chorus and delay pedal shootout

[harrellab]

Alright...so what's your favorite chorus and/or delay pedal? I have a Boss
CE-2 and RV-3 and am thinking of upgrading.

[olectric]

For delay, I use two pedals: The Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, and the Line6 DL4. The MM is great--warm, smooth analog delay. It features true bypass, and I really like it. I've got the deluxe version, which allows me to dial in some chorus or vibrato on the delay. I don't like either of those very much, but with a very short delay time, some chorus, and an extra long decay, I can get some pretty weird tones. I can dial in a setting that makes my guitar sound like a spacey steel drum.

[olectric]

Now, the Line6 is my favorite stompbox ever. That thing is awesome. For $200 (on sale), I got something that does these things great: digital delay w/ mod, sweep echo, and auto volume swell. I'm sure most of you own this or know about it, but if not, I'll explain how I use it. The DL4 has 4 buttons: three switches for saving effects and a tap-tempo switch. If you get the optional expression pedal, which I highly recommend, you can blend between two settings of each of the three saved effects. You can blend between any two settings of any parameter (or two settings of any combination of parameters or effects per switch)--feedback, decay, volume of delay, or modulation. The DL4 also features a looper, which is great in its own right (14 seconds of loop time with reverse and half-time features), but unfortunately all of the great delay effects can't be used with it. The four buttons become record, loop and continue recording, loop once, and reverse/half speed. Tapping the last button once results in a half speed loop, tapping it twice quickly results in reversing the loop. If you want a longer loop, then hit the half-speed button before recording--you'll get 28 seconds instead of 14. I'm not sure if the expression pedal has any use while on the looper setting. Does anybody know that for sure? I guess I have never thought to mess with the expression pedal while it's looping.

I'm not a big fan of chorus (maybe I just haven't heard the right pedal?), so I've got no reviews of any chorus pedals. I know that I do NOT like the danelectro chorus pedal. I've heard that one, and it especially chaps my eardrums. I hope that doesn't offend anyone here. :D

[pluto]

Alright...so what's your favorite chorus and/or delay pedal? I have a Boss
CE-2 and RV-3 and am thinking of upgrading.

When I was into pedals, I thought the SIB Echodrive was killer. A bit expensive though. I tried both the analog and digital version and ended up buying the digital version mostly because it was a lot cheaper (SIB stopped making the analog version a while ago so they're sort of collectors items)!! :) I've also owned a bunch of other delays (Maxon AD90, Boss DD-20, Line 6 DE4, Ibanez Tonelok DE7, Danelectro Danecho, and the Guyatone MD3) and I thought the SIB was the best of them. Strangely enough, I thought the Ibanez Tonelok was pretty good on the echo setting and was also super duper cheap. Too bad the battery door/bypass switch is a defective piece of doggy poo. The Danecho was pretty awesome too, but also cheaply made. I've heard great things about the Fulltone Echoplex ripoff, but that thing costs about a 1000 dollars, so I doubt if I would even try it. As far as chorus, I had the Analogman Clone Clone, the Fulltone choralflange, the Voodoo Lab Analog Chorus, and one more (I forgot the name, but it's a Scandanavian company that deals mostly with bass stuff, and they also made a guitar chorus called the red twister). In any case, I probably liked the Choralflange the best. Very versatile pedal and all the sounds are very useable.

[njjessee]

For chorus, I've used TC Electronic's and Fulltone's Choralflange. I like them both, but the Choralflange seems to be the one I use the most.

For delay, two Boss DD5's.

[BoraBora]

I love my Line 6 DL4 and I plan on buying a Fulltone Choralflange as soon as my local music store gets another one in.

[morty]

It`s many sound samples on Lin6 website, and I realy like the delay pedal.
If I did not have the T.C. G-force I would by the Line6 Dely!

[mbrown3]

I have the TC Stereo Chorus/Flanger...GREAT pedal for chorus. Warmest, richest chorus you'll hear. Not the cheapest, but definitely the best (in terms of pedals, at least...some of TCs rack units are amazing, but thousands of $). I have very little use for the flanger, but the pitch modulater can actually be useful in limited contexts as well. For chorus, it's the bomb.

