Delay Pedals

JayGee

Anyone here got a Wampler Faux Tape Echo?

I'm kind of liking the look of it at the moment, the combination of vintage inspired "boutique quality" sounds, simple, uncluttered control layout, a built-in dedicated tap tempo foot-switch, not-totally-silly footprint, and a not-totally-silly price tag looks a pretty compelling feature set for me at the moment.

Incidentally I'd like to put in a word for the humble Line 6 Echo Park here. It packs an insane amount of functionality into a small space and sounds pretty good too. The only reason I'm thinking of replacing mine is that the "light touch" tap tempo setting is sometimes a little erratic in use and (possibly connected!) it occasionally gets possessed by the devil and sets itself to what I assume is its minimum delay period for no obvious reason...

bingefeller

Boss DD-7 for sure.  I've tried other delays but there's something about the Boss delays sounds that I really like. 

SRich

I'm always surprised that the TC Nova Delay doesn't get any love here....I have two, a standard and an iB Modified (can't truly tell the difference ) along with a Line6 DL4 on the sidelines. Although, rather oddly, I seem to like my Akai Headrush E2 which has so much versatlity but is a no-brainer to use. 

Sounds_Great_Music

JayGee  I haven't tried the Wampler im afraid but it seems to get a lot of love, if you get hold of one make sure to let us no what you think!

bingefeller Hi Bingefeller, im the same as you, really like the boss delays they just seem to work dont they 

Drew_TNBD

Well I've had a lot of delay pedals!

Line 6 DL-4: Kind of an industry standard really. Great pedal, nice chasis that gives you plenty of foot access, and presets.

Boss DD3, DD5, DD6, and DD7: All great. All sound roughly the same. Different features on each of them. DD7 has external tap tempo which works brilliantly. The analog model is very nice, and you choose a different digital model for whichever note you want to sync to. Noisy in front of a high-gain valve amp though!

Eventide Timefactor: A reasonable enough workhorse delay. But since I need multiple delays at once, of differing algorithms, it wasn't the be all and end all delay pedal that it's kind of touted as by fanbois. A good option, but I don't think it's worth the price.

TC Flashback: The single pedal really needed a good tap tempo. Excellent sounds, but held back a little in terms of workflow.

TC Flashback x4: Same again really. The tap tempo behaviour was a bit crap in that you had to re-tap whenever changing the preset. This sucked.

TC Flashback Triple Delay: I just got one of these, and jesus it's bloody LUSH. It's basically what I've wanted from Line 6 when I've whinged about them doing a MKII of the M9 pedal. The delays are really crisp and detailed sounding. And you can run three of them in series or parallel. Not having presets is a bit of a buzzkill, because there are so many awesome configurations on this thing, and you kind of have to settle for one. And the tap tempo implementation is ROYAL BOLLOCKS. Really infuriating, because it only works for any currently enabled delays. I've gotten around this by using a Disaster Area SmartCLOCK which sends midi clock into the pedal, and thus will sync all delays even if they're bypassed.

Line 6 M9: For a long time this was my go to, because you could run multiple delays at once, with different models and settings and what not.. and sync them all to a master clock. But when you put it up against any of the others in this list... it's quite clear that they delays just aren't quite as good anymore. 7 years ago, they were decent... but the world has moved on to way better quality and detail in the tails now. The M9 just doesn't cut it now.

Marshall Regenerator: Decent enough delay. But doesn't provide the wealth of options that some of the others do. Does have external tap tempo which is cool.

TC Nova Delay: Noisy pedal when placed in front of a high-gain valve amp. Loads of features and sounds, but the delay time is an annoying control. Because it has this central notch that is basically 'no change' and then you can turn it left to go lower in delay time, and turn it right to go higher in delay time.. and you just kinda hold it into position until it arrives at the time you want, and then you quickly switch back to the notch. Infuriating because if your guitar cable snags on it during a live performance, it will turn the knob and change your delay time to some ridiculous value. Happened to our second guitarist during a live show once! EEK!

Digitech Timebender: Really nice pitch shifting on this one, and the tone control is kind of cool to have instant access to, without going through menus.

hotpickups

Wow some of you guys are really into your delays aren't you. I can't really tell them apart really to be honest. Apart from the really crap ones of course

Sounds_Great_Music

I no the TC Nova delay was very popular but it seems slightly "out of fashion" at the moment, its a great station so im sure it will become popular again soon, I also love the versitility of the akai, great pedals!

Sounds_Great_Music

hotpickups lol!

