 

shady

EricTheWeary said:

To my way of thinking all of these, including the RE20, need an expression pedal to get the best out of them.

Not really dude - the tap tempo switch will do the crazy warp feedback thing when you hold it down.  The other big box delays just do way too much IMO, whereas the RE-20 is so easy to get great sounds out of without having to deal with a multitude of knobage, deep editing and option paralysis.

EricTheWeary

shady said:

EricTheWeary said:

To my way of thinking all of these, including the RE20, need an expression pedal to get the best out of them.

Not really dude - the tap tempo switch will do the crazy warp feedback thing when you hold it down.  The other big box delays just do way too much IMO, whereas the RE-20 is so easy to get great sounds out of without having to deal with a multitude of knobage, deep editing and option paralysis.

Forgotten that about the RE20, although ideally you could do something else apart from the warp feature. That's what I like about the Avalanche Run - plug in an expression pedal and it can do a bunch of different things at the twist of a knob. Things I don't like about it but for easy dubby craziness it seems a bit of a winner ( if I had £300 floating around of course). 

shady

If Boss did decide to release a compact version of the Space Echo they'd make a killing...surely?

ICBM

shady said:

If Boss did decide to release a compact version of the Space Echo they'd make a killing...surely?

I would have thought so. It depends if the chip set could be got into a compact enclosure, probably - they'd also have to lose one control (probably the input level, or have a single tone control), since the most they could get on is six (three stacked pots) plus the mode selector, and I think those are only 11-position on the small pedals so they would probably drop the reverb-only setting.

I think I would buy one though.

alalalkasar

The re-20 is the pedal that stopped me lusting after delay pedals. Sure its a bit bulky and only really does one thing but in a band mix it sounds fantastic, even the shitty reverb sits nicely.
The only other delay I've used majorly since I got it (6 years ago?) is the delay setting on my Boss rv-3. 

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

shady said:

If Boss did decide to release a compact version of the Space Echo they'd make a killing...surely?

I would have thought so. It depends if the chip set could be got into a compact enclosure, probably - they'd also have to lose one control (probably the input level, or have a single tone control), since the most they could get on is six (three stacked pots) plus the mode selector, and I think those are only 11-position on the small pedals so they would probably drop the reverb-only setting.

I think I would buy one though.

I wondered if they would kill it off or update it when the DD500 came out as they ended the DD20 but not yet. Quite a few compact pedals on the market now with tape delay voicings so you'd think they might want to keep up in some way. 

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

I wondered if they would kill it off or update it when the DD500 came out as they ended the DD20 but not yet. Quite a few compact pedals on the market now with tape delay voicings so you'd think they might want to keep up in some way. 

To be honest I don't mind as long as they don't replace it with something with the horrible angled metal switches like the DD500.

UnclePsychosis

Well none of you tried very hard to put me off so I have one incoming to try out. 

Thanks for nothing ya filthy animals ;-)

noisepolluter

I'd only change two things about mine - firstly, the input control and cosm 'preamp' still being active when the effect is switched off: I think this is just an overly slavish reproduction of an original 'feature' and I can't see many people choosing this over a standard buffered bypass. Have it as switchable at least!

Secondly, I'd happily see the treble and bass controls combined into a single tone control so that a tempo subdivision control could be added. 

UnclePsychosis

Well pretty much what you all said - it's huge, it doesn't do a lot, but it sounds glorious. Think this one will be staying, now to shoehorn it onto my board... 

ESBlonde

I have a tape roland RE501 chorus echo but it's huge so stays at home. The RE20 sits on my pedal board and does it live for me. Would buy again etc....

bbill335

noisepolluter said:

I'd only change two things about mine - firstly, the input control and cosm 'preamp' still being active when the effect is switched off: I think this is just an overly slavish reproduction of an original 'feature' and I can't see many people choosing this over a standard buffered bypass. Have it as switchable at least!

This is why I'm a bit fed up with the re20. I want to try something smaller that you can actually bypass. Still sounds great though. 

Cookiemonster

I would like to buy one myself. A lot of artists I like use them

Sporky

I loved mine. Glorious sounding thing.