Boss DD-20 delay pedal

[awolski]

There have been a lot of threads dealing with delays, but none that specifically answer these questions (at least that I could find via searching).

I want a new delay pedal, mainly for live guitar playing but also one that is decent enough to bounce signals through, etc. when recording. I like the Bosses because they allow you to change the delay time and regen on the fly, creating wackiness. I've borrowed dd-3s and dd-5s but now want to buy one for myself and am drawn to the dd-20. Anyway, does anyone have experience with the dd-20 that could tell me:

1. can you feed line level signals into it? (like from a cassette deck or keyboard)

2. I know it doesn't have a "true bypass". Does anyone notice that it adds noise or contributes to "tone suck" when it's off (or on for that matter)

Knowing that the wacky manual mode chaos factor is important to me, does anyone suggest anything different (I've read the previous threads about others including Line 6 but if anyone has anything new to add)?

Thanks.

[blunderfonics]

I cant speak directly to your questions but I will say that if you are looking to change the delay time in real time you should be looking elsewhere.

I've tried the new Boss pedals (DD6 and DD20) looking to do the same thing and was dissapointed to find that these pedals create zipper noise when changing thier delay times. Unfortunately you don't get the nice smooth ramp in pitch that you would with the older pedals or an analog or tape delay.

[Rigsby]

yeah, they do make that noise these days and they never used to. I had some old silver and blue boss delay about ten twelve years ago and it was clean as a whistle, last few years i've had a pitchshifter/delay from boss and it does make that really odd noise, which fits sometimes, but it'd be nice to have the choice.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

Actually, the DD-20 does have an option to switch between +4 and -10. It also has stereo ins and outs, which is a nice feature if you're using it for recording. The "digital" setting is identical to a DD-3 or DD-5 as far as I can tell, and the "analog" setting sound surprisingly great. Not to mention that if you're using it for performance it has 4 presets.

I've been using one of these for a few months. I bought it to replace a DD-5 and a Headrush for my live rig, as well as to save me from spending half of every show on the floor messing with knobs (not that I dont' love that...). It's been working out great.
As a comparison, the Tape setting doesnt sound nearly as good to me as the one on the headrush, but it's still pretty good. The looping function (SOS) is a completely different beast. While it always seemed kind of difficult to loop to tempo with the Headrush, it's a breeze with the DD-20. I think it must have some sort of wav analysis/beat detective function to even out the loops. However, if I try to loop straight noise I can always hear a slight click with every repeat on the DD-20. Also, once you stop a loop on the DD-20 you cant start it again. You need to record a new one. As I understand it, it would have required LESS programing for the loop to still be there when you hit play again, but they didn't want the DD-20 to overlap too much with the RE-20 loop station.
The rest of the settings on the DD-20 seem kind of useless except for making crazy noise, which isn't really useless at all...

As for the Tone Suck issue, it's not true bypass, but it's not nearly as bad as a memory man. I barely notice it in my guitar rig, but I also use a clean boost after my pedal chain in order to clear things up a bit.

Overall, I'm very happy with my DD-20, and though I haven't sold my headrush yet (I still love the tape setting) I did get rid of my DD-5.

[andrew embassy]

I would also caution against anything with the DD prefix on Boss pedals, as (to my knowledge) means 'Digital Delay' which, if you're into analog sounding pitch-shifting noises, isn't what you're after. Even the Line 6, in its attempts to model the older analog boxes, comes up severely lacking in its regeneration sounds.

That said, there's a few good analog delays out there, but most are pretty pricey. If you're not concerned too much with long delay time, there's a few super cheap Aion ones that people had been talking about that apparently do the sound-folded-back-on-itself thing pretty well. For my money, I love the old DOD delay stomp box.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

As an afterthough I should back andrew up. I was speaking in terms of trying to find a super-clean and useful Digital Delay. The DOD FX-90 is one of my favorite noise-making delays in the universe. Just don't expect to do anything clean with it. Also, you can get old Ibanez and Maxon AD-80's (the same pedal, different casings) on ebay for around $150 nowadays. They're fantastic.

