NPD: Boss DD-200

[Winston Psmith]

The Chaos pedal had some serious issues, so I returned it in exchange for a nice used Boss DD-200 Delay. It happens . . .

 

The DD-200 is a little different. It's not so much trying to model specific vintage Delay devices, as it is trying to present a variety of Delay effects, including some classics. The real fun, at least for me, is in the outliers.

 

Briefly, you get the usual Time, Repeats, and Effect Level knobs. There's a Tone control, a Parameter control, which varies depending on which Delay algorithm you've selected, and a Mod Depth control. The Mod Rate is fixed - Boss claims to have selected the "perfect" Mod Rate setting, so you can only control the Depth, or intensity of the Mod effect, and Modulation is available with all of the different Delay types.

 

Before I go on, there are two serious misrepresentations of the the DD-200 that I've caught online, and that I'd like to correct here.

 

First up, Maximum Delay Time: I keep seeing info claiming the Max Delay Time is 60 Seconds, because there's an onboard Looper that will capture up to a 60-second Loop. The real Max Delay Time varies, depending on which Delay type you've selected, but NONE of them reach anywhere near 60 seconds. 3-5 seconds is the longest Delay Time for any of the Delay types, and some are even shorter. Reverse Delay only goes to 2.5 seconds, and the Tera Echo effect only goes to 700ms. (FWIW, the older DD-20 offered 23 seconds of Delay for all of the Delay Types.)

 

That's the second misrepresentation I've often encountered; it's NOT simply a jacked-up DD-20. I have the DD-20, and like it very much, but they're not the same thing, at all.

 

Back on track. There are the usual suspects - an Analog Delay, a Drum Echo (think "Oil Can" Delays like the Binson Echorec), Tape Delay, a Standard Digital Delay, Dual Delay, Lo-Fi (not very impressive), and a very nice Reverse Delay.

 

There's the now-obligatory "Shimmer" Delay (really, you can hardly find a Reverb effect without it), which adds an Octave-up effect. This seems to be a "love-it-or-hate-it" effect for a lot of users. IME, it's not as obnoxious as some of the Shimmer effects I've heard in other devices, and you can dial it back with the Parameter control. YEMV, of course.

 

Boss' Tera Echo effect is intriguing, to say the least. It sounds a lot like the choppy, Filtered sound The Edge gets at the beginning of U2's "Mysterious Ways." Run one of your favorite Delay pedals into a thick, chewy Phaser sound, and you're close. It's a lot of fun for Guitar, but it works MAGIC on Synth sounds!

 

Pad Echo has the echoes fade in and swell behind your playing. It's not a Ducking Delay, it's contouring the Attack Envelope of the Delay Repeats, without compromising you direct signal. Very nice for textures and well, Pads. This effect was made for Ambient Guitar.

 

Pattern Delay is a not-too-distant cousin of the Slicer effect. It claims to be 16 Delays, which would be a hell of a lot of DSP?!? I think it more likely it's a form of Multi-Tap Delay, with fixed Taps. Strum a quick chord, or just pluck one note, and you'll hear a pattern of echoes. You can't really do anything to change the pattern. Longer Delay Times stretch it out so you can better hear what's happening, but that's all. The larger, more expensive DD-500 allows you to dive in somewhat more.

 

The Reverse Delay is possibly the sweetest Reverse Delay I've ever used! The Parameter control lets you contour the Attack Envelope of the Reverse Echoes, which smooths out the Reverse sounds in a way you have to hear to fully appreciate. Hendrix and Adrian Belew fans, take note!

 

The best things about it, for me, are the Tera Echo, Pad Echo, and Reverse Delay. I got this thing a couple of days ago, and I've spent hours sitting on the floor with it, chained in with other Delay effects, when I haven't been at work. The worst thing - it makes me want to dive in to the DD-500, which has MUCH more programming depth.

 

Ah, well, time to get to useful things for the day.

