Arion SAD-3

It's a basic delay pedal, with basic knobs. For those who know how to work a delay pedal, it'll be a breeze to control.

But Harmony Central has this question under the category of ease of use.

"How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?"

It's hard. So a 7.

I cannot use this pedal. And don't ask me, "What did you expect for 20 bucks? It's okay for the money." Yes, it's only 20 bucks, but if it sounds bad, then I just can't play with it. It sounds bad. I'm not going to use it.

I play...

fender strat players deluxe -> Vox 847 -> visual sound Route 66 (original TS 808 copy with a compression pedal.) -> DL4 -> Carvin SX200 -> A boss stomp tuner somewhere in the middle of it. I found that it affects the wah sound if I have it before the wah, so I'm experimenting where to put it.

It's a pretty basic setup. I power the pedals with 1 Spot, a daisy chain power supply. I'm upgrading constantly as the money comes by.

The SAD-3 sounds pretty sad, pun intended. It doesn't sound musical. It sounds very thin and brittle. Yes, there is some warmth in the delay, but to my ears, it's a very fake warmth. It just sounds like they muffled and lowered the treble of a very brittle delay, so it has some "warmth." But there is no real alive and musical warmth. It's just a thin, weak and muffled note repeating my guitar.

I don't care about the short repeats. I bought it knowing that it'll have short repeats. Even for just ambiance effect, it just sounds terrible, that's all.

I'm pretty careful with my stuff (my DL4 is still alive after 2 1/2 years!) so I don't think I'll break this pedal even if I do step on it. In fact, for the week that I tried to use it, I did step on it. No problems there.

The battery compartment cover is very flimsy. It comes off when I just flick my finger at it.

I don't care that it was made in Japan and that it's plastic. I don't even care that the delay is short.

It sounds thin and brittle to my ears. It's a very fake sound, and just isn't pleasant to my ears. It's cheap, I know. But it should be usable. It's not usable for me.

I'm returning it with the Arion MOC-1 I bought, which is worse than this.

If you've ever used a delay pedal before, this is a breeze...3 knobs, a switch for stereo use, and a stomp pad. The manual is pretty funny, I love when Asian languages are poorly translated into English.

Let's start with the fact that I only paid $19 dollars for this pedal, so I'm more lenient than I would have been with a more expensive pedal. The delay time is short, short, short. Really, to me it's almost more of a simple reverb pedal than a usable delay. Maybe my Dan-Echo pampered me. That being said, it does give some nice short ambient sound washes. However, if you turn the depth past about 1 o'clock, you start to get a lot of white noise in your signal. This is the main reason I gave a 6, even a the ow price point. I'll have to pull it apart and mess with the trim knobs to see if it becomes a more useful delay. For now, it's a nice way to add some space to my non-reverb Valve Jr.

I take it pretty easy on my gear, so I'm not worried, but it does seem pretty flimsy. I really don't like the way the battery compartment is engineered,I can almost guarantee I'm going to lose the covers pretty quickly and they will be replaced with electricians tape.

No clue, but I don't expect much support if it craps out.

Been playing for 15+ years now, in several bands in several roles. I bought this on a whim because it was so inexpensive. I didn't expect wonders and that's what I got. It is just another tool to create some texture, and as that, I'm not unhappy with what I paid for it.

i found it easy to use.the controls are pretty limited in range,there are no great extremes,it's pretty much very short delay to short delay.

i bought this after reading some of the reviews here,especially after the earliest reviews.some people were able to get sound effects and feedback from it and use it as a tone generator.i wasn't,even after fiddling with the trim pots,and never got runaway oscillation.which i have no use for anyway.i'm beginning to think that arion revised later models because you only see these reviews on the first page which is a good five years ago.i love this pedal,it has a harmonic quality that i've found in no other delay,beautiful overtones,makes everything sound better.i've gone through an echoplex ep-2,'70's fender reverb,boss dd-3,dod-fx-96,dan-echo,which i used to like,and this is my favorite.i leave it on constantly.i just bought two more from musicians' friend.i use single coils into a silvertone 1482 or an ampeg gemini II,tube amps through a chandler tubedriver.i got a dod fx747 flanger because of the good reviews here but don't like it.now i have a m.i.j. arion flanger that is my second favorite pedal.i like it so much i bought a newer one to use regularly.i have a d.o.d. fx-17 volume/wah that sustains and pulls bell-like echoes out of the sad-3.i use a dod fx-30b that i use after the flanger to compress,into the wah,to the delay,tubedriver,amp.i've never noticed any noise.

