How useful is a midi connection on a delay pedal for use with elektron boxes? Can you get by without one?
Looking for a something cheap and cheerful, around 100euros… though perhaps the cheapest pedals are awful?
Any tips would be great!
IMHO you just can’t economise on a delay pedal! Super nice analog like the MF-104 or a digital like the Timeline are all way out of your budget by the sound of it. Just don’t ever listen to them and you’ll be happy 
Are you all OTB If not you’d be better off with an ITB delay plugin like Echoboy for $150 and maybe a cheap Faderfox or other midi controller to give you the hands on tweak ability? Have no experience with the €100 end of he market, other than the stock Ableton delay plugin.
These are pretty decent, and in your price range
i would go for a Line 6 DL4…one of the best delays i ever had…i own both, the stompbox DL4 and the studioversion known as echo pro 1U with midi…theres also a mod where you can feed the tap-input with a click instead of midiclock…it should be in around 150-200 euros for a used unit at the bay and elsewhere…
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I’m a big fan of the Moog pedals.
Although I have both the MF-104M and the 104SD, I find that I don’t use the tempo sync via midi on the 104M that often.
I don’t have an octa, but presumably you can do tempo sync’d delay on that?
There are the minifoogers.
http://www.moogmusic.com/products/minifoogers/mf-delay
About £150 for the delay model. They are supposed to sound pretty nice.
Behringer EM600 is nice for its 39 EUR … or the orginal pedal Echopark Line 6 for 149 EUR
Im also a big fan of the moog delay. I use two mf104z’s. I kind of want to upgrade to the 104m because you have full midi control, and with elektron boxes you know thats ridiculous. Real time record feedback “waves” is appealing enough, but being able to sequence spillover and volume is pretty cool too
I use a Minifooger Delay. Sounds amazing, equally good as the 104, but with far less features - no LFO and such things. And tbh, not sure how it plays with midi. But it’s the real thing as far as delay goes.
You may have to be quick.
They’ve suspended production because of the lack of availability of the BBD chips.
http://www.moogmusic.com/news/mf-104m-analog-delay-production-suspended
This happened with the 104Z, and the 2nd hand price was ridiculous until they released the 104M.
A few places still have the 104Ms in stock
Many thanks for all your replies!
I’ve never used a delay pedal, so is it easy to sync to be in time with the music if it does not have midi in?
You can just do it by ear easier OTB with hands on control than ITB, or you can just have non-tempo synced delay, which can often lead to more interesting results, happy accidents etc.
If you can solder, build your own. I have a fleet of homemade pedals. Simple delay pedals cost about 5usd to build not counting the enclosure. I have one with 2 CV syncable LFOs, seperate chorus and delay lines that feed into a reverb tank salvaged from an old guitar amp I built for less than 20usd (the Dumpster Echo). I build all my enclosures out of yard sale finds, so I pretty much only pay for components, and they are super cheap if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks for them to ship from China.
There are hundreds of websites and online communities dedicated to diy stuff and all that I have been to the members are friendly and helpful to each other regardless of skill level. Building pedals is very simple. Over the course of about three months I went from building a simple transistor overdrive to the Dumpster Echo. I recommend diy to anyone interested. You have a little less time to play music, but you save money and feel like a hero using gear you build yourself.
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Just got the moog 104m. Took a bit to get used to and couldnt stop thinking of how much i spent. Now after having a few days, I love it. Having the midi syncing to the elektrons clock is perfect. Not real sure about the LFO functionality (only seem to get crazy warbles and what not) but I guess its nice to have for the future. Love the moog stuff…
sounds good, i hack a little bit, care to narrow down those ‘hundreds’ to a choice three ? perhaps … re the thread, i have an original Lexicon JamMan, there’s no doubt the fun that can be had with MIDI sync, but i’d like to mod my Boss DD20s to utilise some kind of click input (midi might be pushing it) and also to generate a click out from the flashing LED e.g. - so any sites (links) where a few friendly faces may point you in the right direction would be appreciated - or any to build from the ground up, i’ve made a couple of things and it’s definitely hero-time as you say 
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to OP, if you’re not looping or using excessive feedback or very long delay times, i’m sure a tap-to-sync will suit you just fine, as will a budget pedal, if it’s not the centrepiece of your sound
As far as digital delays go. The TC flashback delay is a great deal. the larger version even offers midi and a looper.
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This is out of your price range, but the Pigtronix Echolution2 is really the best sounding most versatile delay out there for synths if you are looking for a pedal format. I love mine to death, it’s stereo with MIDI, bitcrushing, analog limiters and analog resonant low pass filters, delay times based on golden ratio, reverse, trails multi-tap, an LFO for modulation with square,triangle, samplehold, ramp, the LFO can modulate pitch and filter, the comb filter delay is amazing as well, it’s got a VST editor that allows for even more crap to be edited and set up, they have been really awesome about updating the firmware with new features, and it has sooooo many presets and they can be recalled from a DAW. It’s a digital/analog hybrid like nothing else I’ve heard, with massive headroom as well specifically for handling synths and other loud signals. I love the Moog delay and the Strymon but this thing is the utmost gnarly gnarly
That’s actually one I have in mind. Seems to be the cheapest with dedicated midi port.
But if the midi is not essential I’d just go for the non midi stereo version.
You won’t get bpm synced delay without MIDI, that matters if you want your delay to be rhythmically tied to the music. Tap tempo can be enough to get a decent sync result, so you can also look at delays with tap tempo instead of MIDI, there are many more analog and digital delays with tap tempo at lower price points than there are with MIDI. I actually sold the TC Helicon Flashback X4, the big one, because the MIDI on it was shitty, the looper doesn’t sync to the MIDI which really pissed me off, and there is no way for them to implement it in firmware according to TC themselves. But the delay syncs and is great sounding, though the pedal itself is quite large. It’s too bad the smaller version doesn’t have tap tempo, but if you aren’t concerned with synced delays then that is a great delay. Also, you didn’t mention it, but I would assume you are looking for stereo delays since you are running Elektrons through it.
I’ve used a couple of analog delay pedals with the Octatrack, neither of which have MIDI .
If I need beat-synced delay I just use the OT’s own delay. It’s designed for that.
I use the analog delays for when I do not want something synced to the sequencer, eg when I crank the feedback knob to get that oscillation feedback sound (the “flying saucer” sound), or mess with the delay time to bend the pitch.
If you feel like you must have beat-synced delay and don’t have an Octatrack or other Elektron box with built-in delay, I agree with the advice to check out delays that support tap tempo - don’t just look for pedals with MIDI.
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Yeah, stereo definitely preferred. Well spotted:)