NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

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Jonesie
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NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by Jonesie » Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:47 am

I've been looking to grab one of these for about a year now to fulfill all my Nels fantasies (on a relative budget.) Ordered it on Saturday and it delivered yesterday. I got to play around with it for a couple of hours last night and it's a bunch of fun, but I'll definitely need to work on my guitar playing to really use it to its full potential. Just need to work on the basics, like playing in key. It does all the fun 16 Second Delay tricks though, reversing, octave up/down, modulation, weird glitchy looping, and recording when the pedal is in bypass.

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Here's a video of someone who's better than me at playing messing around with one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc2xDhZrQe0

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by CorporateDisguise » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:41 am

Nice! I’d love to hear your thoughts after you’ve settled in with it a bit more. This circuit has always intrigued me, but I never seem to pull the trigger on it.

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by HH1978 » Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:45 pm

I got one a couple of months ago too (after Jeff Lang said it was his favourite looper pedal for creating textures). I was thinking of writing a review about it, but couldn't find the time yet. In short, it's the most inspiring pedal I've ever owned. I find it to be incredible both as a delay and a looper (but it's definetely not a conventional looper).

How do you like yours? Modulation can sound a bit crazy at first use, isn't it? But it can give you awesome trails even at extreme settings if you keep the blend relatively low.

I'm curious, what is the "time exp" on yours? Expression pedal for delay time? Mine doesn't have it, so I guess yours is more recent. Otherwise they look identical.

Also, I never had the chance to try the original EHX, so I don't know how the bypass was on it, but I find the bypass of the Manecco very transparent, no complain here.

The only thing I don't like is the modern mode (that disengages the always listening function), because the pedal tends to reset itself without warning (the initial setting when powering the pedal is slapback delay), but I just don't use it, so no big deal.

A note also about the video you posted. There's a "click" sound at the beginning of the loops (some comments mention it). The pedal sometimes does that when using the record function with the infinite switch on to create the loop. It never does it when using a long delay time, then switching the infinite on to freeze the loop.

I said it's not a conventional looper, and if I wanted to create "in time" loops, there are better solutions. The character of the looper side of the Sweet 16 is really oriented towards creating textures. With that in mind, the second method works really well for me.

Another observation I can make is that the delay has a different character in slow and fast mode. Specifically, the slow mode sounds much more lo-fi, I guess the sample rate has been reduced to achieve the longer time. I think of this more as a feature than a defect. You have up to 32 sec delay in fast mode, which is already enormous. Then you have up to 64 sec of a more lo-fi delay.

Hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. It's one of my desert island pedals... and the funny thing is that, not so long ago, I was still saying that I didn't like delays :D

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by Jonesie » Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:56 pm

HH1978 wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:45 pm
I got one a couple of months ago too (after Jeff Lang said it was his favourite looper pedal for creating textures). I was thinking of writing a review about it, but couldn't find the time yet. In short, it's the most inspiring pedal I've ever owned. I find it to be incredible both as a delay and a looper (but it's definetely not a conventional looper).

How do you like yours? Modulation can sound a bit crazy at first use, isn't it? But it can give you awesome trails even at extreme settings if you keep the blend relatively low.

I'm curious, what is the "time exp" on yours? Expression pedal for delay time? Mine doesn't have it, so I guess yours is more recent. Otherwise they look identical.

Also, I never had the chance to try the original EHX, so I don't know how the bypass was on it, but I find the bypass of the Manecco very transparent, no complain here.

The only thing I don't like is the modern mode (that disengages the always listening function), because the pedal tends to reset itself without warning (the initial setting when powering the pedal is slapback delay), but I just don't use it, so no big deal.

A note also about the video you posted. There's a "click" sound at the beginning of the loops (some comments mention it). The pedal sometimes does that when using the record function with the infinite switch on to create the loop. It never does it when using a long delay time, then switching the infinite on to freeze the loop.

I said it's not a conventional looper, and if I wanted to create "in time" loops, there are better solutions. The character of the looper side of the Sweet 16 is really oriented towards creating textures. With that in mind, the second method works really well for me.

