What's Your Favorite Delay Pedal?

[CYOUL8R]

I'm thinking about building a delay pedal and would like to know which one to try. Any suggestions, i.e., ease of build, features, availability of parts, schematic, and end result. What is your favorite?

[calpolyengineer]

I haven't built a delay, nor do I have a favorite. However, I have been casually browsing around at Mark Hammer's site and found a dandy little Craig Anderton schematic for a pluck follower. It seems like that would be a really versatile mod for delays. It is in DEVICE issue 11 on page 10 of www.hammer.ampage.org.

-Joe

[calpolyengineer]

Forgot to tell you what it does. It is sort of like an envelope follower, except instead of detecting the amplitude of the signal, it somehow makes a control voltage based on how fast you play. So if you used it for a delay, it could have long delays for strumming slow chords, then automatically speed up the delay (or slow down I guess since the delay time would be shorter) when you start picking out notes. Anyways, I just thought this would be a cool addition to any delay. Take it or leave it.

-Joe

[Mark Hammer]

It can also be used to fade the delay signal in when there is space between notes and fade it out when the playing gets busy enough that delays would clutter things up.  Note that the Line 6 Echo Park has this function built in as the "ducking" option.  Very hand and a nice addition to any delay any way you manage to get it implemented, whether digital or analog.