Aping old-school digital echo yields a sweet spot between BBD and ones-and-zeroes delays.
Distinct, dirty, and colorful echoes. Very cool BBD-like overtones. Rangy tone and modulation controls.
No expression control.
$209
Crazy Tube Circuits TI:ME
crazytubecircuits.com
Even in the earliest days of the analog/digital delay schism, there was never a right or wrong answer about which was best. Each has their virtues and musical place. And both delay categories are far too broad to encompass anything close to a definitive sound. An analog Echoplex sounds pretty different from a bucket brigade Deluxe Memory Man. And a shimmeringly pristine Eventide DDL definitely sounds nothing like the smoky MXR Model 113 that helped kick off the digital delay era.
The 113 was, by modern digital standards, a filthy-sounding thing. It's also the sonic inspiration for Crazy Tube Circuits TI:ME digital delay, a flexible and smartly designed device that captures the lo-fi magic of the Model 113 and inhabits what many will consider a sweet spot between immaculate digital repeats and grimier bucket brigade repeats.
Relatively Clean Relays
MXR Model 113s are notoriously noisy—particularly as they age. The original also had a narrow frequency response of 20 kHz to 2.5 kHz, depending on delay time. The TI:ME uses a set of analog filters in the twin digital delay lines to achieve the grit and much of the tactile response of that narrow range while cleaning up the noise floor considerably. It doesn't replicate the Model 113's circuitry, but Crazy Tube Circuit's take on the filtering component of the 113's design helps the TI:ME nail the tone idiosyncrasies of early digital.
Unlike the Model 113's hodgepodge of push buttons and knobs, the TI:ME's control set is simple, familiar, and super intuitive. Mix, feedback, and delay time controls are arranged on the top row. Tone and modulation depth knobs are arrayed just below. A quarter note/dotted eighth/triplet delay divisions toggle is situated in the center. Apart from that, there's just soft-relay footswitches for bypass and tap tempo. You can hold down the latter to induce runaway oscillation effects. An internal switch enables you to select between true bypass or buffered bypass with trails.
The TI:ME maintains a just-right balance between BBD haze and percussive, distinguishable repeats.
Dirty Animals
When I say the TI:ME inhabits a world between digital and analog tonalities, I don't mean that it splits the difference. In fact, the TI:ME's fundamental tones are much closer to a bucket brigade delay unit. The closest tone match I could find among the digital and analog delays I had on hand was an MXR Carbon Copy, which is no small compliment in my book. The Carbon Copy and other analog delays I tested against the TI:ME all produced repeats that were more distorted and compressed than the TI:ME's echoes. By comparison, high-resolution digital delay tones sounded like sterile reflections from hard, cold tile.
Those differences get more interesting and pronounced when you situate a drive or distortion source upstream from the delay. Where bucket brigade devices tend to turn distortion into beautiful reverberative miasma, the TI:ME maintains a just-right balance between BBD haze and percussive, distinguishable repeats. You have to wonder if it was the original Model 113's ability to walk this fine line that attracted notorious tone hounds like Gilmour and Zappa to the unit. Certainly, the TI:ME's take on that balance offers intriguing near-hybrid analog/digital sounds that aren't as readily discovered in simple bucket brigade or digital delay units.
Additional analog-redolent textures lurk in the tone and modulation controls. Both have wide range and can help fine tune the TI:ME's echoes to suit the effects elsewhere in your rig. Used together, they can also add extra grime to the TI:ME's basically dusty voice.
The Verdict
The TI:ME is brimming with character that defies digital stereotypes. And while its voice has much of the color of a BBD analog unit, it has the capacity to be slightly cleaner in a way that gives nuanced solos, harmonics, chord detail, and overtones from your guitar and elsewhere in your effects chain more room to breathe. And while a streamlined 3-knob analog delay may be 30 to 60 bucks cheaper on average, those units are less likely to offer tap tempo, modulation this characterful and rangy, or dotted eight and triplet division options. Consider those features and a truly distinct delay voice, and the $209 price tag starts to look like money very well spent.
Crazy Tube Circuits TI:ME Demo - First Look
The darkness, dirt, and drift of early digital delay live in this inspired echo.More First Look videos: https://bit.ly/FIrstLookSubscribe to PG's Channel: htt...
An easy-to-use multi-head octave echo with solid foundational delay tones and weirdness on tap.
Deceptively deep but easy to use. Great for every day delay tones and deep freakouts.
Glitch and warp settings could get same-y over time.
$209
SolidGoldFX EM-III Multi-Head Octave Echo
solidgoldfx.com
The EM-III from SolidGoldFX starts with a foundation of warm, analog-like digital delay and builds a bevy of functionality on top. It's a powerful pedal, and thanks to a simple and well-considered set of controls, it's intuitive and practical too.
