Behringer VD400

Hello!

Here's my review of the Behringer VD400 Vintage Delay.....elay....elay
....elay....elay!

A bit of an oversight on Behringers behalf to name their analogue delay pedal after the initialism for Venereal Disease! But Behringer is a German company, so let's just have a quick snigger and get on with it!

As pointed out in the rather informative review below, this is a knock-off of the much revered Boss DM3 Delay, which as we all know, contains not silicon in its microchips, but the tears of angels, which were collected in specially hand-woven silk handkerchiefs by pope John Paul II himself under the supervision of the ghost of Elvis. Even big tough, hairy, tattooed macho men are reduced to gibbering wrecks, holding each other in a gentle embrace and weeping upon hearing it's dulcet tones.

Rather sadly, Boss don't make this pedal anymore, which means that people are currently paying roughly 250 pounds for them on Ebay - most of which have had their internal trim pots foolishly fiddled with by people trying to eek out another 2ms delay time, resulting in them not functioning as they should. Doh!

Ibanez, and Maxon are making reissues of their 1980's analogue delay pedals, which frankly look fantastic, as they have the original retro looking bright pink metal housing, but being classics, they have a large price tag. The Ibanez AD9 reissue goes for about 115 pounds, or if you're feeling flush, you can blow 260 pounds on the Maxon AD999.

So we all know what the Behringer ethos is.....Take a classic Boss/Electro Harmonics pedal, copy it, cut costs wherever possible (Plastic casing, made in China, no paint, boring knobs, dull graphics etc), and sell it at a fair price. A shoestring guitarists dream come true!

I won't insult you intelligence with the whole 'ease of use' thing.
It's not a forklift truck.

Battery access is a bit silly, but so is trying to run a delay with batteries! It will eat a 9-volt battery before you've finished a song! I run my pedals with a Maplins Power Bank.

I've only ever had previous experience with digital delays before purchasing the VD400, but had a rough Idea what to expect having read up on the Boss/Ibanez Analogue delay pedals, and watching some of the demos on Youtube.

Bearing in mind this is a 20 pound pedal, I was first of all concerned about this cheap little unit sucking my tone, so I plugged my Fender 50's Strat straight into my tube Blues Junior amp, had a listen, and then connected the VD400. I couldn't hear any tone sucking when the pedal was bypassed, so top marks there.

The delays sound lush and warm, and subtler that the bright crystal clear repeats of the digital delay (I used to own the Boss DD3, but now own a Marshall Echohead). I did like the dark lo-fi sound, the repeats mellow out and decay very nicely.

What's nice is that the 'Echo' knob ('Level' basically) has the ability to make the repeats louder than the original plucked note, and as intuition would suggest, set at midnight the first repeat is at the same volume as the plucked note. (On the Echohead the 'Level' needed to be up full in order for the first repeat to match the plucked note) This means that with the intensity knob in the sweet spot, your guitar won't sound like a guitar anymore as the repeats build up and merge into a thick soundscape drowning out any plucking/strumming etc. Nice.

Careful with that 'Intensity' knob though! Self Oscillation is very easily achieved, meaning that the pedal starts to repeat it's own repeats, resulting in mad 60's sci-fi UFO noises building to incredible volume causing your spouse/partner/neighbours/cats/amplifier to get upset. Being analogue, you can play with the 'repeat rate' (speed) knob while it's self-oscillating and alter the pitch of the noise with out the signal breaking up (a sad flaw with digital delay).
Very Radiohead.

At the other end of the spectrum, a very nice rockabilly slapback can easily be achieved.

It seem as though it can do everything that the Boss DM3/Ibanez AD9 can do, and does it well.

It wouldn't be right to say that it's better than digital delay - they really should be considered two different effects. (And I now have both on my pedal board - both sound amazing together!)

I'm very pleased!

Well, it seems as durable as any other plastic pedal on the market, perhaps slightly better than the Danelectro mini series for the reason that the knobs are lower than the pedal switch (Like a Boss) and therefore can't be kicked.

The pots are nice and stiff, and they all feel equal in their operation - there's nothing more discouraging than owning a piece of equipment with some loose pots, some stiff pots, etc.

