NPD X 2; PT. 1 - Time on my hands . . .

[Winston Psmith]

I love Delay effects . . . probably my favorite thing right after Distortion effects, and I'm more than set for Distortion effects.

 

A while back, I got a nice used Boss DD-200 Delay. I like it very much, but it made me curious about how much more I'd get out of the DD-500? I kept on eye on my FLUMS' Reverb site, and a used DD-500 turned up, at a more than reasonable price.

 

The short take: If you don't want to dive headfirst into a Rabbits' Warren of menus and submenus, just back away.

 

The DD-500 is NOT a Plug-&-Play effect, by any means; there is much more going on than the front panel controls can address. This thing is set up much more like a complex MFX device than a Digital Delay pedal, and it would really benefit from being connected to a MFX device with extensive MIDI Control, a MIDI Synth, or even a dedicated MIDI Footswitch Controller. Before you even begin editing the Delay effects themselves, there are a lot of choices to make, and a lot of menus to navigate. Just deciding what the TAP/CTL switch does requires menu-diving, for example.

 

Let's get to the fun stuff . . .

 

Of course, most of the sounds are very good, which is no surprise; Boss has been making Digital Delay pedals for around 40 years.

 

There are some very cool unconventional effects (Pattern Delay, Slow Attack, and Tera Echo), the usual suspects (Analog, Tape, Reverse, Dual, and Digital), a couple of head-scratchers (Filter, SFX,  Shimmer), and a Vintage Digital category, which is sort of a "best of Boss/Roland", featuring an SDE-2000 model, an SDE-3000, and a DD-2.

 

The Filter Delay includes a variable Filter effect (LPF/BPF/HPF), that can be placed before or after the Delay line, and driven by an LFO, for Auto-Wah sounds. Placed before the Delay line, you can try for a Jerry Garcia-inspired "Mutron" tone; placed after the Delay line, each successive repeat re-triggers the Filter. Driven by the LFO, it can sound a lot like a Phaser or Flanger, but you get extensive control over the tonality of the effect. Analog Synth users will be right at home with this one.

 

SFX adds a Bit Crushing effect, not everyone's first choice, but an interesting addition. Think of tossing your Repeats into a sonic wood chipper.

 

Shimmer adds Pitch-Shifting to the Delay. Small (Fine, on the menu) amounts of Pitch-shift can add a nice detuning, "thickening" effect; larger amounts of Pitch-shift benefit from a light touch. I've tried getting a Bell Tree or Barber-Pole Flanger effect with it, but no luck, as yet.

 

The Analog Delay is built around virtual BBD's, which are called "Stages" in the Analog menu. Each "stage" allows for up to 300ms of Delay Time, and you can stack up to four virtual BBD's, allowing for a total of up to 1200ms of Delay Time. Carries the idea of "modeling" to a logical extreme, I suppose, but it seems more like something you'd encounter in a virtual plug-in effect?

 

The Pattern Delay is DEEP; Enter At Your Own Risk. Imagine Ping-Pong Delay with 16 Delay lines, in rhythmic patterns, as if synced to a Sequencer. Some of the Patterns are fairly simplistic, almost like having a straightforward Ping-Pong Delay, while others are dense and complex. Very interesting accompaniment for Chord Melody work, or even simple strumming.

 

There's a USER setting for the Pattern Delay, where you can set the main Delay Time, how many and which of the 16 Delay Lines you want ON, where they appear in the stereo field, and their percentage, or ratio, in relation to the main Delay Time. Oh, yes, you can create more than one Preset with different USER settings. Brew up a pot of coffee, or your fuel of choice, and prepare for a very long session.

 

Slow Attack is pretty much self-descriptive; it adds an Attack Delay to the Repeats, or to both the Repeats and your initial Input, acting like a "Slow Gear" effect. This can a very beautiful, even haunting effect.

 

Tera Echo is odd, in a fun way. Boss describes it as somewhere between Echo and Reverb. Maybe if your Reverb Tank was full of Space Gelatin, or something? It's a very textured sound, like a thick, chewy Synth sound with heavy Filtering.

 

Some general things . . .

