Guitarists have often split their perspectives on delay units into two distinct camps: analog and digital. Keywords attached to analog often include “warm, rich, organic,” while those given to digital, on the other hand, might lean toward “precise and clean”.
One of the early classics in the digital realm, however, set a standard for lush, musical delay tones that has reigned supreme for four decades, and established a sound that perfectly blends precision and character into a third realm that beautifully captures the best of both worlds. We could call this “Vintage Digital,” a third distinct realm capable of delivering the finest form of delay effect available by melding digital and analog in perfect harmony.
All in the Detail
From one part of the supporting circuitry, the clock that controls the sampling rate—generated by an analog oscillator—wasn’t 100% accurate, introducing small rate deviations that induced an appealing modulation in the delay sound. Elsewhere, the Delay Phase and Feedback Phase circuits, accessed via front-panel switches, mixed signal paths in a frequency-dependent manner that induced appealing modulation in delay and feedback sounds, again, further enhancing the richness and depth of the SDE-3000’s perceived “tone.”