the best delay out there?

[cakeworks]

Hey, I'm still in the wishing/getting-the-experience-to-even-dream-about-it stage of building a delay.
What's the general oppinion on delay's round these parts? Or would I be better off just buying one.

Also, Is it possible to have a diy analogue delay with tap tempo?

thanks

-Jack

[Snuffy]

Definately the echoplex.. but its a little complicated

[bwanasonic]

It sounds like maybe your equating DIY with cheap? If cost is your main concern, I'm not sure DIY is the way to go. Especially if you are looking for things like tap-tempo. The Line 6 Echo Park is a great bang-for -the-buck if you are considering commercial pedals. If you are determined to build a DIY delay, I'd skip more complex features like tap tempo on a first-time delay build.

Kerry M

[RaceDriver205]

Also, tap-tempo seems an overkill. Plucking a muted string and using your other hand to turn the delay-time knob gives you the right delay very quickly. And yes, tap-anything gets things complicated - its for digital effects.
The "Rebote 2" DIY Delay works real good, and won't be a problem to build.
If you want to hear it: www.tothemax.web1000.com - Under "FX Demos" - Bottom of Page.
Parts are standard non-expensive ones, avail from futurlec.com.

[Mark Hammer]

"Delay" does not equal "delay" does not equal "delay".  People can very often want different things from a delay, hence the question is difficult to answer.


For a variety of technical reasons, delays tend to come in a few time ranges: A) up to 350msec or so, B) up to 800msec or so, C) a couple of seconds, D) more than several seconds.

'A' is most often analog, though not always.  'B' is more often digital, though not always.  'C' and 'D' are always digital.

'A' lets you get decent slapback, and overlapping echoes.  'B' lets you get slapback sometimes, plus overlapping echoes, and echoes you have to wait for.  'C' sometimes comes with slapback capability, plus overlapping and wait-for-it echoes, plus some rudimentary looping or phrase-sampling capability.  'B' will do phrase-sampling too, but places obvious limits on the phrase-length and inter-repeat pacing.  'D' is explicitly intended for phrase-sampling and looping.

'A' is certainly feasible as a DIY project, though it starts to become noncompetitive with commercial pedals (especially the various easily moddable also-rans out there on the 2nd hand market) if you attempt to go wholly analog.  'B' can be reasonably priced as DIY, compared to commercial digital products, but expensive as analog DIY compared to digital products.  'C' and 'D' tend to both be unfeasible for the light-to-moderately-skilled tinkerer (serious building chops needed for both).

The questions you need to ask yourself are:
1) How soon do you need this to "work"? (more complex or challenging projects may require considerable waiting time for parts, troubleshooting, etc)
2) What kinds/categories of tasks do you need it to do?
3) How comfortable are you with modding existing products?

So, something like the Scott Swartz PT-80 project over at GGG is a well-worn path with lots of available advice form people who've made it.  The sound quality is decent, the core chip (digital) is easily available from Small Bear and inexpensive.  BUT it will only do overlapping echoes at most.  If you were looking for basic phrase-sampling, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

I obviously recognize all the benefits and pleasures of DIY, but in terms of cost+trouble for DIY, compared to cost+trouble for commercial, when it comes to delays the pendulum tends to swing over to commercial products.  Especially digital solutions.  They are so cheap, plentiful, and powerful these days, why resist?  Digital may not do EVERYTHING all that well, but it has almost always done delays well, and continues to excel in that area.  The range of quality products available in the $120-$200 range (including the Echo Park) is nothing short of astounding, and unless there is some very specific tonal goal you need to meet that only analog will permit, you'd be foolish to ignore those digital choices.

[KB]

Hi everyone

I have nothing to add to the discussion I think Mark has covered practically everything that is a valid consideration for the DIY'er.

I just wanted to point out that there is now the SHEcho on GGG which is basically a PT80 using a Holket HT8955A chip for up to 800ms of delay.

For the more ambitious there is Ryan Williams Synth DIY site that has an interesting VC-Echo design that uses the PT2395 chip and a 41256 ram chip.  The spec sheet for the PT2395 gives max delay as 800ms, but on his site Ryan states that the max delay is 1.5sec.  May be of interest to someone.

Kevin

[disto]

i recently built the pt-80 and I'm impressed with it i didn't think that it would be a long enough delay but i really like it! i put a video on youtube the other day, search pt-80 and you should get it up! its not anything amazing but I'm pleased with it!
wow the SHEcho sounds interesting i must check that out.

Plucking a muted string and using your other hand to turn the delay-time knob gives you the right delay very quickly.

this always creates interesting sounds, kind of time stretching sounds i love it.

[Mark Hammer]

I was going to mention the SHECHO, but a) the Holtek chips are harder to find than the Princeton ones, and b) the Princeton ones are higher quality than the Holtek ones.  So, despite the fact that I built Dean Hazelwanter's first HT8955 project and intend to make use of my other HT8955 chip sitting in foam in my bin right now in a SHECHO, I didn't mention it because it just sets up too many false hopes for folks who would probably better off getting a PT2395 and squeezing 800 better-sounding milliseconds of delay from that.  If you HAVE some 8955's that's one thing, but if you don't already have one, get a 2395.

[markm]

Sheeesh! 
All I use delay for is a bit of slapback to make my Tele sound a bit fuller when pickin' country licks.
Maybe that's why the standard Rebote 2.5 -or- the AD3208 are my weapons of choice!

[Mark Hammer]

Well gosh darnit there was a reason that Mike Matthews was able to sell so damn many Memory Man units.

[markm]

 

[Marcos - Munky]

I suggest you the PT-80. It isn't that hard to build, and you can get a really good sound of it. I'm very happy with mine, and the best thing is that it worked on the first try.

[d95err]

Hey, I'm still in the wishing/getting-the-experience-to-even-dream-about-it stage of building a delay.
What's the general oppinion on delay's round these parts? Or would I be better off just buying one.

Also, Is it possible to have a diy analogue delay with tap tempo?

Don't get hung up on the mojo of analog delays. The only real difference is really that the analog delays signal has a lot lower sound quality. To cover up this, heavy lowpass filtering is used on the delay signal to take away noice and artifacts due to the low sample rate. You can take any digital delay and add more lowpass filtering to get an "analog" sounding delay. The Reboote 2 does this, so it sound very close to (though probably better) than a typical BBD-delay.

[cakeworks]

Hate to rusurrect this oldie but I'm still planning this build. How easy would it be to add a rate indicating LED setup to it?

[RaceDriver205]

Hard

[cakeworks]

any decent ones with it already in it?

[RaceDriver205]

Nope, sorry cakeworks.