In my quest to be the world’s foremost mediocre electric guitar player I have decided to up my game by including a delay pedal onto my current setup which is comprised of a Boss DS-1 Distortion, Vox Wah, and my amp’s boost pedal.
I don’t want to spend more than $150 max and preferably less. Give your advice O Learned Guitar Gods and Goddesses, and what makes your choice the one to go to.
FWIW, I badly play a fair bit of surf, 50s, and classic rock with forays into country, hard rock and metal. Think Hank Marvin meets David Gilmour meets Matthias Jabs. My main guitar is a thinline custom Tele played through a Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 amp and 2x12 cab.
I can highly recommend Zoom products. Highly recommend them. I have the predecessor to the G5, I’d have to dig my old pedal out of the closet, but I bought it in '98 and used it until around 2012; I replaced it because I wanted the USB out for recording. ETA: For your delay purposes, it would give you several different options.
I know you said $150 max, but I’d advise you double that and get a G5. I notice that some of the used ones at that link are under $200 and you might be able to do better on Craigslist or eBay.
Analog: great for a bit of short-delay slapback echo. Has warmth/compression and a bit if mids punch. I have an MXR Carbon Copy I use for this.
Digital: for Edge-like delay where you set it longer and then use it to build on your notes and fill in the sound. Cleaner and better for layering. A Roland/Boss DD-2 is a standard here IIRC.
Obviously there are a bazillion alternatives at many price points; those two are standards. Sounds like you’d want an analog delay. Adds richness to a surfy/reverb sound.
How often do you have you DS-1 on? If more than 30% of the time, you might consider an upgrade. The DS-1 is also a standard, so is fine, but since I use my dirtbox a lot, fine is not sufficient. Per a thread a couple of weeks ago, a Blackstone MOSFET overdrive is sublime.
I normally put delay on in the DAW via VST. So I have heard a lot of delays. I also have owned a lot of hardware delays in the past, both analog and digital.
As far as fairly cheap, modern pedals, I am pretty impressed with the TC Electronic FlashBack Delay. Its emulations sound good to me.
Are you willing to spend $150 used? I ask because [=used"]You can get a lot](Delay Pedals For Sale - New & Used Delay Pedals | Reverb[) for $150 used. On that page right now, there’s several MXR Carbon Copys for $99 and an Ibanez AD-9 for $140. Effects don’t usually start to go crazy in value until the parent company goes out of business, or they stop making it for some reason.
The coolest I can find in that search that fit your budget are:
Digital: Wampler Faux Tape Echo. It does a good approximation of a tape delay. The movement and sway controls let you make the tape emulation sound like the unit is new, or old and worn out. At longer delay times, it does sound more like a digital recreation of a tape echo than a tape echo, but that’s a cool effect in and of itself. If you bypass the faux tape controls, it is a really nice digital delay with pretty nice controls.
Analog: The absolute best in your price range in that search is the Moog Minifooger. It doesn’t have as long of a maximum delay time as my old Memory Man does, but it goes pretty long for an analog delay. Plus it almost sounds as sweet as the old pedal, which can’t be powered by batteries.
One thing to remember with analog delays is that just about every circuit drops the level somewhat. It’s kind of the nature of the beast, so every analog delay maker will put some sort of preamp in the pedal to compensate for it. The preamps all introduce some sort of tonal change. Some people like the preamps themselves. Dunlop makes a pedal that is just an Echoplex’s preamp, no delay function at all. The Minifooger’s is actually adjustable through the Drive control, and it’s a pretty nice sounding preamp all by itself. If you go crazy with it, it’s almost a distortion pedal.
I own both of those. If I lost either of those pedals, I’d buy another immediately. Oddly enough, when you factor in shipping, I could get either used for $138 right now.
scabpicker it sounds like you are a pedal guy. I am not but have stumbled into things based on need. I’ve heard good things about the Wampler and Moog stuff.
I am a simple player. Being a pedal guy for more than song-specific needs feels like it requires as much time to stay on top of as knowing guitars and amps. I’ve never invested the time and when I get one, I figure out one or two things it can do and then pull them out for a parlor trick: see, if I add the phase shifter I can sound like that guy on song X! Then I go back to guitar > dirtbox > amp.
by-tor - what is “the DAW via VST” ;). Clueless here.
[QUOTE=WordMan;19391728by-tor - what is “the DAW via VST” ;). Clueless here.[/QUOTE]
Digital Audi Workstation (like Pro Tools or Garage Band) and Virtual Studio Technology, which is an interface to allow the use of plug-in effects.
