Hey everyone!
I’m going on a live tour with my monomachine and erica hexdrums
I’m looking for a delay pedal (with reverb option is a +) to use in AUX of my mixer and add depth and rythm to some of my sequences.
I’ve just bought a eventide space, and it’s not really for me… I like the editing features, syncable delay etc. but the sound is too digital and cold imo, I can’t find the depth i’m looking and the very present reverb just blurs my mix.
So i’ve been having a look at the Boss RE-2 and the Keeley Halo. They both look very cool so I wanted your views on which one would “sound best” in terms of depth, stereo imagery and “analog warmth” added to the global mix.
If you have other recommandations of pedals please go ahead!
Let me know your thoughts and thanks in advance
Paul
DOD Rubberneck (only Delay)
Strymon El Capistan
Strymon Volante
Audiothingies Doc A
Go analogue 
My favorite is a MoogerFooger, which makes it hard to find and expensive, but other exist:
- Walrus Meraki is expensive but full of cool features
- The EHX Deluxe Memory Man iterations, or some DMM-likes as the J. Rocket ClockWork Echo
- The RE20 (old RE2) is something I use a lot live. I could not compare it to the real thing but it is fun to actually play. Plus I love its LoFi reverb.
Many other to explore but those are the first one to show up in my memory.
OTO Machines Bim.
Strymon Volante might be a good fit for you. Sounds very warm with the tape emulation, can do nice stereo stuff (you can pan the delay heads as you like), and has a surprisingly good sounding spring reverb at the end.
Also – welcome!
Also also – Monomachine and Hexdrums sounds wicked, share audio/video clips if you got em!
I have a Strymon El Capistan and a Boss RE-20. The sound of the RE-20 feels a bit warmer and more vintage and analog to me. I also prefer it for dub delays. However, the El Cap has nice control over tape effects such as wow and flutter and tape age that the RE-20 doesn’t. If I’m going simply for warmth/vintage/analog and dub delays, the RE-20 is my goto, so I tend to use it a lot with a synth for dub chords. I tend to use the El Cap more often for electric guitar, although I love to use the El Cap’s looper on a synth for something ambient and it’s also my goto on guitar or synth when I feel like using the tape effects for shaping the sound in a different way. So for your requirements, I would personally choose an RE-20/RE-2/RE-202 over an El Cap, although that’s just my experience and I haven’t tried any others in this regard.
Just a note on what you said about the Eventide Space. I also have one and have mainly been using the Hall or Black Hole reverb on my stereo aux send until recently. I like its sound but I recently got a Quadraverb and like it so much that it has replaced the Space in my mixer stereo aux send. I’m going to use the Space more on guitars or as an occasional effect on a synth instead in future. There’s just something about the sound of the Quadraverb that I really love in an electronic mix. It has more grit and warmth to my ears and reminds me of the sound of some 90s recordings that I love. For me the Quadraverb and RE-20 is a great combination for warmth that seems to make sounds gel in a way that I really like.
MXR Carbon Copy.
Meraki is worth the price of admission, it’s so lush. Only complaint is it doesn’t go that fast if you like the karplus vibes. But it midi syncs (I think? Haven’t tried it), does pingpong stereo, with cool rhythmic options for each channel.
also expensive but I really miss my meet maude delay.
Highly concur that BBD’s are so sick.
It depends on what kind of control you want from your delay and reverb. I have thought about this a lot and tried a few different combinations:
Boss RE-202
Boss DM-101
DOD Rubberneck
Source Audio Ventris
Strymon BigSky
Boss RV-200
Eventide TimeFactor
Eventide Space
Boss RE-202 sounds incredible but I don’t love the self-oscillating feedback control. It is very limited; it just does one speed and that’s it. But it’s a great pedal that has stereo in and out.
Boss DM-101 also sounds incredible, but only has mono in, even though it has stereo out.
DOD Rubberneck - I’m a big fan of this delay, to me it is easily the best. Only limitation is it’s mono, and the delay time has analog control so you don’t get synced repeats.
Source Audio Ventris was just fatiguing to me. I really wanted to like it because Tyler aka Blank For.ms uses it and it has a bunch of deep editing and third party preset sharing, but it didn’t work for me.
Boss RV-200 is simple and safe. it’s also built like a tank and has extensive MIDI control.
BigSky sounds the best maybe. But because I use that a lot on guitar, I decided instead of being gluttonous and buying two BigSkys, that I’d use something else with the Elektron stuff.
In the end, I went with both Eventide pedals because the recalling of presets and syncability is really easy on those. The TimeFactor does infinite repeats with one footswitch, which is also nice for transitions. Eventide Space can sound pretty dark and really moody. It doesn’t really get that same celestial quality that BigSky has. I personally would not characterize it as cold and digital. Space is also pretty deep as its algorithms give you some really nice ways to edit the filtering and decay and modulation depending on the algorithm. But not so much as to make it overwhelming.
This is what I used for my live set two weekends ago (which was also my first live electronic performance). The pedals are setup as sends, so my matrix mixer can send two dry signals from MD and MnM and two wet signals from TimeFactor and Space and the levels for all four are independent. Can even route the Timefactor into the Space as well. It can also do Space into Timefactor as well, or some crazy feedback routing but I don’t use those options.
You can hear the Eventide Timefactor in the transitions I’m doing between the first and second “songs” and the second and third “songs.” The reverb is brought in towards the climax of song 1 and 3.
Lots of good suggestions here already. But I’ll throw yet another option into the mix: Line6 DL4 MK2. Not expensive, rugged, with an incredible range of different delays, most of which I personally think sound awesome. Also has 15 different reverb algos that can be added either in parallel or before or after the delay. Lots of hands on control and also sports a simple but amazing looper.
I think warm specifically when I think of the Meraki. Really cool luxury item pedal that most delays get you 90% there…The OTO Bim is also warm…
Bugbrand PT delay.
minifooger delay
I had quite awesome results of pairing it with Polymoon. While it’s not analog or particularly warm, it complemented and enhanced raw sound of MnM pretty well
Give it a chance a bit more!
First, the mix knob is super important.
And there’s an EQ on each algo.
It’s a very capable reverb.
Now if what you need is a delay, there are plenty of options…
Chase Bliss Lost+Found could be a nice little Reverb/Delay with options.
Chase Bliss is still having a B-Stock.
UAFX Starlight Echo is great, if you can live with the fact that dry/wet knob will be fully wet from the 50-100% range. It emulates a lot of different classic analog/tape delays well but also has a modern digital delay if you ever need that. It’s a bit like Valhalla Delay in a pedal.
I wouldn’t recommend Lost and Found, not enough hands on control for live tweaking.
thanks a lot, great advices for rare pedals, gonna keep my eyes open for a meraki
Out of curiosity, what do we think about the recent strymon BRIG and OLIVERA delays.
Curious to see how they sound outside of a guitar context.
Asheville Music Tools adg-1 is a nice take on moogerfoofer bbd.
Agree, the mix knob is always at 100 for me but that’s because it’s used purely as a send effect. As an insert effect, you wouldn’t need much. It’s dripping with moody goodness.
Even though the first pedal they mentioned was not a delay, OP seems to be looking for a delay first and reverb second.
I thought of another pedal I own that does both delay and reverb pretty well, and is a stereo pedal:
- Avalanche Run by Earthquaker Devices
Lisa Bella Donna uses one.