MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Continuing my journey into Bjorn Juhl land.....
I've read a lot of great reviews about this delay but it just never really interested me to build another PT2399 delay.
Boy, I didn't realize what I was missing. What a great sounding delay!
My interest in this board was sparked by my deep dive into building as many Bjorn Juhl projects that I could find. I've really been smitten with his designs and his sounds. Even though mostly his overdrives, I got curious how he would do a delay.
I "thought" I had pretty much settled on analog delays only as I really prefer the "less than pristine" sound of BBD's. But inherent with analog delays is also some of the quirky behavior with other pedals that I've run into.
The Deep Blue is a dead simple 3 control delay, yet there are a ton of sounds in it, everything from rockabilly slap back to deep lush wet long delay times.
For such a simple circuit it really does a great job emulating an analog delay and most importantly, it plays well with my dual delay setup that I've been struggling with for a while now with two analog BBD delays.
The repeats are warm yet articulate and doesn't have any hint of the "brittle" sound I find in most digital delays, especially DIY ones. I think out of all the digital delays I've played, the Strymon El Cap sounds the best to me, but of course you can't build one.
The repeats of the DBD even has a tiny bit of that "rrrrr" distortion of BBD delays. I'm not entirely positive if this is by design or the particular PT2399 chip I used.
But I love it!
Plenty of output, the level control is actually a blend control that works really well with a lot of "finesse" control of how much delay you want. Max delay time is around 450ms. The only thing that could make this better would be modulation, but then it wouldn't fit into a 1590B.....
.
I have it running into my MBP Tourbus and the TB provides the slight bit of modulation I like to run. The dual delay sound is much more articulate than running my MBP ManOWar into the Tourbus, yet it doesn't sound as "tinny" as running any of the other digital delays I've built into the Tourbus. So far this combination has come the closest to the sound I'm hearing in my head that I'm looking for short of running dual Deluxe Memory Man units in a stereo setup. (Still working on that....hahah).
Super happy with this and can highly recommend it for a very simple and inexpensive to build, simple to use, but pretty flexible delay pedal with a lot of sounds in it.
As with all of @Robert 's layouts, this was a medium component count build but I breezed through the build fairly quickly because it's laid out so well.
And did I mention it fits in a 1590B.....
I'm not sure where I got this enclosure from, it wasn't Tayda, but I've been avoiding using it for a while because somehow it got scratched up.
But it was the only blue 1590B I had, and this pedal HAD to go into a blue enclosure heh. So excuse the scuff marks.
I've read a lot of great reviews about this delay but it just never really interested me to build another PT2399 delay.
Boy, I didn't realize what I was missing. What a great sounding delay!
My interest in this board was sparked by my deep dive into building as many Bjorn Juhl projects that I could find. I've really been smitten with his designs and his sounds. Even though mostly his overdrives, I got curious how he would do a delay.
I "thought" I had pretty much settled on analog delays only as I really prefer the "less than pristine" sound of BBD's. But inherent with analog delays is also some of the quirky behavior with other pedals that I've run into.
The Deep Blue is a dead simple 3 control delay, yet there are a ton of sounds in it, everything from rockabilly slap back to deep lush wet long delay times.
For such a simple circuit it really does a great job emulating an analog delay and most importantly, it plays well with my dual delay setup that I've been struggling with for a while now with two analog BBD delays.
The repeats are warm yet articulate and doesn't have any hint of the "brittle" sound I find in most digital delays, especially DIY ones. I think out of all the digital delays I've played, the Strymon El Cap sounds the best to me, but of course you can't build one.
The repeats of the DBD even has a tiny bit of that "rrrrr" distortion of BBD delays. I'm not entirely positive if this is by design or the particular PT2399 chip I used.
But I love it!
Plenty of output, the level control is actually a blend control that works really well with a lot of "finesse" control of how much delay you want. Max delay time is around 450ms. The only thing that could make this better would be modulation, but then it wouldn't fit into a 1590B.....
.I have it running into my MBP Tourbus and the TB provides the slight bit of modulation I like to run. The dual delay sound is much more articulate than running my MBP ManOWar into the Tourbus, yet it doesn't sound as "tinny" as running any of the other digital delays I've built into the Tourbus. So far this combination has come the closest to the sound I'm hearing in my head that I'm looking for short of running dual Deluxe Memory Man units in a stereo setup. (Still working on that....hahah).
Super happy with this and can highly recommend it for a very simple and inexpensive to build, simple to use, but pretty flexible delay pedal with a lot of sounds in it.
As with all of @Robert 's layouts, this was a medium component count build but I breezed through the build fairly quickly because it's laid out so well.
And did I mention it fits in a 1590B....
.I'm not sure where I got this enclosure from, it wasn't Tayda, but I've been avoiding using it for a while because somehow it got scratched up.
But it was the only blue 1590B I had, and this pedal HAD to go into a blue enclosure heh. So excuse the scuff marks.