Beat me to it, WordMan! The distortion is on roughly 50% of the time so I’ll reconsider the DS-1. I did get a chance to muck about with the MXR and I did like it, and most samples I have listened to on other pedals have been leading me toward analog . That said, I won’t rule a good digital pedal out either.
I’m trying to find “my” sound, moreso than copying other people. But I do want the option of sounding somewhat like Gilmour (In tone, if not in ability) when we’re doing Floyd covers…
I’ve got no issues with used FWIW, and Bo, I’ve used the G5 at a friend’s place and I really do like Zoom products as well. I have bought a few items from them for my son and he really gets a lot of use out of them. The problem is I have a very small pedal board (Pedal Train Nano+) and the G5 is larger than it is!
I’m slowly building up to the idea of a DAW and recording but I’m still wrapping my head around the dizzying amount of gear and switchology playing electric versus acoustic. I’ve been an acoustic guy for a lot of years, playing it primarily as an accompaniment to my voice. Playing lead is still new to me.
What I’m looking to do is get the best range of sounds with the least amount of add-ons. Having said that, I know I could get a modelling amp or run it through the computer and get pretty much any sound in the world, but that feels like cheating to me, although I’m certainly no Luddite!
I’ll look into the suggestions thus far, Thank You and keep them coming!
Yeah, I have more pedals than I have amps, but I have more guitars than either. Really, I’m an inexpensive equipment whore, and pedals deliver a lot of bang for the buck. After a show, or when I play with someone, I’m always scoping out their pedalboards for something interesting to ask about. Anyone with something from the Moogerfooger line is to be held in awe, those things are works of effects pedal art, and are priced accordingly. I have a friend that bought the delay in a drunken romp through Amazon one night before they went out of production. When he realized what he had done, he figured he’d try it out, and then send it back. After he had it for an hour, he knew it was worth every penny to him. Nothing analog is more controllable. That’s probably my next completely un-justifiable purchase, if it’s not a rebuilt Roland RE-201 Space Echo.
But of all my pedals and effects units (some, like the RE-201, aren’t pedals), the analog delays/echoes are the most interesting. I view the most basic unit of electric instruments as being the circuit from the pickups to the first preamp it’s plugged into. When you’re plugged into a distortion (which is by definition, a preamp), that’s usually the end of the “touch sensitive” circuit. The effects after that, and the amp are still part of the sound you’re making, but the part that responds directly to your hands ends at that first preamp (yes, this is part of why I dislike active pickups with their attendant preamp, and love true bypass pedals). Everything else is reacting to you in an indirect way, filtered by overall output of those elements. The analog delays all contain a preamp, controllable or not, plus all of their other attendant circuitry. So, they’re almost like getting a new amp and a new effects pedal.
swampspruce, if you want the most number of features for your buck, then a digital pedal is probably the ticket. If you’re looking for a particular sound, then analog or an expensive boutique pedal might be the only way to really get that sound. What Gilmour sounds did you have in mind? He’s probably the first player who was accused of playing effects pedals instead of playing guitar ( however unfair that might be ), and some of his on-record sounds can’t be replicated without buying specific equipment or their reproductions. The Catalinbread Echorec is a digital emulator of the Binson Echorec, which Gilmour used on some iconic recordings of his, but even the copy is above $150 used.
Observation: getting the right pedal you will have on 50% plus is a lot more important vs the added spice of occasional delay for leads, etc. also, a dirtbox like a Blackstone is extremely touch responsive, esp if you twiddle your volume knob to back off for rhythm tones vs leads. If you want Your Sound™, that type of pedal is much more likely to help you get that.
Impressive - sincerely. I don’t know any of that. I have my homemade Tele and the other I built that my son uses - that’s it for electrics. I know diff pedals and guitars open doors, but I still can’t get out of my own room!
scabpicker, I’m aiming more for Gilmour-esque than perfect reproduction (although if I could nail his work on DSOTM or Animals I’d be a happy camper!). I’m still going to be working scales and basic progressions for a little longer before I’m really proficient enough to feel confident enough to lead vs playing rhythm.
I’m having good hard look at the TC pedals right now, especially since I can program them to a degree. I found a TC Flashback X4 for $C 285. I’m thinking the versatility of it is worth almost doubling my budget, but I’ll still have to float this past SWMBO… or beg forgiveness after I order it…
I have never played it but apparently the Boss DD-7 has emulations of tape and analog delay as well as the crystal clear digital which that line is known for. It cost about $150 as well.
