I have a thing about delay pedals. The first pedal I ever bought was a (then state of the art) Boss DM2. I've been using a UA Starlight Delay this year - it sounds beautiful and is one of the sweetest sounding delays I've heard. It also doesn't have any "shimmer" style delays, which I just can't bear.
The only thing I don't like about the Starlight is the lack of presets. Effectively you have two sounds available - a single preset and whatever you have set in manual mode. So when I saw a used-but-mint Eventide Rose going for a reasonable price I thought why not? The attraction with the Rose is (apparently) 25 presets, although I still haven't worked out how you change banks. That's ok, 5 presets suits me ok. And as it happens each preset is actually two presets - you can have two separate, totally unrelated presets available and you can either switch between them with the onboard two footswitches or morph between them with an expression pedal. Storing the presets seems a bit problematic - they don't always stick. But once you get them into the memory they seem to stay there - so far!
The sounds are pretty good. I think the Starlight's overall sound is more natural, and it doesn't lose low end in the repeats as quickly. The repeats do get less low end content with each repetition according to whichever style you have selected but the Rose loses more low end quite quickly, which can sound a bit artificial. Still, now that I've had a few days to get used to it I'm getting better at dialling the Rose in.
So purely on a sound basis I still marginally prefer the Starlight. If it had more than one preset I would love it. The Memoryman setting is fab, and the tape setting is fine. I really like the "boring" digital setting too. The modulation is lovely - not too artificial and wobbly sounding. Now the funny thing is that for me a simple slapback delay is a big part of what I want from a delay. Both of these delays do a perfectly fine slapback. But out of curiosity I compared both to my old standby, the TC Flashback Mini. And what do you know? The slapback setting on the TC kills the other two, much more $$ delays. It has such a commanding, bold sound. Is it the buffer? I dunno. But the sound of the little TC delay in slapback setting is probably the best I have heard.
Anyway I'm pretty happy with the Rose. It has more of that old '80s delay sound which is what I bought it for. And it's more compact than the Timeline I used to have. The straight-through sound is good. It doesn't colour my base tone too much, which is something that a lot of delays do. It's a useful alternative to the Starlight and will be perfect for my '80s inspired band if that ever happens. I still wish I could find a delay about the size of the Starlight which had presets and which sounded as good as the Starlight does. And which had the commanding slapback sound of the little TC!
The only thing I don't like about the Starlight is the lack of presets. Effectively you have two sounds available - a single preset and whatever you have set in manual mode. So when I saw a used-but-mint Eventide Rose going for a reasonable price I thought why not? The attraction with the Rose is (apparently) 25 presets, although I still haven't worked out how you change banks. That's ok, 5 presets suits me ok. And as it happens each preset is actually two presets - you can have two separate, totally unrelated presets available and you can either switch between them with the onboard two footswitches or morph between them with an expression pedal. Storing the presets seems a bit problematic - they don't always stick. But once you get them into the memory they seem to stay there - so far!
The sounds are pretty good. I think the Starlight's overall sound is more natural, and it doesn't lose low end in the repeats as quickly. The repeats do get less low end content with each repetition according to whichever style you have selected but the Rose loses more low end quite quickly, which can sound a bit artificial. Still, now that I've had a few days to get used to it I'm getting better at dialling the Rose in.
So purely on a sound basis I still marginally prefer the Starlight. If it had more than one preset I would love it. The Memoryman setting is fab, and the tape setting is fine. I really like the "boring" digital setting too. The modulation is lovely - not too artificial and wobbly sounding. Now the funny thing is that for me a simple slapback delay is a big part of what I want from a delay. Both of these delays do a perfectly fine slapback. But out of curiosity I compared both to my old standby, the TC Flashback Mini. And what do you know? The slapback setting on the TC kills the other two, much more $$ delays. It has such a commanding, bold sound. Is it the buffer? I dunno. But the sound of the little TC delay in slapback setting is probably the best I have heard.
Anyway I'm pretty happy with the Rose. It has more of that old '80s delay sound which is what I bought it for. And it's more compact than the Timeline I used to have. The straight-through sound is good. It doesn't colour my base tone too much, which is something that a lot of delays do. It's a useful alternative to the Starlight and will be perfect for my '80s inspired band if that ever happens. I still wish I could find a delay about the size of the Starlight which had presets and which sounded as good as the Starlight does. And which had the commanding slapback sound of the little TC!