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

9 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

There's the now-obligatory "Shimmer" Delay (really, you can hardly find a Reverb effect without it)...

"Shimmer" makes me shudder and I avoid it; for me it's a minus if included and a plus if it's NOT.

 

9 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

Boss' Tera Echo effect is intriguing, to say the least. It sounds a lot like the choppy, Filtered sound The Edge gets at the beginning of U2's "Mysterious Ways." Run one of your favorite Delay pedals into a thick, chewy Phaser sound, and you're close. It's a lot of fun for Guitar, but it works MAGIC on Synth sounds!

 

Pad Echo has the echoes fade in and swell behind your playing. It's not a Ducking Delay, it's contouring the Attack Envelope of the Delay Repeats, without compromising you direct signal. Very nice for textures and well, Pads. This effect was made for Ambient Guitar.

 

Pattern Delay is a not-too-distant cousin of the Slicer effect. It claims to be 16 Delays, which would be a hell of a lot of DSP?!? I think it more likely it's a form of Multi-Tap Delay, with fixed Taps. Strum a quick chord, or just pluck one note, and you'll hear a pattern of echoes. You can't really do anything to change the pattern. Longer Delay Times stretch it out so you can better hear what's happening, but that's all. The larger, more expensive DD-500 allows you to dive in somewhat more.

 

The Reverse Delay is possibly the sweetest Reverse Delay I've ever used! The Parameter control lets you contour the Attack Envelope of the Reverse Echoes, which smooths out the Reverse sounds in a way you have to hear to fully appreciate. Hendrix and Adrian Belew fans, take note!

Those all sound quite nice and enticing.
 

 

9 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

The Reverse Delay is possibly the sweetest Reverse Delay I've ever used! The Parameter control lets you contour the Attack Envelope of the Reverse Echoes, which smooths out the Reverse sounds in a way you have to hear to fully appreciate. Hendrix and Adrian Belew fans, take note!

That's great! However, I pride myself in doing a pretty mean 'backwards recorded' sound live and in  real-time without the assistance of any more than a volume-pedal or my BumbleBee "swell" envelope-volume, or even just my guitar's volume-knob. A little reverb, echo, or even just a bit of a room sound can accent that nicely, but a perfectly dry sound can suffice.

[KuruPrionz]

4 hours ago, Caevan O’Shite said:

"Shimmer" makes me shudder and I avoid it; for me it's a minus if included and a plus if it's NOT.

 

Those all sound quite nice and enticing.
 

 

That's great! However, I pride myself in doing a pretty mean 'backwards recorded' sound live and in  real-time without the assistance of any more than a volume-pedal or my BumbleBee "swell" envelope-volume, or even just my guitar's volume-knob. A little reverb, echo, or even just a bit of a room sound can accent that nicely, but a perfectly dry sound can suffice.

The hard part about reverse sounding guitar is the reverse attack at the end. That's a magically abrupt and startling aspect of using a reverse delay. 

It's fun to split the signal before the delay so you have frontwards and backwards delays and it's also fun to play "backwards" guitar into a reverse delay because weird. 

Just sayin'... 😇

[Caevan O’Shite]

2 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

The hard part about reverse sounding guitar is the reverse attack at the end. That's a magically abrupt and startling aspect of using a reverse delay. 

It's fun to split the signal before the delay so you have frontwards and backwards delays and it's also fun to play "backwards" guitar into a reverse delay because weird. 

Just sayin'... 😇

When using my volume-pedal or BumbleBee swell-pedal to go for some of the character and effect of "backwards recorded" guitar lines, I'll often let the strings abruptly buzz and choke against a finger or thumb, to emulate that reverse envelope and attack.

[KuruPrionz]

2 minutes ago, Caevan O’Shite said:

When using my volume-pedal or BumbleBee swell-pedal to go for some of the character and effect of "backwards recorded" guitar lines, I'll often let the strings abruptly buzz and choke against a finger or thumb, to emulate that reverse envelope and attack.

