Analogue Delay Pedals

Delay is one of the most diverse effects in music, and it's therefore no surprise why there are so many delay pedals out there to choose from. Analogue delays make up a large part of this market, and they're particularly popular with guitar players. This is because analogue delay pedals are known for sounding darker and less in-your-face than digital delays, and they're typically used for thickening the sound of lead guitar parts by adding space and artificial ambience.

Analogue delays rely on what are known as 'bucket-brigade' chips (BBD); circuitry pioneered by Boss in the early '80s. Without using any moving parts, a BBD chip sends a guitar's signal through a series of capacitors; one step per clock cycle. With every step, the signal weakens and each repeat will thus sound darker than the previous one as it decays. It is this distinctive tonal quality that so many guitarists adore.

Analogue delay also encompass tape machines, like the iconic Echoplex units from the '60s and '70s. As their name suggests, these units used tape to create delay effects, where an audio signal would pass through a magnetic field to create a copy. The magnetic field would rearrange the particles on tape to create a version of the waveform, which would then be converted back into an audio signal at the playback head. 

Like BBD delay pedals, tape machines produce repeats that also gradually deteriorate with every repeat. They can also give off a modulated sound, where the repeats sound warbly and angelic. At Andertons Music Co. we have a great selection of pedals that can convincingly emulate that classic tape delay sound, as well as specific Echoplex-style pedals.