Analog Delay

[Michael Brewer]

Just bought a new analog delay unit called "Aqua-Puss". This thing makes all the digital delay pedals I have owned (a bunch) sound like trash. It is made by "WAY HUGE ELECTRONICS". I picked it up at Guitar Center. It is a bit pricey but I think it is worth it. I highly recommend this unit.

[Lynn Oliver]

In what way is it better than the other pedals you've tried?

[Gary Rue]

I wonder if anyone still uses a echoplex. High main maintenance and noisey but they sure sounded cool.

[Michael Brewer]

The return is a clean reproduction of the input. It hasn't been digitized. It is very much like the old Echoplex only much cleaner. It only has three controls plus on-off. The delay range is 0-300ms. There is a number of repeats function and a mixer (called Blend). I crack the mix open until I just hear the sustain increase and use slightly more than one repeat. I think it is a great unit.

[rpetersen]

Michael - I have an old Vesta analog delay - It too is the best I have ever used - Blows away my RV-3

[Jerry Hayes]

I just picked up an old Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man analog delay unit at a used and consignment store in Newport News, Va. for $250. That's a lot to pay for a delay pedal but it's what I was looking for and it even came with the old wooden box. I had one of these years ago and let it slip away somewhere and didn't think much of looking for another one until heard the tone that Joe Turner and Arnett Mills both get using the DMM pedals. It's a keeper and I'm through looking for anything else..........JH in Va.

[Lynn Oliver]

Michael, not trying to put you on the spot here, but I think I'm missing something. My observation is that with steel guitar delay is used in a fairly subtle way, to give a fuller or warmer sound.

You mention using it to increase sustain, which I don't understand. Can you explain it in short, easy to understand, words?

[Gary Jones]

Please forgive me if I am helping to pull this thread off-topic, but this discussion of delay units reminded me of something.

Back in the late 1970's I was using a Roland Chorus-Echo (RE-301) for delay, and it was the best sounding tape delay I have ever heard. In one box you got (a very quiet) tape delay, Roland Chorus, and spring reverb.

I sold mine about the same time I got rid of my Leslie guitar cabinet, and have been chasing that sound ever since. I can get close with my POD, but it's never exactly the same.

I see these units come up for sale from time-to-time on e-bay, and I wonder how they have held up over the years? Things with motors and belts tend to have problems with age. Just like me.

Gary Jones

[Clete Ritta]

I just picked up the MXR Carbon Copy, and it's a nice analog sounding compliment to my DD-3.

Clete

[Jason Hull]

I use a Yamaha E1010, and I love it. It is a "bucket-brigade" analog delay, and will self-oscillate if the feedback is turned all the way up. Great sounding delay, plus lots of weird noises. Sometimes I just hit one note and then "play" the delay with the knobs. A half-hour later and I'm still making music with that one note (much to my neighbor's chagrin!).

[Bob Bender]

I've had good results with my rare, no longer made Analog-man AR20DL.That combined with the Timmy pedal I just got after a 7 month wait is a great combo.The trick I've learned is to back off the delay enough so it's very subtle.Too much and the repeat starts to break up.

[Ben Jones]

Please forgive me if I am helping to pull this thread off-topic, but this discussion of delay units reminded me of something.

Back in the late 1970's I was using a Roland Chorus-Echo (RE-301) for delay, and it was the best sounding tape delay I have ever heard. In one box you got (a very quiet) tape delay, Roland Chorus, and spring reverb.

I sold mine about the same time I got rid of my Leslie guitar cabinet, and have been chasing that sound ever since. I can get close with my POD, but it's never exactly the same.

I see these units come up for sale from time-to-time on e-bay, and I wonder how they have held up over the years? Things with motors and belts tend to have problems with age. Just like me.

Gary Jones

Gary, in most cases the roland space echos have held up very very well. You can buy new tapes and the rollers and heads can be cleaned. It is my favorite delay also.