the one i'm using now i got second hand.on one occasion when plugged into an adaptor chain with the fx-96 i noticed the l.e.d. was brighter than usual and the delay was working weaker than usual and with no overtones.after opening it up and adjusting the trim pots it came back to life.recently i left it plugged into the wah that had the input plug in all night.even though it was off all night the led lit but nothing.again i opened it,and after fiddling with the trim pots it came back.i think part of the reason this has happened is that i've set the center trimpot just to the point where if you go any further it will cut off.it's very sensitive to current,i use it with an isolated adaptor.i think at a normal setting it it dependable.

i've never dealt with company

i've been playing about 35 years,i blew out my first speaker in high school with an electro-harmonix power booster LPB-1.i play mostly blues,people say i have a jazz sound.i've had a '67 esquire an early '60's guild capri,ist version mosrite,thinnest neck made,'76 strat,now i like cheap stuff you don't have to worry about.i play an '80's m.i.j. strat with chandler pickups and a '51 squire that i took that ugly pickgurd off of.i love this pedal,i have three.i'm happy with the length of delay.i've gotten to the point where i wouldn't want to play without it.it makes everything sound better.arion sad-1's and sch-1's are selling for $130 on ebay,my arion m.i.j. sfl-1 flanger is the best flanger i've heard and the newer one made in sri lanka if not identical is very close in sound,i just bought an arion phaser but haven't gotten it yet.and i hear the tubulator is very good,but i've given up on overdrive pedals,they all sound buzzy.i have a m.i.j.tube mania,discontinued for good reason,but for $12 i'm not complaining.sad-3,great pedal

Well,3 knobs ,no prob

ok,heres where it gets tricky,they named this thing a delay.Thats why I gave it a low rating.If Arion had named this thing SPACE ECHO,I might have gave it a 10.That would have been a great deal for $20.00.Don't get me wrong I really like it for the space echo ambience it gives ,but it is in by no way a good analog delay,now also,here is a thing you will love or hate about this pedal ,turning up the middle(depth)knob adds tons of noise,now,heres the interesting part,its not the basic high end hiss,its a airy low end air sound,might be kool to some.Also,I think they probally get in a major hurry when produceing this gem,cause mine was abit blah in its abilitys,so I cracked it open and there is 2 trims in it took some time playing with those and it became 100 percent better,so they guys who loved it out of the box got lucky,the ones who didn't this may have been your prob.

welllllllllllllllll,it is plastic,and the switch on the inside is a questionable design,do not consider this a STOMPBOX and you will be ok.

I have not yet had to deal with those people,hope they speak english

Well,I was gonna give this a 6 but gave it one more for its price tag,Arion should look into maybe creating abit of a upper line as well,use abit more metal,less scary

easy except for dubious knob "depth"

spacey echo to cool wierd "hallow-around-your-sounds" as others here say and fun osolation, i cant wait to open it up and see if theres any trim pots

arion, well plastic...

cool stoned effects, really trippy in stereo mode, subtle.

Easy to get sound out of it, provided you know how to place plugs in the in and out jacks, right?

Sounds groovy, gives a nice delay to your lines, dark and musical, and is offensive in no way. See mutli-effects, DOD etc for cheap but crap delays. This is cheaper and better.

It's a good, kinda memory man like delay, you can tweak on the fly, get some sliding whirls out of it, it just doesn't get as wet, and no control over the mod, which is slightly present but by default sounds good.

Plastic but no worries regarding the build.

Mount it on your board and it'll be there for life.

I have better delays but I'm glad I tried this one out because it's perfect for my keyboard, and cheaper than buying my friend's Memory Man.

Buy somthing more expensive if you want and can, but this is good to use too for cheaper.

Very easy to get a good sound out of. Knobs are pretty self explanatory.

