Why Guitar Players HATE Using Delay 

I don't use a delay pedal, I'm usually so far behind the beat that people think it's a delay.

Dude I haven't touched my guitar in like 10 years due to life commitments (literally i remember watching first generation youtube videos to learn how to play) but only recently decided to try and get back into it and see whats on youtube these days regarding guitars. Your videos have honestly been a treat to watch. Thanks for doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.

This is a great description of what a lot of us guitar players went though while learning pedals. It was always super scary to me to try and just sit down and learn this kinda thing. Props to you for doing it though [:

If you runs stereo rig (like with the ACS1 Mike frequently uses) then one of the most underrated delay pedals is the NUX Duotime. It’s two independent delay circuit in one pedal so you can run them very subtly with fast decay so almost inaudible but when panned hard left and right with the delay times slightly different from each other. It’s a vocal production trick to make vocals sound really thick and wide but not “in the way” and this trick works great for guitar too.

slapback is the only delay I really use because it's like reverb but it never gets muddy. Guitarists I play with swear by MIDI controlled delays, but I'm pretty simple.

Hey Mike!! I hear you talk a lot about worship guitar. I’m interested to learn more about it!! Would you ever do a full video all on your worship set up? What guitars do you use, what church do you attend, what style of worship do you play, are there other guitarists that play with you?

Some reverb, and mild delay with subtle and quickly fading repeats..three or so.

I wish I had ten years of my life that the only effect I was allowed to use was delay. As hard as that would be to do, it would be an awesome experience to have behind you.

I noticed one thing on your DOD that should be your best friend with this.....TAP TEMPO. You can literally drive yourself NUTS trying to get the timing exact. That button will let you tap in the tempo of the song to almost lock step. True the ones without it are a fun challenge, but LIVE? That is your best friend. Now that you have entered the world of delay....try stacking them. Its an amazing experience. The trick is to set the times differently. If the idea seems terrifying, see if your buddies at Sweetwater will hook you up with a Boss SDE 3000(EVH or Non EVH). It has two delays built in and presets. The creativity it opens up is unreal. Eddie Van Halen lived by this kind of delay. As for deep dives into pedals. It can never hurt. You have no IDEA what it may unleash if you really dig into them and figure out what they are doing. Plus, again, it makes stacking even more fun. Play with placement also. The standards are there for a reason, but breaking them in this case, can lead to some really interesting discoveries.

Hey Mike, this is completely off topic. I’ve watched a couple of your videos and Im a new fan. I’ve been getting more into Acoustic guitar as of lately and I was curious if you heard about The Hateful Eight/Martin Guitar story? If not I recommend you do a reaction to it? Hope this comment reaches you.

This is a great video. I don’t know anything about delay and avoid it. Now, I think I’ll give delay a try.

I use a lot of delay. I’ve been spoiled with digital delay since way early on in my playing and we always use a click so I just get to dial it in at home and have it set for live use. Definitely one of the funnest effects to me.

Dude , delay can f up your rythmn live,,,, totally agree ... different settings for each song great post

Had loads of delay pedals over the years. I’ll even sell an effect I have 1 one vs any of my delays

Nah, this is isn't 'scary' unless your fragile ego is on the line somehow. It's only about how you didn't understand polyrhythm. _Duh._ "My delay pedal is fully analog _but what do the knobs even do?"_ < - this is called having *more money than clues* it's what learning with a mutli-fx is for, like training wheels for acquiring discrete pedals later. Learn the fundamentals FIRST and they'll never fail.

I had a digitech digidelay for quite a long time and only ever used it for solos. But i recently got a dunlop echoplex and now i use it for slap back all the time. I love it!

There are a lot of different types of delay in the line 6 m9…a previous generation multi effects unit!

Delay, chorus and reverb are my favorite effects, but if I have to choose one only it’ll be a delay, amazing sounds can be achieved with it

One thing we can't escape. We gotta rehearse.

Speaking of the EDGE. I saw U2 in 1984 at the FOX theater in Detroit. My opinion the last good album they did in regards to guitar is the unforgettable fire album. If you haven't try to get ahold of U2's first 4 albums. Give a good listen to all the songs, not just the hits. The guitar work on those albums are original "Alternative" music GOLD. I had a chance to see them in the late 90's at a stadium 🏟️ for free and I turned it down. I didn't want to hear all the new stuff and didn't want to ruin the memory of the 1984 show I saw.

