delay for dual amp setup?

[Zork]

I read in another forum that someone is using a Strymon Deco in a dual amp setup to have a slight delay and a bit of pitch modulation on the second amp to effectively enhance the illusion of two guitars playing at the same time. I think the idea is brilliant and a bit of research yielded that this was kind of common practice in the big rigs of the 80s.

I want to try it out in my setup as well but Deco is fucking expensive! I think I can do it with my trusty old DD-20 set to kill dry, mod delay with a single repeat and about 8ms of delay. But you know, space is precious on my pedalboard and the DD-20 is huge. So, what's the tiniest delay that comes to your mind to serve that purpose?

[shoegaze_head]

I know the DD-8, has stereo out, it might be able to do something like that? Maybe the DD-200, but that gets towards Deco prices.

[marqueemoon]

How about something like the TC Mimiq?

There’s a mini version that’s mono if that would work.

[Shadoweclipse13]

How about a splitter? Then you can use any delay. I use Lehle P-Splits for that exact think now and then, and it's SO much fun. If you don't want to spend Lehle money, Saturnworks makes all kinds of cool routing devices for reasonable money.

[Zork]

Yes, I have a splitter. Im pluging my bass vi in a volume pedal, then it goes to the palmer y-box. One output to the bass amp, one output to the pedalboard with fuzz and delay and stuff and then to the guitar amp. Now I'm looking to get the bass amp slightly out of sync and pitch to kind of widen the sound and make it sound more like two people playing.

The mimiq mini seems to fit the bill quite perfectly thanks for the suggestion. Have you used one personally? Someone?

[fuzzjunkie]

Yes, that was common practice back in the ancient times. They were mimicking the ADT - double tracked studio effect popularized by the Beatles.

A lot of the early rack delays and tape echo units had 2 outputs, but they weren’t true stereo. One was a dry signal and the other was the effect signal. That’s one way to make your guitar tone sound bigger without getting too ambient or washed out.

They could also be easily used for what you’re asking for, a short delay with modulation to one amp, while the other gets an unaffected signal. I’m not sure the “any delay will do” will work in this instance, because you want the delay to be in the 25-60ms range, ideally around 32ms, which is too short for some devices. The Deco is made to do exactly that.

With true stereo delay units (like an Eventide Timefactor) one of the delays can be set slightly longer than the other. The Edge does this a lot. Side A would be 310ms and Side B would be 335ms. You could set Side A to 0ms and Side B to 25-35ms with some modulation. I have a setting for that.

Finally, you could use a simple chorus pedal after a splitter for the modulation. Chorus pedals have a short delay from 10-25ms along with the modulation. There are some stereo chorus pedals that are dry out one side and affect the other. Then you won’t need a splitter. The old Roland analog and digital rack mounted chorus units from the ‘80s were built for that. I have a Yamaha analog rack that is perfect for this. The Roland Dimension-D was used a lot too. Andy Summers from the Police and quite a few others in single guitar bands used those units to create more space and sound bigger. I’m not sure, but I think the old EHx Polychorus was dry/mix if you plugged into both outputs.

[Zork]

Yes, I was thinking of a chorus, too. I have an old Ibanez RC-99 that could work very well here. It has quite a long delay time for a chorus and I believe it has the wet/dry outputs as well. And well, my DD-20 can definitely do all I need for this. By the way, I definitely need the splitter for the ground lift.

But both the DD-20 and the RC-99 are pretty big pedals. I would prefer something much smaller as the pedalboard is already quite cramped.

The mimiq mini is obviously designed for my purpose and is literally tiny. But the demos sound like the effect is veeery subtle and it also seems to introduce those clanky overtones like digital pitch shifters do. I don't know...

[marqueemoon]

There’s also the Keeley doubletracker.

I have not owned this or the Mimiq, but I’ve tried the Keeley. It’s a more obvious effect, but sometimes that is better than trying and failing to be invisible.

[Zork]

Damn, I watched Andy demo the Deco...

[Zork]

I know the DD-8, has stereo out, it might be able to do something like that? Maybe the DD-200, but that gets towards Deco prices.

Bingo! DD-7 can do it as well. Modulate mode has 20 to 800ms delay time and if you use input B and output A there's only the wet signal.

[marqueemoon]

Interesting. I have no regrets about selling my DD-7 though.

[OffYourFace]

The deco is worth it IMO. I use it with synths most of the time but it's amazing with guitar. That and the Volante get used a lot.

Start at 11:00
Wendy

[javier-san]

I would also say the DECO is worth it. That "wide-stereo" mode is wonderful.

[Zork]

Yes, I start to think so, too. The saturation sounds fantastic as well. I will experiment a bit with my DD-20 and if that idea really becomes a staple of that setup, I might look to buy a used Deco.

[Zork]

Y'all know what I just did, don't you?