Delay... Delay... Delay... Help

Dan0h

Well-known member
I have the classic dilemma. Which Delay to add/build to add to pedal board as my second delay? I currently have the EHX Canyon, which I love. I mostly only use the DMM and Tape modes. I’ve been stalking several pedals as potential choices and am open to builds that might be comparable. If anyone has thoughts/experience with these or comparable PCB builds I would love the feedback. I am not familiar enough with the PCB offerings in the delay world to know which one to order. Of course “analog” gets me excited but the Canyon is not analog and I love it so I am not stuck on analog.

JHS Panther cub 1.5
Carolina Megabyte or Kilobyte
Empress Tape delay
Wampler The Doctor
Belle Epoch Ep3 or deluxe
D Memory man, boy, toy...
I’ve even considered just adding a second Canyon as well...
 
For simplicity I think of delay pedals in 3 categories:
-Analog (bucket brigade device)
-Pt2399 (technically digital but can’t write code and feels a bit analog-ish still, a little bit darkened).
-DSP (digital with code. Can be crisp and clear, or programmed to emulate analog/tape)

Ideally you’d have something in each category to compare and see which type you like. obviously there’s differences within each categories but I think it helps to break it down this way. For pt2399 I like the deep blue delay (pedalpcb seabed). Cataclysm and Magnetron probably sound great too, pt2399 designs with more features.

I haven’t built an analog, but I’ve played the carbon copy. Sounds nice but very dark repeats, I think I actually prefer the deep blue delay circuit, not as dark but still not as crisp as DSP. The darkness is a common characteristic of analog delay due to filtering the bbd to keep noise down, though I’ve read some aren’t as dark as the CC.

I agree with the above post for doing an arachnid and/or hydra for DSP flavor. The daydream patch is very nice for something a little different and the spatialist reverb patches would be great to fill out the 8 modes.
 
Cataclysm is digital with an Analog path based on tape delay & has a Tone control to brighten or Darken the REPEATS.
It will be my next build!

 
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FV-1 - Here's the D3lay built off the Pythagoras board (3 mode delay - Tape, Modulated, and Multi-Tap Space). Sounds fantastic!

PT2399 - Here's the Magnetron with an added runaway delay footswitch:
 
Seconded on the cataclysm delay, i built one for me and a friend as well and it is absolutely killer. Mix and tone knobs make it particularly useful. Im not personally a fan of the modulated delays, but i really want to build some more delay and PT2399 circuits so who knows!
 
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