I love delay. Usually only a bit of reverb and a good amount of delay. Got the Strymon Timeline finally and it lives up to the hype.

I found a delay and reverb settings that play really nice together. But I've also gotten into using the MIDI timecode data that my Loop pedals uses to send MIDI clock Data to my Boss SY-300 Synthsizer pedal, and those 2 work well together too for some fun and wild stuff. Cool video!

I’ve never known any guitarist that hates using delay

Definitely like the analog delays like the Rubberneck or MXR Carbon Copy and CC Deluxe. I have a few boxes that have a bunch of different effects types, like an RV500 and DD500, but they’re a bit overwhelming. I get analysis paralysis with all those options.

Gen X oldie here: It is weird...a lot of the more creative of us (90's Indie nerds) hated learning all the tech/scales-y crap and embraced the (crutch of) effects. I would not want to imply that you speak for your age demographic, but your apprehension does raise questions. Do you, Mr. Cole specifically, not enjoy the exploration part of guitar playing? Ever just randomly detune the guitar and challenge yourself to make it, make sense? Delay can be the same thing. You play off of it like another musician, but in a way that is new/uncomfortable....besides....if you are a church player, adding reverb to your guitar, in a space that is generally known as a reverb source just seems like a bad idea. Delays can add "space" without the "wash". Just my 2 cents...I hope I did not ruffle any feathers. Love your stuff....it's interesting to me to see how different people start at opposite ends and wind up in a similar place.

I think tape delay is really warm too, but more of the mid highs. it scratches the right itch for me. i have a super low and long delay on at all times.

Yeah I love the long delay with the short repeats. I use an EHX Memory Boy which has a super warm analog BBD circuit.

all effects pedals have their place depending on what sound you want,and can use, in creating . It's a question of necessary or not, more than hate

Delay is a key component of my sound, and a lot of other players I know.

What a whiner..! 🤣🤣🤣 just kidding.. I hate hassles..

i hate delay so much i have a chase bliss habit, a line 6 dl4 and a walrus mako d1 on my pedal board.

What? Everyone loves delay. What a weird title.

If you hate delay you are using it wrong. I have 2 delays types I use. 1 for enhancing solos and leads. It's more like the reverb delay but doing it just during those parts greatly sets it apart. My favorite is what I call cold delay. It's a creepy chorused echo that repeats only a few times and fades out. If you play something after the last few notes echo out while the rest fades faster. I play a lot of spooky sounding clean riffs with it.

The bullshit headlines of this vlog keep me from watching it………

My first delay was a EHX Memory Toy, had it with a 65 ' Deluxe Reverb RI and it was one of most amazing sounds. Good rid of the Fender Amp, bought a Katana 100W 2x12 and a Boss DD-500. Im happy with the DD-500, but it has too many options that I dont use, so I want to keep it for covers, and will probably go with a DMM 1100-TT, and another tube amp (Either Laney or Supro). Other analog delay contenders were the Suhr Discovery and the Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail Deluxe.

Good video, 👍🏾

Repeats annoy me. I find it very artificial feeling. I wish some of my favorite players would keep it more minimal. The Edge on the other hand was extremely creative with delay. Ill throw Neil Shaun in there too.

For me it depends on what genre im playing. If im playing country, I run a plate reverb and a 100-120ms slapback on all the time and bump it to 350ms for leads. If im playing light rock, i run plate reverb only and only low mix dotted 1/8 for leads and if im playing heavier rock, i run a plate reverb and a low mix dotted 1/8 all the time and increase the dotted 1/8 mix for leads.

Always interested in the Rubberneck for its modulation thing. I am 100% addicted to all kinds of delay. A lovely, dark option is the Fairfield Circuitry Meet Maude which seems to be overshadowed by their Shallow Water; an amazing modulation pedal but sometimes for my tastes, a little too shallow. Meet Maude is magic with an expression pedal controlling the decay/mix because it surrounds your signal with a really messed up, dirty, degenerating (I didn't say degenerate😂)reverb. Too murky for some stuff for sure, but for ambient, musically ambiguous washes, it is killer. I sold my Walrus Audio Bellwether to Vancouvers' big box music store, missed it, went back a year later and got another used one. Mine! Same serial number! I saved it from gear oblivion! It is Analog and somehow has an incredible pitch shifting function going on when the tap setting knob is spun that raises and lowers in 4ths and (I think) 5ths. Pluck an E minor, spin the wheel and you get a trail of decaying A minors with a really beautiful fluttering effect. Some quality control issues with switches and a modulation toggle that is cool but too much on the side of chorus crippled its popularity, I think.

