Unpleasant Harmonic Artifacts With Analog Delay

Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

Anyone had this happen? I'm getting unpleasant harmonics beneath some notes with an Analogman delay pedal, and to some extent with an Electro Harmonix analog delay as well. I don't notice this happening with my Boss DD-6. I notice the offending sounds with both a Jackson Blackjack and a Fender T8 custom into either a Fender Bandmaster or Princeton. I get the same thing with both a Hilton and Goodrich pedal. Can anyone explain what might be going on?

Thanks

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Analog delays have pretty low fi delays, and the longer the delay time, the lower the fidelity. It's best to hit them with a strong signal, and don't try to do excessively long delay times. Nature of the beast. Some are better than others in this regard. Digital delays don't care how long the delay time is.

Brad

Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

Thanks Brad,
I'm actually using a very short delay time. I'm just using the delay to fatten the sound up a little bit. On some frets I'm getting a sort of fuzzy lower note underneath the note that I am playing. The lower note definitely has a tonality and sounds like a fuzzy, buzzy anti-harmonic. It happens some places on the neck and not others. It's a drag because I like the way the low-fi repeats mellow the sound of the guitar. Also, the stronger the signal from the volume pedal, the worse it is.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Is it possible you're overdriving the pedal with the hot output of a steel guitar? Is the delay before the volume pedal? They should be after.

Brad

Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

The delay is after the volume pedal. The same thing happens with both my Fender T8 (lower output) and the high output humbucker on the Jackson. It is also there with both active and passive volume pedals. Is it possible that the pedal is amplifying a subharmonic? The sound is kind of like a paper cup sitting on a subwoofer. Again, this only happens on some frets, others are fine.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Is the delay unit running on batteries or a power supply (wall wart)? Low voltage maybe?

Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

The pedal calls for a regular 9 volt power supply and I'm using a "One Spot" 9 volt wall wart so that shouldn't be a problem. Also, it seems to happen with two different analog pedals.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Could it be your speakers? Sounds like it could be what is called "cone cry".
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Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

I would recommend trying a Boss style power supply. The One-Spot is a "switching" supply, and some reports have circulated that the power from the One-Spot carries some high frequency switching noise that can sometimes make analog delays and choruses and flangers behave strangely. It's worth a shot.

The Boss style wall warts use the old-school transformer, rectifier, and regulator method. No weird high frequency switching going on. Cleaner power perhaps.

Brad

Brian McGaughey · From: Orcas Island, WA USA

Matthew,

I had the same thing happen when using an MXR Carbon Copy delay. There was a very slightly distorted nastiness present in the wet signal. I heard it after having the pedal about a week and couldn't get rid of it. Assumed it was the nature of the beast. Ended up selling the pedal and going to the ever popular steeler choice, the Boss RV3.

I like Mike and Brad's ideas. If 2 different delays are giving similar results, maybe it's not the delays.

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Brad, the real problem concerning power supplies is: Some can be regulated and others unregulated. Some of the older effect boxes take unregulated power supplies and some of the newer effect boxes take regulated power supplies. FOR EXAMPLE: A 12 volt regulated power supply will read very close to 12 volts. A 12 volt unregulated power supply will read from 15 to 18 or more volts. Older effect boxes have voltage regulators inside them and require 2 or more volts over for regulation. That is why unregulated power supplies read higher than what is printed on them. Newer effect boxes do not have regulators inside them and expect to see the exact voltage printed on them. Plugging in a unregulated power supply into a effect box that does not have a voltage regulator can spell disaster! MEANING--it can damage transistor junctions, or even cause complete failure. A very popular power supply among guitar players now days is the VooDoo power supply that has several 9 volt and 12 volt outputs. One of the 12 volt outputs of the VooDoo power supply is unregulated. The VooDoo power supply comes with an instruction book. But I am certain 99% of the people who read the VooDoo instruction book don't understand the dangers of plugging in the wrong power supply.

Larry Robinson · From: Peachtree City, Georgia, USA

I have used Boss 9VDC power supply and I got AC hum as it is not regulated. I used Danelecto, Digitech and One-Spot 9VDC regulated supplies with no ac hum or performance issues. Haven't heard anything about switching interference. I guess one could put a scope on the output to see if that's the problem.

Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

Thanks for the replies everyone. I sent that particular pedal back and am going to continue looking for a good delay.

Brad, are you still using the DLS Echotap? Has anyone else tried that one? I have a boss DD-6 that I like OK, but the repeats are a little bright and it seems to make the overall tone of my guitar thinner. I'm open to suggestions.

Brick Spieth · From: San Jose, California, USA

Danechos have a tone control for the repeats to emulate analog and tape echos. You might like it.

Jack Stanton · From: Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

I experienced the same thing with the Boss DM2 & DM3. They're supposedly the holy grail of analog for six string, but the undertones with the steel drove me nuts. I went digital for years but recent bought (don't laugh) a Behringer Vintage time Machine. It's a knockoff of a EH Deluxe Memory Man, and I have to tell you, I'm really digging it. No undertones- maybe it's because there's an input level control?
It's bucket brigade analog. The repeats are dark- but man is it fat. Had a Carbon Copy, like this much better. I used it in the studio recently. The engineer was like "Where's your Lexicon?", but it recorded beautifully. You couldn't hear the repeats, but boy did you miss it when you turned it off.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

I still have the DLS Echotap. It's a fine delay. All the benefits of clean, quiet digital, tap-tempo, and a tone control for the repeats to nicely emulate a dark analog repeat.

More recently I got the new EH Deluxe Memory Boy. It's a true analog delay WITH tap tempo. The repeats are fairly lo-fi, and there are some weird artifacts, especially with long delay settings. But overall, I do enjoy the warm, grungy, analog echo sound.

