#1

In the same spirit as The Reverb Thread, I thought it might be fun to have a spot to chat about and share our favourite delays of all shapes and sizes.

My current favourites are the 4ms DLD, BugBrand PTDelay, and Cocoquantus. They’re all so different and offer lots of possiblities from clean to crunchy.

One thing I feel like I’m missing though is a nice clean-ish stereo delay where the two delays can be kept in time. The DLD sort of does this, but I’ve never been able to figure out how to actually get the two sides in time with each other, even when they’re synced to the same clock.

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#2

It’s all about the Memory Man!! EHX ftw! the stereo memory man with hazarai is the clean stereo delay you’re looking for. The Memory Boy with CV input is the classic sound for your modular, but tragically doesn’t come as a module.

In Eurorack I end up using the Disting Delay tonnes - If I haven’t used the Disting for anything else in a patch, I whack the delay on a part.

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#3

Those are classic!

I’ve been lusting after the Oto Bim (to go with my beloved Bam), but am having trouble justifying the price vs something way more flexible like a TimeFactor…

What I love about the Bim, TimeFactor, and a few others is that you can set an offset between the two delays/stereo, so have the delays offset but in time across the stereo spread. So nice!

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#4

As far as pedals go, all the Strymon delays are great, especially the El Capistan (my favorite pedal ever) and the Timeline. I’d like to try a DIG at some point for stereo dual delays - the ‘golden ratio’ pattern is intriguing.

The MXR carbon copy is a fun bucket brigade style pedal I used to have.

@Simeon - the Disting ping pong and other delay modes are fantastic.

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#5

love the boss dd7 so much for clean delays. you can patch it mono (input -> left, output -> right) to double the delay times.

love the roland space echo to bits. i’ll never get rid of that.

mxr carbon copy sounds great. i borrowed one for a long time and often think about getting another.

tried out the minifooger analog delay - lil too dark for me. but the overdrive is nice.

tried the malekko ekko 616 mkii - love it but i wish the knobs were spaced out better and easier to turn. mine were quite stiff.

sp-303 tape delay is the best!

i like using the soundhack delay plugin live.

want a bim. that’s next on my list.

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#6

Love my Moog MF104 to bits! But the cocoquantus is very tempting.

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#7

Do you have any insight into the dual delay mode on the dd7? In the manual it says that one of the stereo delay options is “two independent delays”, but doesn’t give any info on how to set independent delay times for A and B…

I have a dd7, carbon copy, and minifooger delay all of which I love, but are generally velcroed to my guitar pedal boards for various bands, so I haven’t really tried them with my electronic gear.

The Bim is high on my list too, but as I said, hard to figure out why I like it so much more than similarly priced pedals like TimeFactor… there’s just something fun and musical about he Oto boxes.

#8

Roland Space Echo, obviously. I have the RE-150, so no spring reverb - but I’ve never missed it. Overdrives like nobodies business.

BugBrand PT Delay. New fave, I love the crunchy broken sounds when the delay time is maxed out, and the hi- and lo-cut are great for getting something to sit in a mix.

Boss DD-3/PS-3. Classics.

Chase Bliss Tonal Recall. Great sounding analog delay pedal, ridiculously tweakable. Probably would have kept this if I didn’t have a Space Echo.

I liked the El Capistan, but felt like the warble was way too pronounced. Only poorly-maintained tape delays sound like that.

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#9

sorry i don’t. i never use it in dual delay mode.

#10

The Bastl Thyme is my current favorite. It’s an excellent glitch box, but it can also get nice clean delays, comb filtering, flanging…it takes a bit of fiddling but when a sweet spot is hit it’s worth it. I haven’t even tried sequencing presets yet.

For guitar I used to really like the Boss PS-2 pitch shifter / delay - mostly for infinite sustain type sounds (short delays, lots of feedback) - but my all time favorite was the Echoplex EP-3. Why did I ever sell it? Might have to grab another one, or a Fulltone TTE at some point, if I ever play guitar again.

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#11

modcan digital delay (im trying to find the b series again) was my favorite in modular (though the dual looks amazing).

strymon el cap is close to perfect for what it can do. all the tape delays i have ever met have been incredible but the problem aspects are kinda a bummer so el cap nails that for me.

i like a boss dd3 for complete simplicity and long standing but open relationship since teenagedom

i live the native ableton delays a lot itb.

those are all my go to’s

this thread is going to have some big shoes to fill if in same vein as the reverb thread :speak_no_evil:

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#13

Agreed about the DD-3. When I was younger, I spent hours with it, a drum machine and other pedals, modulating the delay time by hand and switching modes to get pitch-lurching glitch effects. I was hoping the 4MS DLD would offer similar possibilities, but my understanding is that while it can generate some interesting artifacts, the pitch remains constant. Is that correct?