Hello friend, I'm from Brazil and I found your channel looking for Martins. Your content is great and I was very impressed with the editing and video quality! Where did you learn to film, light and edit? If I ever have a channel I will be totally inspired by yours! Keep up the great work! thanks in advance. Edit: I would like to know what your camera is too!

The clickbait title aside, you make some good points about guitar players and gear, we tend to stick to the comfortable and familiar. My first pedal was a Maestro MFZ-1 Fuzz and a little later a Electro-Harmonix (EH) Electric Mistress Flanger. They were easy to figure out, but delay was another story. Affordable delay pedals were rare when I started playing, the most common delays were the Echoplex tape delay and EH Memory Man analog delay, both of which were prohibitively expensive for a minimum wage-earning high school student. When I did get a delay, it was a Digitech PDS-1002 Delay, but sadly I didn't keep it, I was just never able to figure it out. Eventually, I got some multi-effect devices and delay is now one of my most commonly used effects.

Hi Mike, Man love vids and you're playing, I always looked at effects as playing the effect according to how it affected the original signal or reproducing a part in a song, my first delay or back then was the original echoplex tape head unit in the 70's I learned lot from that unit about time, repeats, in real time no tap time, today 40yrs later I use stereo rig, gr-20 guitar out to pedal board tuner, 535q wah, ds-1, dvp3 volume, Isp deciminator NR, Nux modulation, DD-7, into GR-20 mix in, stereo LR out , DD 500, > 2 ) 1x12 65w peaveys or 2 dv mark little GH 250 tube > 2) 4x12 cabs, I just got the DD 500 it's a really user friendly patches that cover tape head, analog, digital ,dual, as well as hybrid reverb algorithms , prs sets all parameter programable, user patches really great stereo panning served on furman PB

If you’re just using the Mix on a reverb and a delay pedal was intimidating, I’ll wait for you to discover all the various types of reverb (spring, hall, room, plate) and controls outside of just mix. Like the pre delay and decay.

I originally started as an acoustic guitar player and it took me a long time to understand electric guitar. I had a Line 6 DL4 which is an incredible delay pedal but I just didn't know how to use it and it had too many options. But recently I have recommitted to learning delay and I purchased the Strymon DIG v1. The Strymon interface is more my speed and sounds great. I also have a Strymon DECO coming for those slap back and tape sounds.

With being a church musician, I find delay is essential. However, I use a very wet reverb if the song is in 3/4.

Delay was pretty much the last effect pedal I got. I went directly to a dd-200 to have a couple presets and also have multiple flavours of delays to learn from. That Rubberneck Analog Delay is fantastic sounding tho and also has some fun live tricks up it’s sleeve ;) would love to own one and swap 👐🏼

Sweeeeeeeeet disposition

When I play some lead guitar and something magic happens I definitely love the delay into stereo

Love delay!

First? First!

I have a lot of delay pedals, about 14. The one that confuses me every time (because the knobs are label like no other) is the old school Boss DM-2. It always takes me a while to get reintroduced to the names of the knobs!!🤣

Sweet Disposition?

I keep planning to buy a delay pedal but it keeps getting delayed

Thanks Mike, you inspired me to spend some time with my delay too.

They do?!?

Theres people who hate delay? Dude, I saved uo for maybe 3 months to get my DOD Rubberneck. Im trying to sell it right now, but I really dont want to.😂

Love dotted 1/8 note delay. But also been using it to make the overall sound more full and interesting sounding, more “atmosphere”, if you know what I mean. Also, you are just one of the nicest, calming, and enjoyable RU-vidrs I watch, thank you

I learn so much from you.

Who hates delay?

Awesome video. Thank you for breaking that down. I love delay and ambient music but certainly have a very hard time making anything sound good. Your playing is always so amazing. Did you go to college for music?

Nice toanz

I don’t hate delay but I hate setting it up. I think each of my songs could use a completely different delay approach but it’s so much easier to just use it like a slapback echo.

I struggled with delay for a while. I finally took it off my board. I definitely use reverb though.

You talk nonsense, the Edge made his whole career from using delay.

Bru