Can you go to your local guitar shop and test drive some pedals?
You can then order what you want online and take advantage of the 30 day return policy most online stores offer (read the fine print).
Gilmour did indeed use a Binson Echorec, a very special sounding pedal, no longer made. Here is a site devoted to getting his sound: gilmourish – David Gilmour tone resource
Wow, until browsing that site more thoroughly to look for suggestions I was familiar with, I didn’t realize that he used only Binsons until he got the MXR digital units, and kept using them for awhile after he got them. The Echorec is an unusual type of delay, it is a multi-tap delay. In a tape delay, that would be different levels for each repeat head, creating a delay that pulses rather than just decays. In a chip-based analog, it’s usually two delays in one box. In a digital delay, it’s done in software, of course. The only multi-tap I can find in the price range is the Hermida Multi-tap 2, which sounds pretty sweet in its demos.
I agree that you should test drive some delays before you buy one. Even the digital ones color your sound somewhat, even if it’s not the first pedal you’re plugged into. Some do it more, some do it less, and that’s relative to where it is in the signal chain. For example, most of the Boss DD-x pedals sound largely the same. If you like how one of them sounds, you’ll probably like the rest of them, so pick the one with the features you want.
The difference is that the different revisions offer features like reverse delay, longer delay times, infinite repeat, or the analog modeling of the DD-7 (which averages $120 used right now). I have a DD-3 that became mine through marriage, and it sounds like most of the other DD-x pedals, but lacks the extra features of a DD-5 (I do not know why there seems to be no DD-4). I love it, and have used it live many times. It’s dead reliable, and does the same thing every time. That’s the nice thing about digital effects, especially delays: analog delays are more finicky than most analog effects, and analog effects are usually pretty finicky. If digital effects have a problem, they usually don’t act weird; they just don’t work.
Jeez, you are offering a great overview. You are making *ME *want to go out and check one out. I won’t - I am way too busy right now for it to even enter the possibility of happening (in a good way) - but it sounds interesting, and a worthwhile Effect Category to invest time in if that is a Target sound for you.
I have considered loopers, simply because they are…groove buttressers? When I am playing on my own, I am trying to stay fully locked into a groove and sell the sense that the band is fully there with me. Loopers accomplish that in their own way. Ed Sheeran is a fucking master at it, and I have seen many others on YouTube that impress me.
Like 99% of apps at the App Store, however, I can’t help but feel like it is a solution to a problem more simply handled. An Anti-Gravity Communication Inscriber when a pencil will do If I can’t deliver the groove, what else could possibly be more important that might divert my attention? Even if I am leading, I need my connection to the groove, or I end up like Marty McFly at the end of Johnny B. Goode. (I still hate how that includes Chuck Berry, but the scene is cute).
I guess I just realized: my playing is the equivalent of riding a Fixie bicycle. A direct link between hands and groove; no let up. Hmm, gotta think about that.
First, I want to say Thank You Thank You Thank You! to you all for not only having me look at options I never even would have thought of, but for your time in helping this eternal noob learn a bit more about pedals generally!
Second, I pulled the trigger and bought the TC Flashback Delay on Amazon. The nearest well equipped music stores are three hours away from me and I’m impatient by nature so I thought if I ordered it and didn’t like it I can always return it (although I suspect I won’t). WordMan, I tend to feel the same way you do about guitars generally, but Bo and scabpicker both raise really good points about consistency and the versatility of digital effects. I figure the TC gives me the best of both worlds in that I have a simple pedal board and the ability to really muck around with the sound as I get more experienced.
FWIW, I looked at the Minifooger, Carbon Copy, and the Keeley Magnetic Delay as well. In the end, the Keeley was too cluttered, but I loved the effects. The Minifooger is still tempting, as was the MXR, especially for ease of use.
Hehehe, yeah, that pedal has a ton of features, and sounds pretty damn good in demos. I’ve never owned one, but I’ve heard many recommend it. The dotted eighth plus quarter note setting even does an excellent multi-tap imitation. Let us know how you like it!
When I am playing on my own, I am trying to stay fully locked into a groove and sell the sense that the band is fully there with me. Loopers accomplish that in their own way. Ed Sheeran is a fucking master at it, and I have seen many others on YouTube that impress me.