The basic delay sound is easily controlled via time, repeat, and level controls, while flutter and color knobs allow users to tweak modulation and tone settings. Switching the center toggle to the left selects up to three delay heads; switching to the right activates the pedal's octave-down setting. With these controls, it's easy to access solid, foundational delay tones or head for totally twisted, but controlled, sonic space.
The self-oscillation and tape-snap sounds should be considered a requirement for any "Maggot Brain" cover you have in the works.
The EM-III's secret personality is unleashed by holding down the bypass and tap switches, which have secondary functionality for glitch and warp respectively. The self-oscillation and tape-snap sounds contained in these switches can be as weird or as subtle as you want, depending on how long you hold them down, and should be considered a requirement for any "Maggot Brain" cover you have in the works. The EM-III is a heavy hitter with a heart of gold, tons of personality, and all the warbly bliss you can imagine.
SolidGoldFX EM-III Multi-Head Octave Echo Demo - First Look
"Single-function" in name only, this inspiring multi-tap delay excels at everything form tough rock to spacy, experimental sounds.
A plethora of inspiring multi-tap echo sounds for just about any style. Wonderfully streamlined and easy to use. Pristine, lovely fidelity.
Takes more effort than traditional stompboxes to get the real goods.
$279
Eventide UltraTap
eventideaudio.com
The Eventide UltraTap puts the multi-tap delay power of the company's famous late-'80s H3000 rack unit (which attracted players like Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai) into a streamlined, single-effect pedal format. Of course, that same algorithm is also in Eventide's ultra-deep H9 multi-effect pedal. But UltraTap nixes the H9's multi-function knob, LCD display, and multitudes of menus and other effects in favor of a more conventional stompbox design capable of controlling up to 64 delay "taps" (kinda like 64 playback heads on an Echoplex tape delay with pristine digital fidelity), up to four seconds of delay time, and a whole slew of otherworldly modulation sounds. All that is available via just six knobs (mix, taps, length, feedback, spread, and taper), a pair of footswitches, and a couple of buttons—or by interfacing with your computer.
Minimal Tapping, Maximum Ping-Pongin'
While the UltraTap is dedicated to delay, there is still a lot going on. It comes with five onboard factory presets (indicated by the LED "ladder" at left and cycled via the right-side footswitch) and the ability to swap them out for any of 41 others included with the downloadable Eventide Device Manager software (for Mac or Windows). Additionally, the manager offers 81 user slots (for a total of 127) for building and saving your own sounds.
Recorded with a Curtis Novak-loaded Telecaster into a SoundBrut DrVa MkII drive, a Ground Control Tsukuyomi mid boost, the UltraTap, and both a Fender Vibrolux Reverb (miked with a Royer R-121) and a Fender Rumble 200 1x15 (miked with an Audix D6) feeding an Audient iD44 interface with no EQ-ing, compression, or effects.
If the thought of having to plug a pedal into your computer makes you queasy, rest assured the software is very self-explanatory and blessedly spartan: Presets are listed along the right margin and placing one into an UltraTap preset location is as easy as dragging it to one of the top five slots and letting go of the mouse button. The manager also avails control of UltraTap's myriad auxiliary functions—from MIDI-control channels to expression-pedal parameter assignment, bypass mode, and more. There are also graphical representations of the UltraTap's six top-panel knobs and another six representing their secondary functions, which you access by holding the triangle button at upper right on the pedal.
Never Tapped Out
For many players, it's easy to read technical stuff like this and think, "What the hell would I do with all that?" But just because a pedal can do many things doesn't mean that's how you have to use it. Indeed, many artists have told us in Rig Rundowns that they only use the more powerful H9 for one or two out-of-this-world sounds. (On the flip side, don't underestimate how many useful, inspiring sounds you can get out of a pedal that's "just a delay.")
"What's perhaps neatest of all is how rhythms created by the various "playback heads" … can push you in creative directions you may never have gone before."
Though I'm typically a one-delay-pedal guy, I was drawn to the UltraTap's ability to dial up hauntingly smudged (or slurmed, as Eventide calls it) delays of the sort Andy Summers would use for his trademark wide, clean-toned arpeggios. It's equally great for chopped, stuttering LFO textures, cathedral-esque valleys that seem to extend for miles, disorienting trippiness that Jonny Greenwood might have used for OK Computer, and even great small-room sounds that inspire tough Brit-rock riffing. What's perhaps neatest of all is how rhythms created by the various "playback heads"—whether they're multi-taps you dream up, or ones Eventide put into the manager—can push you in directions you may never have gone before.
The Verdict
While more complicated than your average delay unit, the Eventide UltraTap strikes a pretty killer balance between straightforward operation and nearly boundless possibilities. What's more, succinct documentation, clear labeling, helpful videos, and nearly foolproof editor software should take the jitters out of all but the most tech-averse players. Especially because once you get the pedal set, it's a piece of cake to use it just like your other "plug-and-play" stomps.
