Digital Delays

joeyowen

Someone clear this up for me,

How can digital delays be better than the next?  Watching the Flight Time demos, to me it is just another delay.  Why would someone pay £350 ish for a new digital delay that doesn't really bring much new to the table?  It's a digital delay, a digital repeat

Between, Eventide, Strymon, Empress, FreeTheTone et al, even Line6, Boss, Digitech etc.... what are the differences in sound?

I understand how analogue can sound different, but I don't get it with digital... especially when digital is such a curse word in so many guitarist dictionaries

So help me out, smart arse answers accepted, just give me the 'answer' somewhere eh!

randomhandclaps

Functions and emulations.

monquixote

Loads of stuff. 

Bit depth and sample rate of the DAC and ADC and noise floor etc of those components. 

Analogue dry through

Bit depth of the internal DSP and amount of DSP available.

Algorithms available within the DSP like tape emulation and modulation (this is the big thing with Strymon)

Delay time (less of an issue these days)

Tap tempo 

Multi tap delays

Looper 

MIDI

digitalscream

There's also the A/D converters - some are a lot more expensive than others. Past a certain point, though, I personally don't think it makes a huge amount of difference - certainly not as much as Fractal (for example) would have you believe.

stickyfiddle

A lot of it for me is the user interface. The DL4 interface is pretty awful, but it's quite old now. The Timefactor is really good to me, but it's a bit complicated when you first get started. The Strymon Timeline is a happy middle. It's actually pretty easy to get going but it has pretty deep editing if you want to get into it.

dunstanmus

Even though digital they sound different. Some units repeat the actual sound that goes in and some model a delay sound. It depends what you are after. The TC 2290 repeats the sound. The Flashback pedals emulate the 2290. They do it very well. The midi capability with some mean you don't need to change presets regularly. You can send messages to change parts of presets which for me is really important. Cheers Rich

hugbot

Digital delays don't really send back the signal *exactly* as it went in, they often add a little sunthin of their own, high end presence or whatever. The DD2, DD3 and DD7 are all ostensibly digital but put them next to each other and they don't sound the same.

joeyowen

all good points guys cheers,

Not sure I'm swayed to upgrade my delay any time soon, but it is slightly less of a mystery to me now I guess

Drew_TNBD

Yeah there are a lot of things that can affect the sound of the pedal itself, and a lot of things that can affect the algorithm itself.

I tend to feel that there aren't really "better" digital units, but rather they're just different.

Same can be said with analog delays btw; they're open to the same influences that digital pedals are for the most part.

Heartfeltdawn

joeyowen said:

How can digital delays be better than the next?  Watching the Flight Time demos, to me it is just another delay.  Why would someone pay £350 ish for a new digital delay that doesn't really bring much new to the table?  It's a digital delay, a digital repeat

Everything @monquixote and @digitalscream said.

Trying to recreate an old rack unit in plug form or in a pedal form involves more than just copying the algorithms. The converters, the circuitry itself, all manner of factors contribute to that sound. 

 

 

randomhandclaps

joeyowen said:

Watching the Flight Time demos, to me it is just another delay.  Why would someone pay £350 ish for a new digital delay that doesn't really bring much new to the table?  

Confuse me too.  Why settle for a £362 Flight Time when you could get one of these -

http://www.richtonemusic.co.uk/products/hughes_and_kettner_replex.asp?gclid=CJzz25TOxcICFSIYwwod2ZkA3Q

Saying that I have decided to buy a Flight Time to go with my Replex.

Like anything though there are some great and shit cheap DDs and great and shit expensive DDs.

Gassage

`Flight time is epically good- and I"ve found the echo hardness function on it now!

It's the biggest sounding delay ever. Honestly