Delay and Reverb Pedlals of Choice

[Bill SAS 513]

I have and love my Malekko 616 delay and TC a Electronics hall of fame...and an observation about Boss pedals...I've been involved in the used gear side of things for years and I would safely say Boss pedals are built like tanks...and they have a bunch of pedals that definitely offer great effects for a good price point. (Especially used) I would almost compare them to some Peavey gear from the 80s and 90s...again, very good quality and built like tanks...I think there are more pedal companies now that are close to the same prices as boss pedals that are almost boutique builders...(still not sure what qualifies as Boutique...??) I tried a few Boss delays next to the Malekko and , to my ears, the Malekko just had something different. Not necessarily better, but different. And used, about the same coin as a Boss.

 

[helmi]

wampler faux tape echo is my choice.

 

[t.shamone]

Love the Pigtronix Echolution, my first non-rack delay. I would like to check out the new one.
Strymon stuff is great also. Picked up the Brig for it's portability. I should get a fav pedal for it.

 

[László]

Me too! I rarely see Boss pedals on guitar forums and kinda wonder why. There is no shortage of incredible tones that were crafted with them; Johnny Marr, Prince, Robert Smith.... All of their pedalboards looked like Boss ads when they were making (in my opinion) their best work.

I've liked Robert Smith's work for a long time. But in addition to a ton of Boss pedals, he's been a longtime user of Eventide gear (the H3000 in particular), some older Yamaha rack gear like the SPX series, and lots of other stuff.

My guess is they used Boss gear for a lot of their work because it was pretty hip equipment in the 80s! Frankly, for a lot of players it's still great stuff.

But there has been a big movement toward more vintage sounds for quite some time, and Boss never seemed to go that way, which left the door open for a lot of other makers. A lot of so-called boutique brands sprang up, and acquired more of a cachet.

Before 1972 or so, there was no Roland or Boss pedal. They didn't exist. So 60s tone aficionados never got into Boss. I think there's a combination of reasons why people turn their noses up at Boss pedals; over-familiarity, lack of 60s clones, big box store image. And Boss pedals do have a recognizable tone "thing" that's hard to describe, but there are those who like it, and those who don't.

I've honestly never liked Boss pedals, and this goes way back to the 70s when they were brand new items and still cool. But I played my old 60s pedals back then, and they were the authentic real deal as far as I was concerned. At the time I felt, and still feel, that Boss pedals kind of covered up the sound of my guitars.

I've been on guitar forums for a long time, and I've never seen a single post where someone wants to cop Robert Smith or Prince's tone. Licks? Sure. Songwriting? Yes. Guitar tone? Not so much.

Maybe there's a reason for that.

My two cents.

 

[jbordash]

MXR carbon copy user friendly yet surprisingly tweakable. I pair it with a wah and analog chorus for a great Tool vibe

 

[David Eaton]

I recently bought Strymon stuff...timeline for delay and blue sky for verb. I don't use a lot of verb, so I like the simplicity. (big sky would be too much).

 

[Tag]

I love the TRex roomate for reverb. How can you not like it with glowing tube tone? Very clear and non invasive. It also works great with Dumble style amps that only have a pre in power out loop. It almost acts like a mini Dumbleator with the input level control. It also allows you to adjust the length of the decay on the different verb settings, as well as a tone control, mix and gain knob. GREAT reverb! The other real simple one that sounds almost as good is the mad professor Silver spring reverb. Every pedal I have tried from the mad man has been EXTREMELY musical and organic sounding (Anti boss IMO, and I have a lot of Boss pedals) The original blue sky hand wired overdrive (not the newer ones), and the hand wired Little green wonder are the finest sounding overdrive pedals I have found, and I HATE OD boxes!! I can be almost as happy with these pedals into a Super reverb as with my Dumbles overdrive channel. Well, not almost, but they are REALLY good drive pedals! The MP deep blue delay does not have the longest delay around, but again, it is so natural sounding, and does not detract from the feel of your amp at all. So fine!

 

[tbp0701]

I bought a Red Witch Violetta this week. It's my first stand alone delay, so I don't have much reference for comparison, but so far I'm digging it. The only niggle is that I'd like it if the repeat knob had travel among subtle adjustments, as it goes into self-oscillation pretty quickly. Other than that I'm having fun with it, and it looks pretty spiffy. Here's the company's info page if interested: http://www.redwitchpedals.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=69

 

[Egads]

I was a big Boss proponent in the late 80s and early 90s, but then again, there wasn't much competition to their roadworthiness and variety. I pulled out a few of my Boss pedals about 10 years ago, shipped them out to Robert Keeley, and couldn't be happier with how they turned out. I always felt like they sucked too much tone. After having them modded, I realize they have good buffers, but needed to use some higher quality components. I don't use them that often (none are on my boards right now), but the Keeley-modded CE-2 is a thing of beauty, the GE-7 EQ is now usable without all the added hiss when boosting any frequency, and the DS-1 is a snarling, rude, dog, but with more clarity.

If you have boss pedals around, ship them off to Keeley or Analog Mike (there are others, but I know by experience both of these are great). You won't be disappointed.

 

[chewpac]

i'm very happy with my visual sound dual tap delay. tweakable and easy to use, while sounding great.

also love the way huge echo puss. that's on my small board. gorgeous delays.

 

[bluefade]

I like the Eventide delay pedal on the far left on my board quite a lot:

You have fine taste in pedals, Mr Schefman ! I took it to the next level with the purchase of the Eventide eclipse rack unit , thus eliminating the need for more pedals ... FOR NOW THAT IS ...

