For this holiday season, consider giving your favorite musician (even if that means you) the gift of musical inspiration. This time, I’m specifically talking about delay pedals because of their ability to open entirely new worlds of creativity and sonic magic, regardless of your instrument type or music genre. To get you started, I’ve gone through all of my favorite delays and chosen five that never fail to get my creative juices flowing. One of my criteria is that they must feature mono/stereo inputs as well as mono/stereo outputs so that they can be used in every possible situation. Another of my criteria is that they’re able to add stereo chorusing by modulating the delay time. They also need to play well with guitars and keyboards, as well as miked vocals, horns, and percussion. The guitars and keys can be plugged in directly, while the miked instruments work best when going through any mixer (with a preamp) that has an aux send and a stereo aux return.
BOSS DD-8 Digital Delay
Although it’s the size of most BOSS pedals, the DD-8 offers an amazing variety of delay effects, including Standard, Analog, Tape, Warm, Reverse, Delay + Reverb, Shimmer, Modulation, Warp, Glitch, and a 40-second looper. It can be powered with an adapter or a 9-volt battery, and it features an expression jack for controlling parameters or tapping the tempo.
TC Electronic Flashback 2 X4 Delay
This pedal loves to be tweaked in real time via its five generously large knobs, three touch-sensitive MASH footswitches, and expression pedal jack. You can also control almost every parameter via its MIDI I/O. The free iOS/Android editor/librarian allows you to fine-tune every possible parameter and store them in the six front-panel TonePrint slots. A dedicated tap-tempo switch and a 40-second looper make this a truly inspirational pedal.
Source Audio Nemesis Delay
This studio-quality pedal boasts 24 different delay engines and four preset slots with an easy-to-understand front panel. But, when you’re ready to dig into every imaginable parameter, the free Neuro Editor/Librarian (Mac, PC, iOS, and Android) allows you to tweak and save to your heart’s content. MIDI I/O and a USB port give you remote control over every parameter as well as the ability to select among 128 presets.
Seymour Duncan Andromeda Dynamic Delay
The Andromeda’s name adds the word “dynamic” because you can use your playing intensity to control the mix, modulation, or saturation of the delay signal. All 128 of its presets can be accessed from the front panel or via MIDI I/O, which can also be used to control the pedal’s parameters.
Strymon TimeLine Multidimensional Delay
This pedal has been a best seller for a full decade, and it remains an industry standard due to its 12 state-of-the-art effects engines, easy-to-use front panel, 200 presets (via front panel or MIDI), flexible audio routing, and powerful expression pedal functionality. It just sounds dreamy in so many different ways.
