MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I think I mentioned that I was looking to build another delay pedal that would be specific for my Marshall Origin 20H.
My various Deluxe Memory Man pedals work well but because of the Marshall preamp topology, whether running in front of the amp or in the efx loop requires a bunch of different settings from all my other amps and my direct in amp models.
So instead of doing a bunch of knob tweaking when playing the Marshall I decided to build a dedicated delay(s) for it running in the loop that I could just preset and turn on or off as needed.
Right now I'm running my Mad Prof Seabed Delay in it and it sounds pretty darn good, but I've become a bit of an analog snob when it comes to delays. (Thanks to @Guardians of the analog ....
)
I've considered punting and building another Skoolie dedicated to the Marshall but I thought I'd look around for something different to build.
So I ordered the Lectric FX Star Chambre. But chatting with Clinton (@blackhatboojum) who has built it, he said that it didn't work very well with his JCM800.
So before plunking down $$'s for the BBD's I decided to see what else there was to build. Clinton recommended the AionFX Elysium....which ironically is a digital delay. But it's not a PT2399, and it sounded interesting, so I decided to check it out.
It's based on the Ibanez EM5 Echo Machine from the "SoundTank" series. I always thought the Soundtank pedals looked like toys heh. But apparently this delay has a pretty big following and they sell for a pretty penny on the used market.
It uses a rather obscure IC, M65831, which is similar to a PT2399 in thats it's a digital IC with an analog interface.
I ordered the chip along with the board from Aion.
The only other gotcha's are that the CMOS Hex inverter IC it uses is also somewhat obscure, SN74HCU04, but Mouser has them.
It also needs 7 1uf Film caps and the standard sized 1uf caps won't fit. You'll either need to use MLCC or get the small form factor WIMA caps. (Both Mouser and Tayda have them).
It's a pretty busy build and looks more like a BBD delay than a typical PT2399.
But man I LOVE how this thing sounds! It's similar to the Seabed but I think a little cleaner sounding. When I say "clean" I mean without the usual inconsistencies of the PT2399. Like the Seabed the repeats have some heavy filtering going on and even a little bit of clipping to emulate a tape delay.
I think it does a superb job. It actually reminds me a lot of the sound of my Strymon El Capistan when I still had one, but without all the features.
It's a pretty simple set of controls, level, delay and feedback. So you can't adjust things like the warble and there's no modulation.
Setting up the trimmers is pretty straightforward with a min delay and a max delay that are somewhat interactive. It can do up ~1000ms.
I wound up with all the trimmers at noon fwiw.
But for a straight up delay it's awesome sounding. Thanks @blackhatboojum for the recommendation!
I recorded a demo on my desktop rig, I haven't had a chance to incorporate it into my pedalboard and test it with the Marshall yet. But I think it's going to work well, particularly as a dual delay with my Seabed.
Also, showing off some tones of my new Epiphone Firebird in the demo as well as the ShamWah build. I was having some issues with a scratchy pot that I got from Smallbear. I cleaned it out with contact cleaner and compressed air twice but it kept acting up. I finally pulled it out and put the original Dunlop pot back in it works fine now. I'm going to contact SmallBear about a replacement. It wasn't cheap.
My various Deluxe Memory Man pedals work well but because of the Marshall preamp topology, whether running in front of the amp or in the efx loop requires a bunch of different settings from all my other amps and my direct in amp models.
So instead of doing a bunch of knob tweaking when playing the Marshall I decided to build a dedicated delay(s) for it running in the loop that I could just preset and turn on or off as needed.
Right now I'm running my Mad Prof Seabed Delay in it and it sounds pretty darn good, but I've become a bit of an analog snob when it comes to delays. (Thanks to @Guardians of the analog ....
)I've considered punting and building another Skoolie dedicated to the Marshall but I thought I'd look around for something different to build.
So I ordered the Lectric FX Star Chambre. But chatting with Clinton (@blackhatboojum) who has built it, he said that it didn't work very well with his JCM800.
So before plunking down $$'s for the BBD's I decided to see what else there was to build. Clinton recommended the AionFX Elysium....which ironically is a digital delay. But it's not a PT2399, and it sounded interesting, so I decided to check it out.
It's based on the Ibanez EM5 Echo Machine from the "SoundTank" series. I always thought the Soundtank pedals looked like toys heh. But apparently this delay has a pretty big following and they sell for a pretty penny on the used market.
It uses a rather obscure IC, M65831, which is similar to a PT2399 in thats it's a digital IC with an analog interface.
I ordered the chip along with the board from Aion.
The only other gotcha's are that the CMOS Hex inverter IC it uses is also somewhat obscure, SN74HCU04, but Mouser has them.
It also needs 7 1uf Film caps and the standard sized 1uf caps won't fit. You'll either need to use MLCC or get the small form factor WIMA caps. (Both Mouser and Tayda have them).
It's a pretty busy build and looks more like a BBD delay than a typical PT2399.
But man I LOVE how this thing sounds! It's similar to the Seabed but I think a little cleaner sounding. When I say "clean" I mean without the usual inconsistencies of the PT2399. Like the Seabed the repeats have some heavy filtering going on and even a little bit of clipping to emulate a tape delay.
I think it does a superb job. It actually reminds me a lot of the sound of my Strymon El Capistan when I still had one, but without all the features.
It's a pretty simple set of controls, level, delay and feedback. So you can't adjust things like the warble and there's no modulation.
Setting up the trimmers is pretty straightforward with a min delay and a max delay that are somewhat interactive. It can do up ~1000ms.
I wound up with all the trimmers at noon fwiw.
But for a straight up delay it's awesome sounding. Thanks @blackhatboojum for the recommendation!
I recorded a demo on my desktop rig, I haven't had a chance to incorporate it into my pedalboard and test it with the Marshall yet. But I think it's going to work well, particularly as a dual delay with my Seabed.
Also, showing off some tones of my new Epiphone Firebird in the demo as well as the ShamWah build. I was having some issues with a scratchy pot that I got from Smallbear. I cleaned it out with contact cleaner and compressed air twice but it kept acting up. I finally pulled it out and put the original Dunlop pot back in it works fine now. I'm going to contact SmallBear about a replacement. It wasn't cheap.
. In all seriousness though, it would round out the analog delay collection. You’ll have bright and crisp with the memory man, warm and percussive with the dm-2, and dark and sorta murky with the MXR. All the analog delay tones covered 
. And Yes… I am an enabler 