Don't use delay too much, used to use the Ibanez AD-9, those were awesome, and great tone, but not enough delay time. I'm looking into a Boss DD-20 (pluto, how did you like it) for some versatility, or maybe at some point a jamman for the loop thing as well.

[joe1962]

For chorus I like the Fulltone Choralflange and the Analog Man Chorus. The Fulltone does more, but the Analog Man is easier to dial in and sounds great. I ended up selling the Fulltone and keeping the Analog Man because I didn't really use the extra stuff the Fulltone does and I like to keep things simple.

I've owned pretty much every delay unit out there over the past few years and the one on my board now is the DLS Echotap. It doesn't do all the weird effects some delay pedals do, but I don't really use that sort of stuff live anyway. What the Echotap DOES do is give nice warm musical delaywith true-bypass and the ability to set one time, tap in another, then switch between the two on the fly.

I also own a Boss DD-20 that is cool when I DO want to play around with spaceship taking off effects and such.

I had the DL-4 and liked it's features but I never could like how it runs the dry signal through the D/A converters along with the effect. I don't mind the repeat being digitized, but I want my dry tone to stay the way it is.

I'd love to try a Fulltone TTE, but I just can't justify the $1000 price tag. No one out there has a Mint TTE they want to sell for, say, $500-600 do they? :D

[sylvanshine]

Chorus is easy, the TC Electronics.

Delay, well that's a problem for me. I'm a delay junky. Tap tempo, slapback, long trailers. Love it all. Just finished recording 6 tracks with my band and the producer made me run dry with no effects. It hurt at first, but it made me realize I don't need a huge pedalboard anymore. For solos, I punch in a little DD-5 and for tap tempo Edge stuff I'm struggling with the new Line 6 Tone Core. I like the smaller footprint compared to the DL-4, but that new footswitch takes a while to get used to.

[Casper]

My whole front end right now is the Digitech RP14D. The old RP stuff is awesome and extremely road worthy. I love the simplicity of stepping on ONE switch for any effect or combination of effects. I often call it "The Poor Man's Bradshaw Unit". The 12ax7 in the unit is nice and warm and finishes nicely in a tube amp. The chorus, delays and reverbs are fully programmable. Comp and distortions are awesome. Takes a little patience to program it, but this thing sounds tons better than L6 stuff.

Shaun

[jimmieb]

I've owned lots of TC stuff a 2290, the rack chorus, and the chorus pedal. I'm now using a Full Tone Choral Flange. They are very different in sound. The ChoralFlange is more Andy Summers Police like, Boss CE-1, and the TC is more Micheal Landau, smooth, warmer and creamier. I think they are both great, but different. Now I'm testing the new Line 6 Tonecore Echo Park for delay and so far I like it. It's pretty transparent, although I do want to get a Keeley Looper to get true bypass. Which may just be an obsession on my part. I did have a TC D-two rack delay which was amazing, but to big. The only reason I went with the Echo Park first was because the DD4 took up too much real estate on my pedal board, but I believe it to be a better all around pedal.

Jimmie B

[pluto]

I'm looking into a Boss DD-20 (pluto, how did you like it) for some versatility, or maybe at some point a jamman for the loop thing as well.

It was pretty good in terms of functions. I can't remember how many different modes it had, but there were about ten I think and it had a pretty long loop capability (over 20 seconds). Not all the modes were useful though (there were some weird ones with weird names that escape my memory). I was a little mixed about it in terms of tone. I was somewhat disappointed with the tape and analog modes. I thought Line 6 did a better job mimicing tape and analog delays. I was also having problems with it using it in my Shiva's loop which is notoriously picky and it just did not sound good through that amp (and yes, I adjusted the output level on the pedal and I used the special fx cable). It was more than adequate with my Uberschall but I bought the dd20 for the Shiva since I always ran the uber dry. I ended up selling it on the gearpage forum for super cheap.

[John Price]

I'm real happy with the BossDD-20 but for chorus I'm still on the hunt!

[harrellab]

It`s many sound samples on Lin6 website, and I realy like the delay pedal.
If I did not have the T.C. G-force I would by the Line6 Dely!


How do you like the G-force, Morty? Is it pretty similar to the G-major but with much more stuff?

