Can anyone recommend a decent inexpensive delay pedal?

[Chevy]

Any tried and truly decent delay pedals that are on the inexpensive side you would recommend?
I wouldn't mind getting something like the Liquid Chorus H20; the chorus would be a nice bonus, should probably get a chorus pedal, too. But this pedal is not true bypass... any comments/experience with that one?
Are there any simple pedals available that have a "sample" feature on them, where you can record a few second's worth, and then play over that? This is optional, but would be a nice feature.

Thank you kindly,
Chevy

[R.G.]

I wouldn't mind getting something like the Liquid Chorus H20; the chorus would be a nice bonus, should probably get a chorus pedal, too. But this pedal is not true bypass... any comments/experience with that one?

Yeah, I have a bit of experience with them.

True bypass is becoming antiquated. At one time, it was a useful thing to demand in a pedal. This is from the day when guitarists had only one pedal, or at most two, and pedals used circuits which left the internal effect connected and still loading the guitar when it was "bypassed". The result was the dreaded "tone sucking" treble loss.

Today, a well-designed buffered input pedal can avoid loading your guitar at all. In fact, a well designed buffer can eliminate any loading from succeeding cables, which can also cause you to lose treble. And a buffered bypass pedal at the front of your chain of pedals buffers everything that follows.

There is exactly one pedal (and its millions of clones, of course) that sounds better with true bypass and nothing else. That's the Fuzz Face. Everything else can be just as good if not better with a buffered input.

But don't take just my word. We (I work for Visual Sound) sell a boatload of H2Os, and many of those are to session guitarists. These guys are the true professionals in the guitar world. They have to walk in, get *the sound* whatever it is, and play it on the spot. They can and do buy whatever they need to do the job.

Another data point is that Roger Mayer sells NO effects with true bypass. All of his are buffered, too.

Just any old buffer won't do. It has to be competently designed. Your ear is what will tell you the result. Go find a dealer and listen to them, and buy what your ear - not the salesman, not the advertising, not your buddy who has a Robert Fripp fetish - tells you is right.

[Chevy]

OK, thanks for the info...

Thanks for the comments and information, RG, I appreciate your input!

My main problem is living in the sticks, with no decent music store within a 2 hour (each way) drive of here. I sorta get by on sound bytes and occasionally forums like this. I try to get all the info I can, then buy.... so I appreciate your time and input!

Best,
Chevy

[jbirdmanv]

delay pedal

check out the new pedal by wampler effects or indyguitarist.Pedal is analog and this guy works with well known players to help design pedals.Sound clip is quite impressive.Price is 139.00!!!

[Mark Hammer]

The Danelectro FAB Echo can be purchased in many places for well under $30. Although the stock pedal comes with a single preset delay time, you can find plenty of information about how to easily mod it to provide delay times up to around 330msec posted around.

Yeah, I know people want or think they want analog delays and the FAB is digital. But realistically, they usually want analog delays because the filtering mellows out the repeats and permits them to be psychoacoustically placed in the background. You can do that with digital too, and it would seem Danelectro HAS done that in this instance.

[R.G.]

Ah. I see.

OK, go check out http://visualsound.net/mp3.htm where there are MP3 clips of some capable guitarists using the H2O among other Visual Sound gear.

[dave r.]

I've got a BYOC DD-80 digital delay... not sure if they still produce that model. I like it - it does what its suposed to. I had it built for me and the price was about $120. if you want to go a lot cheaper, TGP had a thread about a $39 delay pedal at toys r us (of all places!) that supposedly was sturdy and decent sounding.

[rockinrendell]

you might try the DANELECTRO REEL ECHO. i just got one and its pretty decent. fair price too.

[dastuff]

The Zoom G1 is a modeler pedal that is about the size of two Boss pedals side-by-side. It has two foot switches. It runs abot $65 new. It can be used as a standalone pedal to do delay, chorus, reverb, or you can use it like a full-on amp/speaker modeler processor. The only issue i have with it is that the sound is not 100% accurate in the bass area. Not good enough for my needs, but may be good enough for your needs. The loss in tone is not any worse than with typical guitar pedals.

[chipaudette]

A couple of years ago, I was looking for an old-school analog delay pedal that I was hoping to get cheap. Since I couldn't find any in the "broken" bin in the local guitar stores, I was going to be forced to buy new.

Unfortunately, most new pedals are expensive. And, they have more features than I want. I just wanted 0-400 msec of dalay without all that infinite/multiple looping that you find in most modern pedals. I certainly didn't care about 20 seconds of memory and all that other stuff.

After trying a bunch of the cheap-o pedals, I found that I really liked the Rocktron Short Timer:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...Box?sku=154231

It's $70 and is a simple digital delay that rolls off the high frequencies on the successive echos...just like the old analog delays did. Some think that that makes it low-fidelity. I think that it makes it sound more natural. In real echos, the high frequencies are the first to go away. Pure, clean digital echos sometimes forget to include that effect. The old analog delays sounded good because they naturally included this effect.

So, I really like this pedal. It's simple, has the 0-400 msec range that I desire, and sounds pretty good to me.

Chip

[52 Bill]

Another data point is that Roger Mayer sells NO effects with true bypass. All of his are buffered, too.

R.G.: Is this right?
Has he discontinued or changed the rocket pedals?

[dai h.]

FWIW my RM "Classic Fuzz" and 9090A wah kit were true bypass. Maybe thinking of another manf.(Cornish?)?

[ECC83EH]

behringer pedals

if you're looking for something ultra cheap (around $30), i've heard good things about the behringer pedals. I haven't tried any of the plastic ones but i do own the VT-999 tube overdrive and it's not bad.

[Mark Hammer]

behringer has been cloning everything as of late, including most of the Line 6 Tone Core series and many Boss pedals. Some folks find the plastic cases a deal-breaker, and occasionally they make some judgment calls about which op-amp chips to use and end up with a little more hiss than the Boss original, but they are reasonable value for the money.

[jfromel]

The Ibanez DE-7 is great for the money.