 

There's an onboard Looper, which requires you to press the A and B switches together to engage it, at which point the A, B, and TAP/CTL serve as REC/DUB, PLAY, and STOP controls for the Loop, in that order. It seems very like the Looper function built into most recent Boss MFX. Treat it as an add-on, rather than a full-function Looper.

 

It's possible to set the Maximum Delay Time to 10 seconds, but that requires diving into yet another menu, and not all of the Delay Types are capable of the 10 second limit, or even the factory-set 5 second limit. The more DSP-intensive effects, like Shimmer, Analog, and Reverse, have shorter Delay Times, and Tera Echo is limited to 700ms, period. 10 seconds is not a lot of Delay time, considering the old DD-20 offered 23 seconds of Delay Time, and that was 20 years ago?!?

 

You can add Modulation to any of the Delay Types, and you get a choice of a Single Phaser, or a Bi-Phase-style effect. While the MOD Depth is controlled by a knob on the top, like the DD-200, you can set the MOD Rate within each Preset by going into the Patch Menu, which is your main editing Menu. There are others, and they also get reedy deep, which leads me to a couple of issues with the DD-500.

 

First off, much of the DD-500's processing power, and potential, lies within the multi-layered menus and sub-menus. Just turning the knobs and pressing the switches isn't going to get you very far, at all. I've seen more than one reviewer complaining that the DD-500 was too complicated, and some of them went back to the DD-200, for ease of use. (FWIW, the DD-200 also has a handful of Control Menus to navigate, but they're all for setting Control Assign or MIDI Parameters, not for editing the effects. All of the DD-200's effects editing can be accessed from the knobs and switches on the top.)

 

There's a TRS jack for either one outboard EXP Pedal, or two more CTL Pedals, which will give you access to more functions, for more $$$, and with a slightly larger footprint. Boss/Roland really loves selling us those add-on's; at $400+/-, a new DD-500 doesn't include the AC adapter you're going to want for it. OTOH, if Boss had tried to include control knobs, switches, or sliders for most of the functions within the DD-500, it would be the size of a MFX Pedalboard, and probably cost more like $600-700. Even at $400, it should at least come with the AC adapter.

 

I'm already wondering what I can get it to do sync'ed with a MIDI Sequencer, or hooked up with my GT-10, which also sends MIDI PC (Patch Change) and CC (Continuous Controller) commands, and there I am, back to viewing it as a versatile MIDI device, more than a Guitar effects pedal. To me, that's a good thing; YEMV.

 

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

 

4 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

The short take: If you don't want to dive headfirst into a Rabbits' Warren of menus and submenus, just back away.

 

The DD-500 is NOT a Plug-&-Play effect, by any means; there is much more going on than the front panel controls can address. This thing is set up much more like a complex MFX device than a Digital Delay pedal, and it would really benefit from being connected to a MFX device with extensive MIDI Control, a MIDI Synth, or even a dedicated MIDI Footswitch Controller. Before you even begin editing the Delay effects themselves, there are a lot of choices to make, and a lot of menus to navigate. Just deciding what the TAP/CTL switch does requires menu-diving, for example.

 

4 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

...much of the DD-500's processing power, and potential, lies within the multi-layered menus and sub-menus.

 

I would have been VERY down with that back in the '90s and 2000's. I enjoyed deep diving into the complex processing pathways of, for example, my DigiTech DSP 256XL, Lexicon Vortex, and DigiTech GNX4. I spent a lot of time crafting some very complex stereo patches with excellent effects and sounds... Some of them were quite unusual!

  
 

4 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

There's an onboard Looper, which requires you to press the A and B switches together to engage it, at which point the A, B, and TAP/CTL serve as REC/DUB, PLAY, and STOP controls for the Loop, in that order. It seems very like the Looper function built into most recent Boss MFX. Treat it as an add-on, rather than a full-function Looper.

That sounds like a PITA to make any use of, and an after-thought add-on. I doubt I'd ever even try to use it, relying instead on dedicated outboard free-standing loopers.

[Winston Psmith]

Keeping the REC/DUB switch separate from the PLAY switch is a bonus. Having your Looper go into DUB Mode when you meant to start Playback is a big PITA, and makes for all manner of unfortunate glitches.