So I’ve been really itching to tackle this for a while. The Edge (lead guitarist from U2) has a unique sound. He uses delay (s) to accomplish the sound he is looking for. His signal path usually terminates at a Vox Ac-30. Now as time has gone on, he has introduced new equipment to achieve a more modern sound…still very ‘Edge’ like but more modern. Like most guitarist he has an affinity with studio sound and in contrast live sound (essentially what he uses for live sound may not translate to the studio). Enough with the history, I want to talk about the theory. For live sound he pushes a hotter delay mix through to his Vox Ac-30 where as before he would push the Vox harder, now he pushes the signal hotter. This is done to obtain a warmer tone (with his gear).

Today’s gear is pretty interesting…depending on which guitarist you talk to, you may have some folks who are purist and will only use older/proven gear and others who side more with modeling gear (software equivalent of the real thing).  I have personally owned a Line 6 Flextone III for many years and really enjoyed it.  For small venues and recordings it was perfect.  It was diverse enough to be many amps in ‘one box’ (so to speak) yet robust enough to really hit close on many popular amp’s and effects.  All this to say that in the world of delay’s the same issues exists.  I have owned a Line 6 DL 4 for several years and have enjoyed it.  The Boss DD7 and DD20 are both great pieces of equipment.  All three of these are software driven and can be found on many pedal boards across this great nation.

It seems as things move forward the things we enjoy to hear require ‘vintage’ gear…or sounds.  Not sure what this means for the world of delay and other effects but I do know that there are several great pedals out there that are waiting to be used.  I ordered a TC Nova Delay.  It’s software driven but delivers a very crisp replication of many classic delay types.  With software delays (and more specifically with this pedal) you can stack delays and have a dotted 8th and a 1/4 delay on the same patch.  The world may never be the same….we shall see.