Tuesday 20 January 2015

Pearl AD-08 analog delay pedal



Wear a coat and protective goggles and be ready for a salty romance explosion, for I love the Pearl AD-08 more than any other analog delay.

The buffer and bypass are less than great according to some sources. It's never bothered me personally. The knob array is simple with the delay time running up to 400ms, the feedback knob doing what it needs to do, and then things get interesting. The Dry Out knob controls the dry output, likewise for the Delay Out knob. The pedal has two output jacks. One is dry output only, the other is a mix of dry and wet. This offers a little more flexibility if you're using two amps for stereo. If you want a pedal that self-oscillates, go elsewhere. I've owned three AD-08s and none of them would go into spaceship mode. Good! Self-oscillation is spacerock's equivalent of playing Smoke on the Water in a guitar shop. 

The AD-08 pedal is a dark delay sound. It is the complete antithesis of the Maxon/Ibanez AD-9 pedal. Compare these two frequency charts below. The top chart is for the Boss DM-3 set 100% wet with the dry coming in. The bottom is the AD-08 at 100% wet with no dry signal. There is considerable roll off of the top end. 

It's such a beautifully dark and murky pedal and the repeats are fantastic. It's not noisy at all. I regularly use mine going into Reaper with Melda Productions' MVibrato plugin set to a slow speed (about 0.65hz, depth of 60%) to tap into those slow warbly Boards of Canada type sounds. 100% wet delay into a vibrato pedal/chorus set to vibrato mode = instant amazing win for all eternity. 

The pedal uses an MN3025 chip. Three trim pots lie inside. 

AD-08 prices range from £40 to £90 in the UK. Pick one up. You won't regret it. Sound demo below:

Monday 19 January 2015

Boss DM-3 analog delay pedal



The Boss DM-3 was the last analog delay pedal (so far) produced by Boss. Apparently it differs from the DM-2 by having a noise reduction circuit and an additional filter. 20ms to 300ms of delay time is on tap here. The pedal will work on 9v power but the LED will not: ramp it up to 12v power to get the full light show. The knobs are:

Repeat Rate - delay time (turn counterclockwise for longest time)
Echo - mix knob
Intensity - feedback

The DM-3 doesn't sound as bright as the Ibanez AD-9 in use. With the repeats cranked to 300ms and the intensity up, mine still won't feed back on itself. It will start feeding back at lower delay times and has the tendency to self-oscillate rather quickly. 

Overall this is a good all-round delay pedal. Single notes don't get swamped and it's got enough 'mush' to it for my chordy spacerock floaty rubbish. It's also very good as a short delay pedal going into reverb or delay pedals with a longer delay time.