Andy Timmons Halo Pedal

[SteveGlitch]

I missed the sale but I had some points to redeem and in that fashion, much like Bogner, I'm a sucker for delay pedals so I but the bullet. I love delay pedals as well as reverb pedals and some delay/reverb combos. So I picked up the Keely Halo Cosmos edition along with the MXR Joshua from Musicians Friend.

The reason I bought both particularly is because I thought the Boss SDE-3000 "looks" too big on my mini board so I was going to replace it with the Halo and th Joshua. I also read that some people said that MXR ripped off Keely. I wanted to see if it was true and always find use for all my delay/reverb pedals so I thought it would be fun to compare the two.

Fast forward, the Halo and the Joshua didn't replace the Boss Sonic Dynamic Echo, they just didn't look as neat - since I used an external momentary switch for the tap tempo on the Joshua. That is to say, I haven't played much of either to warrant a full review but from what I've played the Joshua sounds much more like a digital rack style delay while I do get dual Pico Memory Man modeling from the Halo.

The MXRJoshua comes closer to my Boss SDE-3000 or the TC Electronic 2290 but smaller in footprint while retaining the important features. As you can imagine, I was happier to find that out than hearing the 2 pedals sound and behave alike.

I'm planning on a comparison video for these soon... as well as individual demos and review.

Was the Halo enough to overthrow your favorite delay? As far a a short delay my all time favorite delay pedal is the Old Blood Noise Endeavors MiNiM, it's a Carbon Copy killer. For longer delays, I've always found myself going back to Hungry Robots' The Wash. Which is more or less a highly modified EHX Memory Baby. I can't see myself favoriting the Halo or the Johsua over either of those BUT I have no regrets on buying them either. I am going to put them on a whole new small board with a Golden Boy in the front and followed by a Walrus Audio Slo reverb. I think they would do well with those.

 

[SteveGlitch]

How do you use it? I made this today, more or less how I'd use it for my style of playing at least....

And how I'd likely use the Joshua...

 

[JasonE]

I am finding that I really like the stock reverb setting in the Halo pedal. I use that, slap back delay and Andy's preset the most. It really is a great sounding pedal. I didn't have any sort of complex programmable delay pedal and decided to jump on it. I am glad I did, even though I am not a player that uses a lot of ambient sounds.

 

[SteveGlitch]

I am finding that I really like the stock reverb setting in the Halo pedal. I use that, slap back delay and Andy's preset the most. It really is a great sounding pedal. I didn't have any sort of complex programmable delay pedal and decided to jump on it. I am glad I did, even though I am not a player that uses a lot of ambient sounds.

Fair enough.

I still haven't got much time to spend with the Halo or the Joshua. The Halo setting on in the video there is the stock B setting, and the Joshua is more-or-less on the stock setting as well. I slightly altered the knobs on both pedals to fit those progressions I like that the Halo's stereo feature is in your face and easy to use.. Most people don't know the Joshua's control out has a switch that can make it do a true stereo out, not that I'll ever use it.

The Halo seems better built, more options/features at first glance, then when you watch the 25 minute manual for the Joshua you realize that it actually has at much features, just different. Halo seems to somewhat of an evolution of Wampler's Ethereal while the Joshua seems to be a "pedal formatted" version of the 2290.

Both beautiful pedals and very different, haven't got a chance to learn everything about them just because neither are on a board. When they are, I'll likely learn the ins and outs.