Affordable Ambiance

[NeoFauve]

Any suggestions for reasonably priced Reverb and Echo/Delay pedals?

I'm loving the sound of the Prince G, but I do want to add a little space to the sound. I'm a reverb guy.

For reverb, no, I won't spring for a Fender tube driven thing.
I'd like something quiet and easy to use.
I've heard cool samples of the Line 6 Verbzilla. Some of it's features I wouldn't have a lot of use for, outside of getting distratcted by them.
Various versions of the Holy Grail seem pretty cool.

As far as echo, again, quiet and straight forward.
I'm not looking to sound like the Edge. Basic slap effects are what I dig, and a nice fat faux ADT kind of thing.

Any insights on the Build-Your-Own kids would be helpful too.

Thanks.

[Kap'n]

GC was blowing out Echo Park pedals for $90 a week or two ago. They sound great, and I'm sure they've fixed the noisy power supply issue.

The BYOC is supposed to be nice, too.

You can pick up the Boss pedals used cheaply, but I think they sound horrible.

[ziess]

The BYOC delay is great. AFAIK, it's changed since I bought it but the main ICs are the same so it should be pretty good still.
I only replaced mine because I found a cheap tape echo.

Tommy.

[Don]

I use an early BYOC delay pedal (no ping pong) for rockabilly slapback echo. It's perfect with a tweed amp, much better than reverb. It brightens the sounds slightly and gives it more pop without sounding brittle. It makes you stand out in the mix rather than getting lost in it like reverb can.

[curtisstetka]

I too echo (hee hee) the cheers for the BYOC delay. I used one for a while.

However, these days (mostly due to a small pedalboard) I use the Visual Sound H2O pedal - chorus and delay in one box. It's bigger than a single effect but smaller than two linked together. I use it for any situation where I want to take up a little more space.

[Cogs]

I use a Boss RV-3 & I'd have to agree sounds like crap for the most part. Fortunately for me I only use one setting (hall) & it sounds just fine for that. I don't use any other reverb or reverb/delay combo settings.

[NeoFauve]

The BYOC seems pretty cool.
Looks like they'll be doing an analog delay soon.
Apparently, it's been ...............delayed.

I'll probably visit GC to try some pedals.

[ziess]

Yeah, it was delayed (chortle) when I ordered mine too.
That was in February...

Tommy.

[Kap'n]

The Echo Park sounds really good. It's got tape emulation, and some nifty features, like tap dotted 8th notes, for easy rockabilly slapback.

Early versions had noise issues. Some experiementation on my part showed that clock noise polluted the power-supply line, and that generated noise in other effects*. Pretty weird. I imagine they must have fixed that by now.



*I did some experiementation that showed that if you powered the Echo with a power supply, and used a 1/4" plug stuck in the inlet to power it up, but had it out of the signal path powered by the same power supply, the signal chain became noisy.

[Rickenjangle]

Alesis made a Nanoverb that you can find for low bucks that had a nice sounding 'verb as well as some other decent, basic effects - but it's a 1/3 rack space unit so you'd probably have to leave it on all the time.

[Don]

The BYOC seems pretty cool.
Looks like they'll be doing an analog delay soon.
Apparently, it's been ...............delayed.

I'll probably visit GC to try some pedals.

Keith considered offering an anolog delay in the first place, but after mulling it over (and hearing some of us beg for an analog delay) he went digital.

Now, I don't know if an analog delay would be better. My BYOC delay sounded better than an MXR Carbon Copy and absolutely slays my 25 year old Ibanez AD-9!

[stratcat62]

I really didn't care for the Echopark. After wasting a bunch of money trying to save money I bit the bullet and scored a T-Rex Replica and haven't looked back. INMHO delay is a place where you do get what you pay for. For the record, the T-Rex Replica is the only pedal on Carlos Santana's board according to Carlos. Of course, he probably didn't have to pay for his.

[Gris]

By far the best reverb pedal I've ver used/owned was the Reverbmate. I could barely tell the difference from my Fender '62 tank. You can find them used for $225 or so...

[Kap'n]

I really didn't care for the Echopark. After wasting a bunch of money trying to save money I bit the bullet and scored a T-Rex Replica and haven't looked back. INMHO delay is a place where you do get what you pay for. For the record, the T-Rex Replica is the only pedal on Carlos Santana's board according to Carlos. Of course, he probably didn't have to pay for his.

Sure, the T-Rex stuff is nice. But, it's hardly what most folks consider "affordable."

At $90, the Echo Park is a lot better than a lot of things you can get at that price.

[Rickenjangle]

Sure, the T-Rex stuff is nice. But, it's hardly what most folks consider "affordable."