I wish the delay had a greater range, but oh well, I got this for 20 bucks. Great reverb sounds, the pedal adds great atmosphere to music. I don't like to play without a little delay, because it does not feel as natural. I have overdrive and a slew of modulation effects. This goes great with all of them.

It is plastic. I lightly tap on my pedals to turn them on and off. So I don't see a problem here.

It does not look like it would be easy to contact them.

I play shoegazer/gothic/post-punk/post-hardcore. This pedal fits the first 3 of those mostly. If you want long sweet echos, reverse delay, and looping- look elsewhere.

I bought this as a replacement to my Johnson Analog Delay. I modded it to add an expression pedal to the delay time pot. The new housing I put it in lead to me breaking it though. (I put my full body weight on it by accident) The reason I did the mod was for the pitch-shift/high pitched noise you get when you move it back and forth. That way, I could get the great tone analog delay offers and also have these layered parts over my guitar parts that I could make with my foot. I plan on doing the same mod for this one. Unfortunately the delay time on this is short and the effect won't be as loud or dynamic as the old johnson, but it is good enough for now.

I wish it already had expression pedal jacks so I don't have to add one, but I want that from every pedal I own. Plus a knob for mix would be nice. I feel the echos are not loud enough.

If this were lost or stolen, I would probably get another Johnson Delay, because I like that one better.

Delays are a great music making tool, and this one is good for short delays.

Three knobs. delay, depth, repeats. if you can't figure it out then there is something wrong with you.

Ok. As a straight delay this thing is useless. you will not get the sounds of the Edge, it will not sound like a Boss DM-2 or an EH Deluxe memory man. but what it will do is give your sound some ambiance and distance (along with some slight movement). To all you tone snobs out there. What did you expect from a $29.00 analog delay? long repeats? The Edge in a box? A cheap DM-2? You get what you pay for. I didn't expect to get a pristene sounding analog delay. I wanted something dark and warm and cheap that would give me something different from the colder digital delays that I own (DD-2,DD-3 both MIJ) this does it! if I had paid more for it i would have felt ripped off, but for the money this thing is killer!

It's plastic. i don't see it surviving 20 plus years, but for now it good.

A good sounding cheap analog delay.

Easy to get excellent sounds from this pedal. Three controls - Delay, Depth, and Repeat. Different settings give very distinct effects, from typical delay (short sounds best) to haunting/distant sounding effects.

I am running this pedal through a vintage Marshall Lead 12 and it brightens the sound and really makes the amp sound better. This pedal is not noisy. Depending on how you set the pedal controls the effect can be up front or off in the distance. I have not used the Stereo Delay feature.

It appears to be well made. The case is made of strong plastic. The pedal looks great. I will only use it at home so I think it will be very dependable.

Have not dealt with the Arion company.

Have been playing guitar and bass for over 20 years. For the price this delay pedal can't be beat. It really sounds good. I have read alot of bad reviews on here for this pedal and i don't understand them. Effect pedals have been manufactured for around 40 years, it's not rocket science anymore and you don't have to spend $100.00 or more for a great delay pedal.

This is very easy to use. 3 knobs, and a switch for direct or stereo operation. Pots feel very smooth.

Here's the real story:

The SAD-1 has a great design. It is very similar to the Tokai DL1, which is an excellent 250ms delay. It uses the MN3205 4096-stage bucket brigade device.

However, the SAD-3 uses a MN3208. This is a 2048-stage bucket brigade device. This is roughly HALF the delay time as the SAD-1!
On top of that, the noise suppresion circuitry of the SAD-1 is missing, and it only has half the number of filters (used for smoothing out the sharp clocked delayed signal).

But, if you know what it is and what it sounds like, then for $20 the SAD-3 is a great deal.

I was surprised how good it sounded! There was a very steep high-end roll off, but it sounds better than an Echoplex. I did not hear any noise!
Also, out of the box, there is no infinite repeat.

I wouldn't trust is as a stompbox. I'd set up on an amp, and never have it touch the floor.

Its plastic!

So, in a nutshell, if don't expect memory man-like long echos, or infinite repeats, and if you don't mind a 'muddy' delay sound, the SAD-3 may be exactly what you are looking for- a CHEAP, good sounding, low-noise, analog delay pedal.

Musician's Friend still has 'em!