I sold and re-bought the DD-3 but I never use it with my rack. I’d be interested in learning to convert it to Eurorack.

Currently, I’m devoted to my Rainmaker because it can generate such astonishing textures (and because its depth, cost and size demand a level of commitment). It’s fiddly, in one sense, because you have so many parameters available, but what people often overlook is that it’s more or less one button/knob per function and the layout is very clear.

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#14

In Euro: delay is my most common use for Disting. I like how the clockable delay handles irregular triggers.

Koma Field Kit FX has a nice dirty PT delay among its toybox.

I just got a Tyme Sefari mk2 and A Sound Of Thunder this afternoon and started to explore it. It’s a bit different than I expected, but i like it. No antialiasing filter on it, so I may be looking for a small LPF soon, or swap my Cinnamon next to it. I look forward to the firmware update that will clean up loop point changes though!

In pedals, I’ve got Afterneath (sort of delay/reverb hybrid) and an MS-70CDR, with a Cimmerian Caves V2 coming soon. The latter is a nice dark delay with watery, dizzy sounding modulation that I think I’ll really dig into.

In software I just picked up U-he Colour Copy, which is pretty fantastic. Supposed to be a BBD emulation but there’s no clock noise… but a great saturator and “color” models as well as a pretty clever routing/tap system, ducking and an LFO.

I’m also fond of Echobode (a freq shifter/ringmod in a delay feedback loop with diffusion), Permut8 (which has some bizarre bitwise modulation) and Ratshack Reverb.

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#15

The 4ms DLD does not do any pitch shifting, which is one of my favorite things about it. Modulating delay time and listen to the playback buffer jump and jitter around can be so pleasant, and switching from one delay division to another for tight rhythmic stuff is great. I recently pickup up the tanh3 from Instruo and upgraded the firmware of the DLD so all the echoes successively go through the feedback loop. It’s like a whole new module. I’ve been able to get some amazing textures running oscillators and guitar through it with Three Sisters in the feedback loop. The DLD + an El Cap at the end if my chain is really doing it for me in terms of delay/ambience.

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#16

Boss DM-2 (w/ 3005 chip) - current fave
Akai Headrush is always fun

#17

Interesting! Thanks for that. If you know of any examples online of that sort of jumping and jittering, I’d be very interested to hear them. Somehow I’m a bit fixated on the idea of the DLD lately - especially the thought of combining it with the QCD+expander for some hands-on time manipulation. When switching the divisions, do the glitches keep repeating in the feedback line or are they discarded?

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#18

real quick

outboard -> strymon el cap. a lot to love, totally wrecked mine. agree w comments about how over the top the wobble can be, but in general i love the sound so much.

euro -> clouds looping delay does lovely warm lofi stuff for me. not a great reason to buy a clouds but it’s done a lot of work for me and i enjoy a versatile module.

euro -> euroDDL: it’s a real blast and very very flexible but i don’t find myself pumping a lot of CV into it. loooong, clean (or very dirty) times and an input kill switch/cv has it making a lot of loops for me. with short delay times it gets super glitchy when worked w CV. not perfect but a great delay

software:

NI Spektral Delay. can’t believe this still runs on my MBP. furious it was discontinued a lifetime ago

Logic Tape Delay: totally solid tape model, great tone/wobble controls.

FabFilter Timeless: awesome

i’ve had others of course, Boss DD-6, Lexicon Vortex. yay delays

#19

lol that wasn’t “real quick”

#20

I feel like the eurorack Modcan Dual Delay would be my perfect delay, but they are really hard to find. It seems like it does a lot of what the DLD does (minus the sound on sound looping), and then a lot more. I rarely use the looping part of the DLD…

#21

I picked up a Strymon Magneto recently and I’m loving the character, but the fixed delay ratios and lack of thorough CV inputs leave a little to be desired. I almost like it as more of ‘tape flavor injector’ than as a delay unit.

I’m finally getting a case next week, so I’ll put it through the paces and do some more experiments in the following months.

Clouds is fun too. I’ll hook up my DD7, DL4, and PitchFactor in the near future as well.

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