At $90, the Echo Park is a lot better than a lot of things you can get at that price.

Kap'n, you don't rate used Boss DD-n pedals highly, then?

Oh, and it just occurred to me - I used to have a Korg delay that had some great analog echo sounds lurking in it - and it's got to be pretty cheap on the used market. It had the ability to preset one sound and then have another one set to whatever the knobs currently showed.

[Franklin]

How about that new Boss pedal, SL-20 "The Slicer". It's not delay or echo, and may not be affordable but it adds ambiance... i think.... :)

http://www.bossus.com/gear/productde...?ProductId=959

[Kap'n]

Kap'n, you don't rate used Boss DD-n pedals highly, then?

No. I had a DD-2 for the longest time. It worked, sorta in the bedroom. However when I actually started to play in bands, and then comparing other pedals, it sounded really grainy and harsh. I mean, digital technology has come a long way in the past 20+ years. The DD-3 sounds pretty much as bad.

[Rickenjangle]

I've got the DD20 GigaDelay, and while it's probably not in the category of 'affordable' it sure is a nice-sounding swiss army knife of delays.

[Cogs]

opps
nevermind

[JJ Gross]

I've built the BYOC delay as well as the GGG digital delay. They both use the same chip and the first couple versions of the BYOC pedal were actually clones of Francisco Pena's "Rebote Delay".

If you want a quick solder kit and don't want to make your own board, get the BYOC. The kits are easy to pop together and run about $100. If you want to save more than half on the cost of the same circuit or can make your own boards (it's very easy), go with the GGG board or kit. As far as the cost of parts go, I built each of mine for about $30 including the (home-etched) board, enclosures, IC chips, jacks,knobs & paint. Very few effects have more than $20 worth of stuff on the boards no matter what the retail price is. If you have a decent soldering iron and know how to use it, there's no reason to spend $200 on pedals unless you just have no interest in making it yourself. The most expensive pedal I've made was my 'faithful to the original' Univibe clone which ran about $75 in parts, and I didn't go cheap on any of the components. There are a LOT of parts in a true Univibe that you generally don't find in other stuff like a light bulb, LDRs, power rectification & regulation circuitry and about 140 caps & resistors.

The Princeton Technologies PT2399 delay chip is the heart of both the BYOC and GGG kits (as well as a LOT of commercial pedals across a wide price range) and creates delays that darken as they decay and get slightly grainier as they drop off too. It's fully digital, but sounds very analogue in a live setting.

Personally I love it when people come up to my rig at gigs and just make this face like 'WTF...?' when they see nothing but some homemade pedals and a little Fender Pro Jr sporting nothing but 2 knobs and pointing at the back wall (miced). I still manage to cover everything from Robert Cray to Joe Satriani with my goofy little rig and am not hurting for range of sounds.

If you need high end recording sounds, get a Lexicon or even a Yamaha rack delay.

Cheers,
- JJ

[the_best_of_fools]

I bought a Dan-Echo on eBay for real cheap. Very satisfied with it.

tbof

[NeoFauve]

My BYOC delay sounded better than an MXR Carbon Copy and absolutely slays my 25 year old Ibanez AD-9!

Better in what way?

The Carbon Copy was on my list of pedals to try.

[Gris]

I also like my tiny Guya MD-3. Readily available used for about $80...

[Don]

Better in what way?

The Carbon Copy was on my list of pedals to try.

My BYOC delay gives my tone a little more "pop". It makes my guitar cut through the mix very well. Brighter, but not shrill or thin.

My only concern with it is that I don't want to turn it of. It sounds great as a mild treble boost with the controls turned all the way down.

It's excellent for the slapback echo that I like. Great for rockabilly.

The repeats on the Carbon Copy were darker, probably more natural sounding than the BYOC. Less dark than the repeats on my old AD-9.

At one point I was using the BYOC for slapback and the AD-9 for longer (though still quick by most people's standards), more natural delay.

The Carbon Copy also didn't seem as well made. The input jack was fussy and the effect seemed to whine a bit. Also, all those incredibly tiny surface mount parts give me the creeps!

Maybe I played a dud?

In any case, the BYOC Delay is pretty great for how I use it.

[hudpucker]

I'm personally really digging the Carbon Copy delay. It complements my DD-20 well and I've had no issues with it so far...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJPde...eature=related




If I had more room on the old pedalboard I'd look at a SubDecay Echo Box (though it pushes 'affordable'):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8qqY29s-5o

[NeoFauve]

If I had more room on the old pedalboard I'd look at a SubDecay Echo Box (though it pushes 'affordable'):

Nice, but it's also more feature-packed than I'm looking for.