 

Drew_fx Wow thanks for all your input drew! Helpful as ever

Drew_TNBD

hotpickups said:

Wow some of you guys are really into your delays aren't you. I can't really tell them apart really to be honest. Apart from the really crap ones of course

Most of the time it's about feature set and workflow for me. Like with the Vox DelayLab (which I forgot to add in my list) it was decent enough.. but mixing the wet and dry felt awkward. Even more awkward was the chasis of the unit. Too tall and it really should've been slanted at the front.

For me.. tap tempo is a must. And being able to use it live whilst my heel is rested on the ground is also a must. Couldn't really do that with the DelayLab. It's too tall, so you end up lifting your foot off the ground, and it puts you off balance. So I sent it back!

gusman2x

Earthquaker Devices - Disaster Transport. Such nice repeats. Way nicer, and lighter (but still warm) than the DMM I tried. Although the DMM was an XO version to be fair.

Skreddy Echo - Lush, but is an echo, so less of a delay feel about it.

hotpickups

Surprised I haven't heard much love for the Timeline here?

hotpickups

Not much love for the Timeline here so far? Ooops I'm repeating myself, myself

hugbot

hugbot What problems do you have with the vox delay lab? I love the DD7 used one for years, i agree with you on the deeo blue delay as well, its great for just adding that little bit extra to lead or solo parts

Its huge for one thing.

Tape delay isnt quite as good as some others I've tried.

I've got an RE20 now and its great, tones of spacey noise, up there with the el capstian for me, although the cap had the benefit of patch saving,

Sounds_Great_Music

Also a fan of the disaster transport we do really well with the earthquaker pedals at sounds great

thanks for the input drew I no a lot of people are into tap tempo these days, its a shame you didnt get on with the vox, other than there size there a great pedal! 

Teetonetal

Sounds_Great_Music said:

Teetonetal Thanks for getting involved! Those are just the pedals that we sell the most of in store  

The Neunaber audio stuff is really cleaver, have you played any of there pedals?

The flight time is another really smart piece of kit nice selection!

Fair enough - and I am not surprised they are most the sold pedals, easily available, companies with good reputations for both sound and reliability and I suppose that's why think that in a discussion about delay they are the boring (although I mean obvious) choices.

I haven't tried the Neunaber stuff yet, but I have bought a slate at my local store which I will collect on Saturday. The concept is great for a "working" guitarist... chorus, delay, shimmer, reverb and freeze on 1 small pedal with the possibility to save presets and some tone-print style functionality without having big footprints, complex controls, too many options etc.. which is my problem with eventide and timeline. I am hoping it will be a mainstay of my acoustic rig..

Gotta say two of the more wacky pedals are the Red Panda Particle delay (which is awesome but doesn't fit my work) and the Caroline Kilobyte delay which is a lot of fun.

I should also add that the Nova Repeater is a really good choice for anyone who wants a functional delay that is easy to use and controllable on the fly.Heard about noise issues, but in the loop mine has been rock solid Been gigging mine for two years now these days they can be had for bargin prices... still now I am moving to a switcher with midi control it's going to be replaced by the flight time on my big board.

Sounds_Great_Music

hugbot Brilliant input thanks hugbot! 

Teetonetal

Drew_fx said:

hotpickups said:

Wow some of you guys are really into your delays aren't you. I can't really tell them apart really to be honest. Apart from the really crap ones of course

Most of the time it's about feature set and workflow for me. Like with the Vox DelayLab (which I forgot to add in my list) it was decent enough.. but mixing the wet and dry felt awkward. Even more awkward was the chasis of the unit. Too tall and it really should've been slanted at the front.

For me.. tap tempo is a must. And being able to use it live whilst my heel is rested on the ground is also a must. Couldn't really do that with the DelayLab. It's too tall, so you end up lifting your foot off the ground, and it puts you off balance. So I sent it back!

^This - if delay is important to your sound, then feature set vs control is key.. most delays sound decent enough, but it's a question of do they do what you need.

hugbot

The only ones I've ever had and disliked are the DD6 which has a bad feature set as it lacks external tap and analog sim and the Memory Boy which just sounds bland repeats with unusable modulation.

hotpickups

hugbot said:

The only ones I've ever had and disliked are the DD6 which has a bad feature set as it lacks external tap and analog sim and the Memory Boy which just sounds bland repeats with unusable modulation.

I agree with the memory boy. I have it on my 'grab n go' board but for £30 it's what I expected. I'll upgrade in the not too distant future

Johnnyseven

I bought an Ibanez DE7 Delay/Echo recently and thought it was ace, but then I bought a long chip Boss DD3 and it totally blew it away. The DE7 is now up for sale.