When I saw a delay coming out that not only mimicked other delays for the most part for stock sounds, but also stole design ideas. I couldn't help but think they were once again "phoning it in".
After having spent a little time with the pedal, over all, it impresses me sound wise. Now let me clarify. I think there are a lot of GOOD sounds in this pedal. I DO NOT believe it does a great job of emulating what it says it emulates.
Does this dethrone other delay pedals? No..it doesn't. I can't say this pedal does any one thing a lot better than any other delay pedal I've heard, except for the unique sounds it has in it. It only does those better because it has no competition in those areas. But it gives you great sounding delays. Musical Delays. Delays you can work with, and so many sculpting options, you could get lost for hours tweaking to your hearts content.
I believe this pedal is a winner. But understand what it does well and does not. This isn't the "Holy Grail" some will tout it to be. I wont say it is going to replace any TC, Strymon, Eventide etc... They are different beasts. Depending on what you want will determine which you want to go with. Do I think it is worth the price? Yes. Do I think it covers every delay situation? If you want un-realistic emulations to your types of bread and butter delays, sure. They still sound good, but are not the best emulations. If you want actual great emulations of various types go with something else. You wont find perfect emulations here. You'll find good enough.
Ratings based on what delays are "Supposed" to be
Standard - 7/10 - Given it is supposed to be digital I find it a bit muddy. I've heard much more inspiring tones from other pedals.
Analog Delay - 6/10 - Seems completely un-natural on the decay for analog. This mode offers 1, 2, and 4 bucket brigade chips. Only the 4 mode sounds decent, but still not a good representation of analog here.
Tape - 7/10 - Tape is a hard one for me. With "Wow" and "Flutter" controls absent, I can't help but think Boss phoned this one in. However when playing around with the different tape head combinations in this one, you can get some very awesome sounds. With one tape head I was hearing very little wow and flutter. With mutliples it is more apparent. It is not the best emulation of tape I have heard, but it does sound nice.
Vintage Digital - 6/10 - Either models the SDE-3000 or DD-2. I'm not really sure it does a great job at either.
Dual - 5/10 - The ability to have 2 delays at the same time running in series or in parallel?! Sign me up! Except...I have to have 2 delays of the same type. Really? How hard would it have been to allow the selection of 2 different types Boss...FAIL
Pattern - 8/10 - Pattern mode is cool for rythmic stuff. Can't complain there.
Reverse - 7/10 - I've heard it done better, but it is what it is. When was the last time you obsessed over a reverse delay?
SFX - 10/10 - Completely original bit crushed sounds and other things. Uniq to this pedal and super cool.
Shimmer - 8/10 - I hate shimmer more than any other effect, but the amount of dialing you can do on this one is decent and sounds pretty good.
Filter - 10/10 - Very nice filter mode for uniq sounds and lots of control.
Slow Attack - 10/10 - The swell is awesome. Very musical. Very inspiring.
Tera Echo - 10/10 - Uniq effect to BOSS. Tera sounds fantastic.
Total Score: 94/120 78.3% C+
The Great!
- Very clean sound. I thought Strymons were clean, this is on par, almost more clear than that.
- Great sounding delays. I find most of what I dial in pleasing to listen to.
- Tera Echo, SFX, Slow Attack, Filter I found more of the uniq sounds awesome
- Pretty small... I was expecting larger. Giggity
- Stereo ins and outs. A must on delay pedals.
- Super precise time - Milisecond adjustments and tap tempo
- 99 Banks by 2 Presets = 198 presets!
The Mediocre!
- Effects in bread and butter types - Tape, Analog, Digital. They are simply not the best representations of what they are "supposed" to be. This doesn't mean they don't sound good. They do. They just aren't good at what they are supposed to be.
- Shimmer - I would say shimmer is the effect I hate most out of any effect ever made. But you can dial in decent useable shimmer on this unit. If you love shimmer this might be in the great category for you.
- Looper - While this may be great...Its been done in like every delay pedal of this caliber. So pretty much par for the course at this point
- Operating the pedal is not that hard. I was going without the manual the first time I plugged it in. But menu diving gets annoying.
- Ability to pan delay signal far right or left and leave the original on one side. This is actually really cool...But why the hell would you not include the ability to ping pong back and forth in stereo on everything?
- Super customizable, lots of options to tweak, but does fall short on some tweakability. The lack of being able to choose which 2 delays in dual mode and wow and flutter controls on tape is unforgivable.
The Bad!
- No computer editor
- Preset Naming sucks on a floor pedal
- Not a whole lot of distorted/saturated delay options
So to sum up. If you want a great sounding delay. This is for the most part a great sounding delay with a lot of control. If you are looking for spot on representations of the standard modes, I would suggest looking elsewhere. You are likely to be disappointed here.