Another observation I can make is that the delay has a different character in slow and fast mode. Specifically, the slow mode sounds much more lo-fi, I guess the sample rate has been reduced to achieve the longer time. I think of this more as a feature than a defect. You have up to 32 sec delay in fast mode, which is already enormous. Then you have up to 64 sec of a more lo-fi delay.

Hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. It's one of my desert island pedals... and the funny thing is that, not so long ago, I was still saying that I didn't like delays :D
The modulation is definitely a bit much, on mine it seems to kinda be all or nothing. Still getting used to the sweep of it though.

The Time Exp. is exactly what you guessed, it controls delay time, which is a lot of fun when in infinite mode. I was running my vox delaylab into it when I was playing it a couple of nights ago. Running the looper setting on that into the Sweet 16 in infinite mode. So I'd be looping something in the delaylab, I'd turn the 16 off of infinite to add the part that's looping in, infinite it, reverse or change the pitch, and then knock the delay time up or down. Really cool and really interesting sounds, and then I could fade the delaylab's loop in or out too. Lots of fun.

I've noticed the click sound, but it's only happened once or twice so far, nothing too annoying.

It's definitely not a "regular" looper, like you said, for textures and fun sounds it's great though. I haven't really experimented with intentionally starting on slow vs. fast, so I'll have to play with that more.

I'm glad to hear that someone else on here has one, it's more fun to talk about when someone has a vague idea of what you're talking about, hah.

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by Veitchy » Sun Apr 25, 2021 3:09 am

As someone who's almost bought a bunch of burnt out EH16s delays, this is intriguing. For how much you can do with the pedal I reckon the price is pretty reasonable.

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by HH1978 » Mon May 03, 2021 3:51 am

Jonesie, if you have a multimeter, would you mind to take a reading of the DC voltage at the output jack?

I noticed mine makes anything I put after it pop when switched on or off. I was a bit surprise when I realized the delay leaks 2.68 Vdc, and I'd like to know if it's the way it is designed, or an issue on my pedal. Leakage is the same when on or in bypass.

Thanks!

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by Jonesie » Mon May 03, 2021 8:50 am

HH1978 wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 3:51 am
Jonesie, if you have a multimeter, would you mind to take a reading of the DC voltage at the output jack?

I noticed mine makes anything I put after it pop when switched on or off. I was a bit surprise when I realized the delay leaks 2.68 Vdc, and I'd like to know if it's the way it is designed, or an issue on my pedal. Leakage is the same when on or in bypass.

Thanks!
I don't have a multimeter, sorry! I'm running mine at the end of my pedal board, so I haven't run into this issue.

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by HH1978 » Mon May 03, 2021 1:28 pm

No problem, I have only a boost after it, I could move it before the delay. I'll send a message to Manecco to confirm it is normal or not. On the original EHX 16 second delay schematic I found, there's no capacitor on the output, so it could be normal that DC passes through.

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by Jonesie » Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:56 pm

Welp, I sold my Sweet 16 back in November because there were some things I didn't love about it, but then I found that I missed it, so here I am, having bought another. I said this in the setup of the day thread, but putting this on a table, Nels style, is a game changer. Way easier to use and far more interactive.

In other news though, Maneco is currently doing a limited run of 50 "Big Box" 16 Second Delays, and it looks pretty fucking kick-ass.

https://manecolabs.com/detalle/sixteen- ... y-reissue/

The sliders light up, which is a small detail, but is awesome.

Image

Of course, it's also $699...

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Re: NPD - Manecolooper Sweet 16 Digital Delay

Post by CorporateDisguise » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:35 am

Jonesie wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:56 pm
Welp, I sold my Sweet 16 back in November because there were some things I didn't love about it, but then I found that I missed it, so here I am, having bought another. I said this in the setup of the day thread, but putting this on a table, Nels style, is a game changer. Way easier to use and far more interactive.

In other news though, Maneco is currently doing a limited run of 50 "Big Box" 16 Second Delays, and it looks pretty fucking kick-ass.

https://manecolabs.com/detalle/sixteen- ... y-reissue/

The sliders light up, which is a small detail, but is awesome.

Image

Of course, it's also $699...
:? :?

Those old big box EHX pedals with the sliders always get me all revved up.

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