[andrew embassy]

FX-90, that's it! I'm at work and I couldn't remember the name of that pedal. Great little box. Marcocet is right, the pedals he's talking about are great for long delay and clean signals, if you want (pleasing) noise and shorter delay times don't stress you out, go older.

[inverseroom]

The Digitech Digidelay does not zipper when you turn the time knob. It's a great pedal, actually. The DD20 is good too, but it does zipper, and in looping mode, the loop is erased when you stop it, which I hated enough to sell the pedal.

[syrupcore]

a third for the fx90. I just got one off ebay and love it. I'm using it mostly in-front of my headrush for loopingfreakoutbullshit.

will

[Curtis]

My 2 bits...

A nice feature of the DD20 is when you change presets the previous patch will finish its natural delay time, feeback etc, so you can set up presets that change delay times mid-tune without clicks etc...(not exactly like turning a knob, but handy).

Also it has a tap tempo that takes on the settings (except tempo of course) of the preset you have selected - which is cool.

I like the unit - especially for live work.

[awolski]

Thanks so far. I'm going to have to do some listening. The big guitar chain has 12 months same as cash so if I can find something mainstream that's also very decent I'd go that route and let them be my bank. However their pedal display was not working yesterday. I'm not going to buy something like this without trying it first. I really want looooong delay times, which seems to exclude a lot of the analog or "analog-like" digital delays. And the pitch-shifting craziness. Heck, I want it all. The DD20's features sound cool, but I don't want that zippering sound. Any G.C. worth their salt should have the DD6, DD20, DOD, and Digitech all ready to test out. I would probably be better served with boutique stuff but I just want a solid delay with some variety of tones and a lot of noise making potential, I'm not concerned with a zillion presets or an accurate rendition of a 1952 Echoboy or whatever.

[syrupcore]

I just realized that I'm a big fat liar. I got the fx94, not the fx90. only difference is the 94 has 4secs of delay, and the 90 has only 1sec. why the hell do you care? well, the 4 seconds are fun for chaos but the _shortest_ delay seems to be about 60ms. I like playing with really short delays with really long feedbacks and it's just not possible with this pedal (I think it is with the 90).

but I just want a solid delay with some variety of tones and a lot of noise making potential

might as well check out the line6 dl-4 then. they dont sound like the real thing but there are a lot of useful sounds in there.

will

[awolski]

That's a real bummer about the zippering. I tried the dd-6 and sure enough it doesn't change the delay speed without resampling the pitch change resulting in squiggly sounds aka "zippering". The DD-20 sounds awesome but the delay speed is in such tiny increments of 1 ms that changing the speed doesn't have any perceptible difference. You really can't check for tone suck at the guitar store with the freakin' Zeppelin DVD in one ear and a drummer in the other. So I bought a dd-3, at $129 and no payments/financing for 15 months it's almost like getting it for free. And they also had one of those Arion ddm-1's behind the counter for $24. So I got those, but I still have a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction because the dd-3s delay only goes up to 800 ms. What I need is the best of both worlds (analog tweakability and digital long delays) and that Line 6 stuff scares the heck out of me - even the display model at the guitar store was broken. The quest continues. The archives seem to indicate that analog delays get the majority of Tape Oppers' votes, but that long delay thing is hanging me up. Sorry for writing a book here.

[kristopher612]

i want long delay times too. i need at least 1 sec, but would like more. i'd also like to be able to turn off the pedal and have repeats finish out. and i want the pitch shifting thing happening. im not woried about loops. if i need loops, i'll buy a loop station or something. right nowi'm using a DOD DFX9 digital delay, (16ms-1sec, just in case you're wondering). what about the Digitech PDS8000? does it do all that stuff. i think 8 seconds would be plenty. even if it doesn't finish out the repeats, i'd still be happy. I HATE the new X series delay form Digitech. it sounds too......perfect. i dunno. i just want to get exactly what i want out of my gear, and nothing less. i pay a lot for it, and expect it to do what i need it to do.

[syrupcore]

what about two delay pedals in series? one analog with clean pitch shifting and then some digital long delay thing afterward.

will