 

[László]

You have fine taste in pedals, Mr Schefman ! I took it to the next level with the purchase of the Eventide eclipse rack unit , thus eliminating the need for more pedals ... FOR NOW THAT IS ...

The Eclipse is a wonderful box! Niiiiice!

 

[Sage]

Just picked up a cheap factory restock Flashback X4 by TC Electronic. I was originally looking for a good analog delay to stick in an effects loop, but they've gotten more and more expensive as the bucket brigade chips they're based on have become more scarce, and the digital stuff is just more versatile. TC's Flashback series keeps the original signal analog and just adds the digital effects in parallel, which is good enough for me. The Flashback X4 also has a built-in looper. Looking forward to using it.

 

[Tag]

OK guys, here is the real test, and both of my reverb pedals just kind of failed. I put them up against my Fender SRRI, and Tony Bruno stand alone reverb. On both of my reverbs, you can clearly hear a kind of delay between when you pick the note and when the verb starts. Or a swell of reverb. With the Fender and the bruno, the reverb is instantaneous. I have a Boss RV 2 which I like much better than the newer versions, but it alters the tone to much. Anyone have a real fender with tube reverb they can check there pedal against and see if its the same? I remember GP talking about this years ago. The fender and bruno true reverbs suround the note with verb, not trail behind the note. I thought I had great verbs up until I did a direct A/B, and the fender and bruno smoke them in this regard. Of course the pedals have way more flexablity, but I want my cake and be able to eat it too. So what can do it all without a rack size unit or breaking the bank? Please no guessing. You HAVE to have a fender to check it against. Just what I need to do, spend more $ on a verb pedal.

 

[Snoopygore71]

I use a vintage 96 Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, it has just come off the board in favour of a Strymon Timeline and an Empress Vintage Modified Super Delay.

The only reason is the Timeline is great for presets, the Empress is so so but I like it. The Memory Man is one of the best, the Memory Boy is almost the same in a smmaller package.

 

[jfb]

I use Strymon stuff for everything.

 

[mjreardon]

For delay, I really love the Diamond Memory Lane Jr. Its a digital that isn't really meant to clone anything, but it combines the best of analog and digital sounds. Some of the warmest delay tones I've ever heard and the modulation is perfect. I usually find modulation on delay pedals to be useless, but it sounds very impressive. Definitely worth checking out if you aren't locked into the "it has to be analog" mindset, or even if you are....you might be surprised.

My reverb comes from my amp (a Fender Deluxe Reverb RI), so no help from me there. I just haven't heard a pedal that I like as well as old-fashioned Fender, tube-driven, amp reverb. I'm sure there is something out there in a pedal that is just as good, but I have no need to look for it.

 

[ADD]

The Strymon Timeline is quite good. I also have the Flashback X4 - great delay as well and good bang for the buck

 

[FennRx]

I see that not a single Boss pedal can be found in the photos above (although one photo I can't see due to um, "local filtering" shall we say).

I'm very curious about that observation
/QUOTE]



Me too! I rarely see Boss pedals on guitar forums and kinda wonder why. There is no shortage of incredible tones that were crafted with them; Johnny Marr, Prince, Robert Smith.... All of their pedalboards looked like Boss ads when they were making (in my opinion) their best work.

Just as a matter of curiosity, what other forums are you on? The Boss Chorus pedals are pretty common at other places.

 

[László]

OK guys, here is the real test, and both of my reverb pedals just kind of failed. I put them up against my Fender SRRI, and Tony Bruno stand alone reverb. On both of my reverbs, you can clearly hear a kind of delay between when you pick the note and when the verb starts. Or a swell of reverb. With the Fender and the bruno, the reverb is instantaneous. I have a Boss RV 2 which I like much better than the newer versions, but it alters the tone to much. Anyone have a real fender with tube reverb they can check there pedal against and see if its the same? I remember GP talking about this years ago. The fender and bruno true reverbs suround the note with verb, not trail behind the note. I thought I had great verbs up until I did a direct A/B, and the fender and bruno smoke them in this regard. Of course the pedals have way more flexablity, but I want my cake and be able to eat it too. So what can do it all without a rack size unit or breaking the bank? Please no guessing. You HAVE to have a fender to check it against. Just what I need to do, spend more $ on a verb pedal.

Tag, I don't have a Fender so I'm not going to guess, just wanted to mention this just in case you aren't already aware of it -- if you have digital 'verb pedals.

Many digital reverbs have a certain amount of "predelay" baked into the design of the chip, to simulate what happens in a room when a note is played; you don't hear reverb right away, it has to bounce off a surface in the room (wall, floor, ceiling) first. A real reverb in an amp generally happens right away, enveloping the note in the wash of simulated reverb; they didn't have predelay when the early reverb amps were invented.

To add to this issue, in the fraction of a second that it takes to convert the signal from analog to digital and back again, it probably isn't going to be exactly like analog. This is because digital conversion from A to D and from D to A creates latency. If you remember using Pro Tools, there's some latency in monitoring as the converters do their work. It can be audible, or not.

So it could be the predelay baked into the design that you're hearing, or the latency of the analog to digital and back to analog that you're hearing, or some combination of both.

My guess is that to get what you want, you're going to have to use the Bruno standalone reverb with your non-reverb amps, which let's face it, is the real deal and why you bought it in the first place.

Incidentally, the tiny bit of latency introduced in digital modeling amps causes them to not do as well on the attack of the transient part of the note, at least to my ears, and it's why I don't like using them.

As an aside, I once had an all-analog Peavey rack mount spring reverb that sounded very good and has become something of a cult item among studio guys, but schlepping it around just became too much of a pain for me, so I sold it and learned to live with digital stuff.