[morty]

I have not tested the G-major but I think it`s the G-fprce`s little brother many of the same effects, but not as flexible and it don`t have all the advansed/extended features

I love the flexibility of the G-force and you can take one of the good preset and shape it the way you want, with a good midiboard it`s a dream working with live.. you store all your favorite sounds and its no tweaking on stage. I can use up to 6-7 different types of delay just using the pedalboard..

Many stomp box fanatics says Guitarprosessors make sterile sound and are stealing tone from the amp, but I dont think the G-force make my Koch multitone sound much different, but it`s for shure not sterile!

The qlue is to use the effects in a right way and not use to much of the goods!! I am letting the tone of my Koch amp dominate my sound, and the effects are only some spice to it, you have a output knob and a input knop to control your amont of mix between the amp and the effectprosessor

[Hoyt]

I would suggest getting your CE-2 upgraded by Keeley. Everything I have heard of his is very good. The CE-2 has a great sound, Keeley cleans it up sonically ... turns it into a hi-fi piece. I'm not a huge fan of reverb, so I'd go with the DD-20. It is my favorite pedal. Other than the sound quality, my favorite feature is the LCD readout so you know exactly the bpm or milliseconds of the delay. The DD-20 has one delay setting called "smooth" which is reverbish.
~D

[Turrican]

if you want to go rack, the way to go is eventide units, with the g-force as a second choice. they are pretty expensive, but you can find some of the older stuff like dsp 3000 for under 1000$ on ebayyou can even run it in series, no tone sucking, just the greatest sounding effects you can imagine. not the easiest stuff to learn , though

[tom]

jay, or anybody else, is the sound any better on the tone core than the dl4? i've got the trem pedel and am used to the tap function on it. got a dd20 to try today. right off the bat it sounds warmer to me. way more complicated though. i'm emailing back and forth with a friend from roland to get counsoling.

[crash]

The dd-20 does take some getting used to. If you haven't already, drop a Roland FS-5U pedal on it for tap tempo. It's MUCH easier than putting it into 'manual' mode or whatever.

With that done, you can call up one of the 4 presets, tap in the tempo, and THEN turn effect on. That was the entire reason I went with that unit over the DL4 - it has one more preset, and you can get the delay tapped in BEFORE turning it on. Makes it easier to use on the fly.

[guitarzan]

resident Visual Sound whore, here....


anybody dig the H2O??????

[tom]

crash, can you save a tapped in tempo without going down to the floor?

[jimmieb]

jay, or anybody else, is the sound any better on the tone core than the dl4? i've got the trem pedel and am used to the tap function on it. got a dd20 to try today. right off the bat it sounds warmer to me. way more complicated though. i'm emailing back and forth with a friend from roland to get counsoling.

To me the inconveinence of not having the presets as on the DL4 outweights
the tonal difference, especilly if you use delay a lot. If I could switch between a slap and tap that would be enough. Actually the Tone Core's digital setting is too bitey, the tape setting sounds best to me. The analog setting isn't as tonally pure as the tape setting, it's too warm. I do like the modulation added to the delay. The tap tempo is very easy to use and acurate. The light on the pedal goes from red (delay off) to green (delay on) without changing the tap tempo setting, so you can preset the tap setting. I like the high profile on the pedal, makes it easy to tap, and turn on and off. I still think the DL4 is slightly less transparent than the Echo Park and I'm considering switching back to the DL4, the only reason I won't is because the pedal real estate is too valuable and how much I use delay. For now the Echo Park works for me, and I'm big on the better tone, still the Echo Park lacks versatility on the fly.

Jimmie B

[crash]

crash, can you save a tapped in tempo without going down to the floor?
Not in terms of saving it to the patch permanently, like when you hold down the switch for 2 seconds on the DL4.

But once you call up a preset and get the tempo is tapped in, you can turn the effect off and back on (left pedal) and the tapped in tempo will stay there until you change to a different preset.

I use the MM4 for univibe/leslie/trems, but there's no tap tempo and I really miss that - you had talked about liking the Tone Core pedal for that - how's the ease of use for it?

[tom]

i use the trem pedal for my spacial sound on ballads, i'm not much for chorus. the trem give me the space without the tonal change. i find the tap feature easy to use.