"The one with the delay"

Delay pedals, I know, I know, you’re thinking, here we go again with another guitarists take and review of yet another pedal! Well, not really. I am anything but mainstream with my ideas in music, or even my uses of the cool tools available. Since I was 13 years old when I bought my first fuzzface pedal, I can remember wanting to rip into that sucker and do something crazy to it to either make it sound “different” or just flat out crazy! I have followed this mentality all through my career and have always been the session or touring musician with the pedals on their board that start a good conversation. 

In my blog I want to hold to that experimental attitude and take a look at the weirder or more unexplored ways to use pedals, instruments, and amplification. On that note, the first thing on my mind is looking at a more unconventional view of delay pedals. I have learned that I am a bit different in my approach sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or un-useful to someone else. On my pedalboard I always have the first delay that my guitar hits as a slap-back delay that is normally always on. 

Then the second delay that my guitar goes through is always a longer, smoother, more ambient delay that is more geared towards avant-garde music or even rock or fusion. This delay is normally a tape based delay with some warble or degrading sound to it. Finally, I have discovered that I don’t play well with a reverb pedal, but by putting a third delay in the mix and turning the level down, and the repeats up, I get my desired effect. By doing this, it allows the analog delay pedal to self-oscillate into a warm, chaotic, fun frenzy that will keep multiplying and building in the back of whatever you are playing, and after a few seconds becomes a wash of beautiful coolness behind your playing, in a way that I have never been able to achieve with a reverb pedal. 

Now, there is definitely no hard and fast rule to when and how you use these three delays, but this is just how I approach my sound and what I have found to be “tasty” as my favorite guitar instructor at MI in Hollywood used to say! Now pair a cool wobbly chorus pedal that can sort of mimic a warped vinyl record before your delay section, and some sort of “freezing” or hold function type pedal after all of this, at the end of your chain, and you’ll have some real ambient fun with so many options that it will leave you playing and creating for hours! Check back for Pt.2 for my use of overdrive pedals with boost’s and fuzz’s for some more cool ways to arrange pedals on your board for a massive pallet of creative fun!


~ Ryan Ridgeway 5/28/20

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