The switch mechanism feels nice and positive, and the unit feels heavy and sturdy.
I look after my equipment and have had plastic pedals last for years that still look and operate like the day I bought them.

This unit really seems all right. Obviously not as tough as Boss pedals and the like, but if you aren't silly and get over excited and jump on it, I reckon it'll be ok.

I've never taken any backups of anything to a gig! Perhaps a bit foolish, or perhaps I'm just confident that I've looked after my gear well. I'm pretty sure I could perform some kind of last minute Macgyver style repair, using a foil chewing gum wrapper, a shoelace and some gelignite.

Can't really comment here.....I think supplying the public with a decent 20 pound analogue delay is pretty good customer support!

In with the instructions was a list of contact phone numbers for varying countries, so it doesn't look as though they are trying to hide!

And now it's time to quote the well over used stereotype cheap pedal Harmony Central line....
All together now.....

"For 20 quid, if it breaks, I'll just buy another one!

This is a cool pedal - it costs around the same as a packet of peanuts and is good enough to compete with the silly nostalgia, rose tinted glasses reissues selling for alot of money.

One thing though, It's bloody ugly. It makes my eyes bleed - Jesus!
It's the most bland looking battleship grey, rainy day, primer coloured boring type-face and graphics, with dull knobs box shaped thing you ever saw!
I've seen polystyrene cups that have more visual flare!
I suppose if it was bright pink, it would be a bit obvious.
It has a blue Led, so that's quite cheery.

Thank you Behringer, I've always wanted an analogue delay, but could never justify the expense. Now I have a good a good one, and it's barely made a dent in my wallet.

And Thank you for reading my review, I hope you found it useful and helps you make an informed purchase.

Being a direct copy of a Boss DM-3, I'd say it's very easy to use (three knobs - "Repeat Rate" ie. "Time", "Echo" ie. "Level" and "Intensity" ie. "Repeats"). "Repeat Rate" works backwards (counter-clockwise), but I hear that it's the same on Boss DM-3. You've also got "Out" and "Dir. Out", so you can use it as signal splitter or in "self-oscillation games" (use a patch-cable to connect "Dir. Out" and "In", and play with knobs while recording whatever comes out of "Out" jack).

Very good, actually. I presume it has the 6,8 kHz clock, just like Boss DM-2 and DM-3 - one V3205 (Coolaudio's clone of MN3205) BBD chip which is "stretched" to 300ms of delay, do the Nyquist math to figure out how slow should the clock go. I've got a DIY AD-3205 analog delay (410ms out of two V3205's, clock speed at 10kHz) and it outshines Behringer VD-400 in shorter delay times (AD-3205 being much more HiFi and closer to an excellent tape echo), but when it comes to 300ms or so, Behringer has "that" 3D sound that'll make you forget everything about reverbs. Run it on full-tilt (maximum delay time), "Echo" on 11 o'clock and "Intensity" on 1 o'clock (just before it starts self-oscillating) and you'll hear "that" sound. It's warm, it's 3D, it's spacey, it does that "argh-argh-argh" spaceship sounds... The missing link in my chain.

I have a Behringer DD-400, Behringer MS-40 monitors, Behringer UMX25 MIDI controller... Everything works (knock on wood), but I do tend to be very gentle with my gear (which I recommend to everyone). As far as the pedals go, DD-400 works just as it should and it's almost two years old. Don't know if it will live to be 15 or 20 years old, we'll all just have to wait and see.

They answer emails, and I've heard they replace gear using "no questions asked" policy, so...

Listen, it's an Boss DM-3 clone for 30 euros. If Behringer never did ANYTHING else but to clone this pedal, I'd say that they deserve to exist and to be praised. How cool is to have an actual BBD analog delay for 30 euros! The next best thing (MXR Carbon Copy) costs over a hundred and fifty euros and I sincerely doubt it's analog (I've sen the interior pics and notice the absence of BBD chips in Caron Copy, so...)

Pretty simple to use.

There is some tone changing I think is indicative of delay pedals.

I'll keep this as a backup.

For the price, this is a great delay. I like to get Behringer pedals to find out if a certain effect will work good with the style of music I play before I spend an arm and a leg on an effect. Great products for the money.