The Way Huge pedals Ive tried have all been excellent. The Pork Loin, The Swollen Pickle and Fat Sandwich are all fantastic. I havent yet tried the auqa puss and I already own a half dozen analog delays but I bet its a fine pedal and I'll probaby get one eventually too.

[Chris Dorch]

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that the MXR and the Way Huge analog delays have the same circuit since they are both made by Dunlop?

I too have the MXR and it's really nice... I only use it for six string, but I have a want to get one for my steel...

[Lynn Oliver]

I don't think they are the same, as the MXR pedal offers twice the delay time, and the Way Huge version deliberately includes clock noise. Also the MXR has the mod button.

[John Billings]

Echoplex or Space Echo into a Twin for me! The durn Roland looks brand new. Mike put in a new motor in the Plex for me before he passed. Just has a wonderful fat sound.

[Michael Brewer]

Lynn,

Perhaps "sustain" was a poor choice of words. I have a severe hearing problem and the fullness of the tone using this unit sounds to me like increased sustain.

[Stan Knowles NC]

OF ALL THE DELAY PEDALS I OWN...OR EVER HAVE
OWNED....I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING AT ALL THAT
EVEN COMES CLOSE TO MY OLD BOSS DM-3!

PEOPLE KEEP WANTING TO BUY IT.....AND I KNOW
THAT YOU CAN GET THEM ON E-BAY.....BUT MINE
WILL "NEVER" BE FOR SALE.

BEAUTIFUL REVERB-TYPE DELAY...WITHOUT ALL THE
GARBAGE! ......AND IT'S "ANALOG!"

[Bill Howard]

I had a Boss delay, several digitals. I had about everything then I got a Dan electro the big purple daddy,I have people walk up and look at it when I play shows or places with other players,
Uhhh what are you using?, Plain Analog Dan Echo...this cost about 115.00 never heard anything so good,Herby Wallace played somewhere in time my Dan electro comes pretty close to the sound herby had on that

[Bill Howard]

I wonder if anyone still uses a echoplex. High main maintenance and noisey but they sure sounded cool.

I got an EP 3 Echoplex with the cassette type tape cartridge.A School buddy picker got it at a yard sale about 15 yrs ago and said "Give me 25.00 for it:)
I almost fainted when I saw them on E Bay for 3 to 500.00:) thanks Chuck!!

[Clete Ritta]

A little off topic, but speaking of tape echo, I was at my amp tech's place last week and he had one of these from Fulltone:



I didn't get to try it, but I take his word as bond that it sounds amazing!
Fulltone also have a limited edition red tolex version coming out soon:



Pretty cool
Clete

[Brad Sarno]

Here's what I've been using lately.

It's a purely analog delay with a purely analog dry signal path, but there is a digital controller in there so you can tap in the delay time (tap tempo). It's got some other nice features too. You can tailor the bass response of the echoes. There's a modulation control so the echoes can do a bit of vibrato or pitch warble to emulate old tape echoes. Like any analog delay, the longer the delay time, the lower the fidelity of the echoes. This unit makes a nice, kind of grainy, grungy, dark echo repeat. Blended just right, it sounds real cool. Too much, and you can hear that it's pretty lo-fi. I like it so far. Priced right too:

http://www.ehx.com/products/deluxe-memory-boy




Brad

[Scott Swartz]

I love the sound of analog delays, but analog bucket brigade technology is "half digital".

Using basic terms, BBD chips create a analog representation of the signal by storing an electrical charge that is passed along the “bucket brigade”. The charge is passed at a rate determined by the clock and the magnitude of charge stored at any given instant is an analog value, unlike a digital delay where the amplitude is assigned to a digital value that has discrete steps. At first glance, the BBD therefore has better resolution, but there are a couple of problems. There is degradation of the charge as it passes through the bucket brigade, and more importantly, the process of passing the charge from bucket to bucket creates clocking noise in the signal.