So right now it's a toss-up between this EH Deluxe Memory Boy and the DLS Echotap. I like the Line6 Echo Park too. Really, there are lots of good delays today, and many newer designs are digital with a nice analog emulation. This seems to be a good solution because you don't get the bad artifacts of a real analog pedal, and you do get the dark, warm echo sound. And for me, tap-tempo is a must.

Brad

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

There's one thing that I think might have been overlooked. Perhaps Matthew has listened or used a digital delay long enough that his ears have become accustomed the the specific characteristics of a digital delay.

I don't think he mentioned if he had been using a digital delay for sometime but if he had been it's a pretty big jump to become use to hearing an analog delay with all of it's bucket brigade nuances and the repeated degradation of each repeat no matter how short the delay or the number of repeats.

The analog circuitry has it's own set of values that can make it sound kind of dirty to someone that hasn't been use to hearing the analog circuits.

Of course I could be way off track but it is something to think about. I remember when I bought my first digital delay it was a Roland SDE-1000 and I hated it for over 6 months and complained of the sterile sound and the lack of warmth until I finally got use to the different sound of the digital circuits. To this very day I still prefer the analog delay but fortunately they have built in ways to warm up the digital delays now days!

Big Bob
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Matthew Dawson · From: Portland Oregon, USA

Thanks Bob,
There was really nothing subtle about what the Analogman delay was doing. On some notes and not others there would be a really loud, fuzzy undertone kind of like a lower order harmonic crossed with a paper cup rattling on a subwoofer. This was using a short delay time.

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hi Matthew, like I mentioned in my post I could be way off and from your response I am sure now that I was but it was a thought Smile

Bob
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Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

A couple notes:

Keith nailed one issue; to clarify it a bit (because you can purchase MUCH better power supplies in electronics stores, but most use a different term...) - "switching" power supplies is synonymous with "regulated".

I regularly go to an open jam and new player show up all the time - almost all complain of hum, weird noises, etc etc - and almost 100% are sing "wall warts" left over from a telephone system, an answer machine or some other "non audio" piece of equipment - almost all have also had to be rewired to negative-tip as they were originally positive-tip.

I have (because I rarely throw electronics away) probably 40 9V wall warts, and every single unregulated (or "non-switching") type causes hum or non-musical harmonics.

Digital effects can simply be destroyed by a n unregulated supply - analog effects are more forgiving, but noisier.

I have a terrible hum problem at home, but it's the subject of another thread - however, you can solve a great many noise or transient-tone issues by using the correct power supply type (I use a couple of expensive industrial ones for one effects setup, and One-Spot units for the rest.)

However -

Even if you have the right power supply you can have all sorts of weird tones, distortion and a gritty, edgy sound from analog effects used with MOST pedal steels.

Brad mentioned the hot steel pickups - and that's the single biggest problem I've found. If you are not using an impedance-matching device - One of Keith or Brad's units, a Goodrich Matchbox or Steeldriver or some other unit that either has active electronics to settle things down or a passive device that will cut your output by about 50% many analog effects will sound absolutely horrible.

Impedance matching and volume reduction are different approaches - but they both work. This occurs only with modern but traditionally-wound pickups that measure (usually - it depends on the effects device, with most MXR units needing the lowest resistance...or input level) above 15k ohms. Every steel I've had or worked on with pickups measuring above 15K or so turn overdrives (when used for distortion) into thin sounding, tinny, nasty boxes; the same with ALL analog distortion units. Analog phase shifters, delays, chorus units and others have the same problem.

Some are affected more than others, with early MXR (battery-only) and just about all ZVex units the most sensitive.

This isn't a problem with pickups like those on vintage Fenders (with DC resistance running in the 5.6-9k range), Lace's Alumitones (where the DC resistance is irrelevant - the entire design is different) and certain "normal" steel pickups.

My Ultra's GFI II reads about 13k and is fine; I do use a Steeldriver II but only due to my complaint about most pedal steels - they have no guitar-mounted volume and tone controls. The volume pedal has a different function than the volume control on the instrument - but that's another subject.

It's also not simply the resistance reading that defines "output" - many players are confused by the oft-mentioned (and wrong) idea that high resistance means high output when in fact it doesn't; most high-output pickups DO have high resistance but that's not the only factor that affects output (if it was Rickenbacker horseshoes and Alumitones would be almost silent). That's also why both impedance-matching OR output reduction will usually solve analog effect problems.

Related to this is amplifier use - many players with newer steels try tube amps and simply can't get a decent sound at any volume level - but insert an impedance-matching device between guitar and amp and the tone improves exponentially. But this is the one case where reduction in the signal hitting the amp's input doesn't always help. Some tube amps simply do not get along with high-resistance/high output pickups unless an active device is used.
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Walter Bowden · From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Hey Y'all.
I know I'm late coming in on this thread but I wanted to address the subject with a personal experience using a brand new MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal like Brian was talking about.

I bought a MXR Carbon Copy delay about a couple of months ago and put a brand new 9 volt batt in it and I was not very impressed with the sound quality of the pedal. The long delay settings were "weak" sounding and died out too soon.

It also had a bad underlying residual noise (lower order harmonics) I noticed when on a long delay setting and especially when playing up high in "Hugheyland."

I have since bought an MXR DC power Brick to power it and a couple of other pedals I use and the improvement in sound quality of the Carbon Copy is remarkable.

It is much cleaner sounding; The long delays decay much smoother and distinct, and I don't hear the noise I heard when using a battery to power it.

Just my observation, but I'm sold on having stable power now and not having to pay for marginal batteries from who knows where that run down way too soon.
Best wishes, Walter
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