So, if you run that into a reverse delay it should sound frontwards, no? 

Therefore, you should run backwards while doing it, yes? 😂

[Caevan O’Shite]

2 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

So, if you run that into a reverse delay it should sound frontwards, no? 

Therefore, you should run backwards while doing it, yes? 😂

Right. And standing on ones head and spinning.

Seriously, when bending up into, or down into, the abrupt squelch I mentioned above, the bend makes it all the better. Sometimes there's a harmonic squeal that is cool, too.

[KuruPrionz]

1 minute ago, Caevan O’Shite said:

Right. And standing on ones head and spinning.

Seriously, when bending up into, or down into, the abrupt squelch I mentioned above, the bend makes it all the better. Sometimes there's a harmonic squeal that is cool, too.

I did that once and the most beautiful dancer in the crowd ran over and puked on my multi-colored glitter tennis shoes. True story, mostly. Except for the standing on my head and spinning part. That's tricky...

[o0Ampy0o]

Using a backwards delay you should get lots of laydes.

[Winston Psmith]

@Caevan O’Shiteand @KuruPrionz - The DD-200 really lets me shape the Reverse Delay in a way that other boxes haven't. The only drawback is the 2.5 second Delay Time.

 

I have to admit, I got the DD-200 for the oddball effects. I have plenty of Delay effects available, but this one is a lot of fun, and different enough to justify adding it to the collection.

[Caevan O’Shite]

9 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

@Caevan O’Shiteand @KuruPrionz - The DD-200 really lets me shape the Reverse Delay in a way that other boxes haven't. The only drawback is the 2.5 second Delay Time.

Cool. I take your word for it, I know you to be an experienced, solid judge of such matters. If ever I get the opportunity to try one out, I certainly will!

 

9 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

I have to admit, I got the DD-200 for the oddball effects. I have plenty of Delay effects available, but this one is a lot of fun, and different enough to justify adding it to the collection.

That says a lot for it! Enjoy.

[Scott Fraser]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:49 PM, Winston Psmith said:

 The only drawback is the 2.5 second Delay Time.

Total dealbreaker for me. I'm currently using three DOD 12 second delays from the 90s, and wouldn't mind even longer delay times. 

Roland's new pedal version of the rackmount SDE3000 maxes out, just like the original, at a mere 3 seconds. Modern technology can do better.

[Winston Psmith]

@Scott Fraser- Well understood; I still have an old Digitech RDS 1900 in my FX rack.

 

I'm also fond of long Delay Times, and I have a few boxes just for that effect. FWIW, the max Delay Time on the DD-500 is supposed to be 10 seconds, but if the DSP is much like the DD-200, I suspect that some of the Delay types, especially the DSP-intensive ones, will offer shorter Delay Times. Haven't gotten to try one yet . . .

 

My old DD-20 offers 23 seconds of Delay Time, and easy access tweaking. Used ones show up for around $120+/-. Not exactly pristine sound quality, but they're not bad, AND you can store up to 4 favorite Delay sounds in User Memory. Not really flashy, but functional. If you want Delay Time, well worth the footprint.

 

The Pigtronix Filter Pro only offers 10 seconds of Delay, but it has some functions that make it worth deep diving. Another casualty of Pigtronix' aggressive efforts to put out new gear before people are through with their old gear. Lot of discontinued products . . .

 

Either version of the Akai Headrush, the silver E1 or blue E2, will give you just over 23 seconds of Delay Time, or Looping, but you're stuck with a Mono In jack. I have the blue one, which offers nearly 36 seconds of Looping in Extended Mode; you can't, however, extend the Delay Time.

 

I also have an expanded Lexicon JamMan with 32 seconds of Delay, Sampling, and Looping. Not the most intuitive device, but I'm not likely to give it up anytime soon.

 

Surprisingly, the discontinued Boss ME-25 had a 6 second Delay onboard. Kind of an entry-level device, but it had some useful features. Mono In, like most Guitar MFX.