The raw signal leaving the BBD therefore looks like the audio signal, but there are “spikes” in the wave that correspond to the clock frequency. The solution to this problem is remove the spikes with a low pass filter, typically 30 or 36 dB per octave with a –3 dB point of around 3 kHz. This lets enough high frequencies through for a reasonable audio signal, but stops the clock noise. The limited high frequency bandwidth also happens to sound more natural to most people for guitar effects use.

Using basic terms, a digital delay samples the amplitude at a given clock time and assigns it a discrete value, then another discrete value at the next clock time, and so on. After being stored and then turned back into an analog signal via a D/A converter, the raw waveform will have “steps” in it, due to the discrete amplitude storage (the height difference between each step) and the clock frequency (the width of each step). Obviously, the higher the number of bits for amplitude storage and the higher the clock frequency, the smaller the steps added into the waveform, and the easier it will be to filter them out. I have purposely left out discussion of oversampling here to keep things simple.

If the frequency of the clock is high enough and the amplitude resolution high enough, the steps can be filtered out completely, leaving only the audio. There is a relationship between maximum audio bandwidth, clock frequency, and the filter slope required. For instance, 16 bit CDs use a clock frequency of 44.1 kHz and provide 20 kHz audio bandwidth, therefore a very steep slope filter is required.

So where does that leave us?

-Both digital and BBD technologies will add artifacts to the audio signal.
-Removal of these artifacts is accomplished by low pass filtering in both technologies.
-BBD technology theoretically could have better amplitude resolution, but real world BBDs add a lot of distortion and are clearly less accurate overall than a digital delay line, which many people like sonically

Other function blocks in delays like companders, filters, pre-emphasis, and others all affect the sound also, so the net result we hear depends on all these things.

[John Billings]

I have often regretted selling my Korg SDD 2000. Digital, but very nice-sounding. And it did a lot of stuff. Ah well,,,, I'll stick to my E-plex and Space echo.

[Brad Sarno]

Great technical explanation Scott. Thanks.

I think this all points out that one thing many of us like so much about analog delay is the low fidelity, the lack of highs in the echoes. This reduces the clutter and lets a warm and mellow layer of echoes sit nicely with the initial clear and sparkly picked signal. I could really never use purely clean digital delay, like a DD3, because if you add enough delay to where it's nice and wet, the high fidelity of the repeats creates a big cluttered mess. These lo-fi analog delays not only darken the repeats, but the echoes are also a bit grungy as well. I think that all contributes to the musicality of analog delays. These days, it's hard to find a digital delay pedal that doesn't offer a filter feature to emulate the dark repeats of an analog delay.

To me, the ideal delay is one with an analog dry signal path so your actual guitar signal never has to be converted to digital and back again. Then the delay line is actually digital with all the benefits of low noise and low distortion, but with some good sounding filtering added to make the repeats sound like tape or analog but without too much of the unpleasant noise or artifacts. There are a few like this out there, but not all of them get the filtering just right.

I'm still having fun with this brand new EH Deluxe Memory Boy. If you just listen to the repeats, it's pretty noisy and grungy and lo-fi, but when you blend in just a nice musical amount of delay, it's pretty nice sounding. I like that the dry signal path is purely analog, and the tap tempo feature is there to set the delay time.

Brad

[Earnest Bovine]

The solution to this problem is remove the spikes with a low pass filter, typically 30 or 36 dB per octave with a –3 dB point of around 3 kHz. This lets enough high frequencies through for a reasonable audio signal,

IMO if the delayed signal is too dark, you miss much of the "chorusing" that makes delay sound good on steel guitar. By chorusing I mean that vibrato lets you hear two (or more) pitches that are almost the same but not quite the same. Players exploit this, as when you narrow, slow, and stop your vibrato, hearing the various delayed pitches converge with the dry signal. Without high frequency content, much of the tension and release of simultaneous nearby pitches is absent.