Here's my dumb question: how can a delay pedal be analog? Does it not always involve sampling or some sort of digital technology, no matter how rudimentary?

It's not a dumb question! As far as I know, most analog delays use "bucket brigade devices". These are chips that are made up of a bunch of capacitors in series. The analog signal is stored in the capacitors and a clock advances the analog signal through the series of capacitors. So an "analog" delay is still using a digital element (the clock) but the signal is never converted into bits like in a digital delay.Here's a datasheet that shows the interior schematic of one of the bucket brigade chips: https://web.archive.org/web/20100704220 ... MN3005.pdf

I would guess that growing up around computers all your life it would be odd to look at the odd run arounds people used in the past to get certain effects.All the old work arounds for delay effects were based on the idea that you used electronic components to move the audio signal split from the original signal more slowly to create delay. Tape delay uses a tape recorder to record and a playback head moved farther from the record head (for example in an echoplex you move the head on a track to get longer delay in ecorecs you have multiple playback heads at different distances. In spring reverb the signal is split and sent through springs (the long wire runs in the springs) to delay the time the signal takes to get to the end of the circuit where it is reamplified to be heard behind your sound.The bucket brigade the chip uses capacitors as well described by frood to slow down the split signal. In most analog delays you can only get short delays around 600ms which got you flanging, chorus and the most style delays people use. The old boss and Ibanez analog stomp boxes are typical examples.All of these old techniques have quirks based on the materials used and how the signal is amplified and degraded by the processes.So modern delays take a analog signal convert (old ones in lower bit rates than today which sound different) it to digital and then stores it for the delay time you set up so there is a lot less degradation. People liked how the signal sat behind and sounded processed behind their clean sounds so today manufactures put more processing on the digital signal to make it sound similar to the older delays. There are a lot of manufactures who now can make digital delays as it used to be out of reach of most small effects companies who make delays that are very specialized. The newest wrinkle in digital came from the invention of "Impulse" processing where the unique aspects of a space or echo effect could be captured by using a signal impulse.Fun fact; some people used to process the delay signal separate from their live signal to get unique processing.

Cray cray Delay dbl post

This is how I roll. I think it's bucket brigade. If I'm not using my Digital Thing...What is it? EDIT- It's a Hard Wire DL-8, I hope they make that pedal forever...

Redline wrote:This is how I roll. I think it's bucket brigade. If I'm not using my Digital Thing...What is it? EDIT- It's a Hard Wire DL-8, I hope they make that pedal forever...I found one of these and its awesome. The slap back is real pingy and you get a little boost out of it

Tommy wrote:llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:Redline wrote:This is how I roll. I think it's bucket brigade. If I'm not using my Digital Thing...What is it? EDIT- It's a Hard Wire DL-8, I hope they make that pedal forever...I found one of these and its awesome. The slap back is real pingy and you get a little boost out of itI've owned a couple of AD-80 pedals. But this pic is the earlier narrow version, which I've never actually seen in the wild. You fellas both have the narrow one?! (note the side DC jack).Don t know but it looks like mine, can you tell from this picture?

llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:Redline wrote:This is how I roll. I think it's bucket brigade. If I'm not using my Digital Thing...What is it? EDIT- It's a Hard Wire DL-8, I hope they make that pedal forever...I found one of these and its awesome. The slap back is real pingy and you get a little boost out of itI've owned a couple of AD-80 pedals. But this pic is the earlier narrow version, which I've never actually seen in the wild. You fellas both have the narrow one?! (note the side DC jack).

I m not really a big J Mascis guy but I read that he used that kind of AD-80 ( œlike the Tube Screamers everybody likes ) in a solo, and the echo sounded really cool. They look really expensive, but I found one that had been listed online for months and offered them $150 for it. That tends to work better than email alerts, usually!

Redline wrote:This is how I roll. I think it's bucket brigade. If I'm not using my Digital Thing...What is it? EDIT- It's a Hard Wire DL-8, I hope they make that pedal forever...The AD 80 is the preferred Lee Ranaldo delay. The other notable pink analog delay is the AD 9 which was the first œnice pedal I ever bought 20 something years ago. I received an Electronic Audio Experiments Sending delay as an extremely nice gift. It s totally fantastic the clearest analog delay ever.