Anxiously Awaiting On Everything Eternal…

Jduv’s Echo Quest

I like delays. I have been enamored with them since I managed to save up for a Visual Studio H2O in 1999. The obsession was fueled further when I procured a first run Line6 DL-4 from a tax return. It was glorious emulator heaven. My poor DL-4 endured many years of heavy gigging--which can be obviously seen by the scarred chassis. The buttons stick due to a random Mountain Dew mishap that I don't remember happening after a concert one night. I wasn't being beligerent man! He touched my guitar! Uh... Anyway.

After I decided it was time to retire the beloved DL-4, I set out to find a replacement. After a good two days of researching I settled on the Boss DD-20 Giga-Delay. It had five presets instead of three, an external tap tempo via another $20 foot switch, a pretty LED that displayed the bpm of the delay setting + more, and all the tweaking bells and whistles I could ask for. I made my first mistake when I never actually test drove the unit before buying it, resulting in lukewarm feelings after some experience with it.

So here I sit, penning the first blog post in over a month with a dilemma. It's time for a new delay unit.

There are several pro's to my beloved DL-4, and it's upstart Boss brother the DD-20, but unfortunately there are too many cons to each unit for me to keep either of them on my board. So starts my new quest: to find the ultimate delay unit that fits my high standards and unreasonable requirements:

1. Tap Tempo. What good is a delay in a live setting without tap tempo? I'm not one to fiddle with knobs until I get the right tempo for a particular song, so all the old school analog delays need not apply unless they have a way of mapping knob position to BPM/MS.
2. A very warm analog/tape sound. This plus usability--or lack thereof--is reason that the DD-20 is getting kicked off my board. I prefer something with the capability to produce a warm, analog-like echo sound for ambient pads.
3. Subdivision. This one is key. I'm already going to have to deal with a tap tempo, so the unit had better be able to subdivide. I know how to count dotted eight triplets, I'm just not good at it. Graduate school and full time work forbids practicing, so deal.
4. Intuitive. This is where the HCI nerd in me really gets irritated. I have heard so many times rubbish such as: "Put the tweedle knob on T+, and then fiddle with the fod knob until it sounds good." I need well labeled knobs, the less the better, laid out in easy to use interfaces.
5. Durable. Obviously if the thing breaks after a couple of gigs I'll be pissed. I don't want to be pissed. Especially during a gig. Pissed guitarists result in broken furniture, kicked in bass drum heads, and lead singers with broken arms. You have been warned. I would postulate that the liklihood of something to break is proportional to the sum of it's moving parts--so solid, simple construction is required.

I don't think building a unit as described above is hard right? Let's hope so. In my current pedalboard configuration, I have room for one large lots-o-features delay unit or two smaller one-trick-pony delay units. This results in lots of fun possibilities. I could mix and match a pair of different delays if I find two different models that I am struck by. Here's a nice list of candidates that I have compiled so far broken down by form factor:

Large, Multi-function delays:

• Diamond Memory Lane
• Eventide TimeFactor
• TC Electronics Nova Delay
• Empress Super Delay
• Line6 DL-4 *
• Boss DD-20 *

Smaller, one-trick-pony delays

• T-Rex Replica
• Line6 Echo Park
• Boss DD-7
• Carl Martin EchoTone

* I already own these

My plan is to eat through this list very slowly and tell everyone what I think about each unit as compared to the others and hopefully settle on a final candidate. Yay. It's my blog. I can say what I want. This should be fun.