Boss DD-20

It's pretty easy to get a good sound out of this unit. The manual is very good. Editing patches are fun. Excellent layout of the controls. I like were the input and out etc. connections are.

Let me start with BOSS delays. I was contemplating on getting the DD-3 or the DD-6. I like them both. But after playng a few tunes, I spent too much time knealing down changing settings for differnet tunes. So I decided to have something programmable. I even had the line-6 DL4. It was like a kids toy. It also sounded too digital to my ears. I'm using an Anderson Cobra-S and a PRS 22 and PRS 24 with the Rivera Quiana Studio. Unit sounds really good with these guitars and amp. I connect the unit through the EFX loop. It doesn't change the sound of my amp or guitars especially when I turn the unit off. The delays really sound professional. Analog settings sound ....well analog. The digital sounds ....well digital. You can soften the digital sound with the tone control. Digital, analog, tape, warp, twist, dual, pan, smooth, modulate(one of my favorites), reverse, it's there if you need them. I'm really happy with the unit. For lead work as with distortion/overdrive, it's a killer. You can get a lot of delay sounds from your favorite artists. I think 23 second is an overkill but hey, it's their if you need it. I like the size. I have to rate this unit a 10. It's the best programmable, professional sounding floor pedal delay unit I have ever heard so far.

Too early to tell. It's three days old.

Never deaklt with them.

I play Blues, all kinds of Rock, Fusion, Jazz. Beautiful unit to have and keep. I've been playing for 25 years. Heard alot of really good delays. Heard alot of bad ones.This one has professional sounds. I don't know how BOSS does it but they have created a really good programmable delay unit and still kept it competitive. I wish it had a built in tuner with programmable cent(s). That would be asking too much . It would drive the cost an extra $125.00. I also wish it had a carryng case.

i thought that this pedal is much more easy to use than the almighty line 6 DL-4. You have a whopping 4 knobs that are very self explanitory, i love this pedal, and if you want insane tone, and crazy delays, use a dd-20 and a dl-4 at the same time!

clear as a bell! no infamous tone eating! i love that. its true, clean delay, with no residue.

very reliable, it doesnt reprogram itself like the line 6 has a tendancy to do. it is so solid!

dont need it

if you are into the U2, radiohead, clodplay, beautiful delay tones, this thing is for you. if you are into vintage tape, and analog delay sounds, this is for you, whatever you are into, ITS FOR YOU. i have been an official tone snob for about a year, and this thing took some research, but i have never been happier with a purchase. hear it in action at www.teelmerrick.com

very simple considering all the different things you can do with it. It takes 5 minutes to read the short, clear manual and then its plain sailing - otherwise you'll likely get confused or miss features. Although you're also likely to discover a few things that the manual will have you believe aren't possible... don't you love it when that happens?

Utterly silent, hum-wise. Doesn't colour the guitar sound that i can hear. I'm putting an Epiphone Dot into it, and what comes out of the box is as warm and clear as what goes in. But i reckon the box's own sound is lovely and warm too: i use it a lot for mangling the guitar into unrecognisable fragments of noise and improvising with these, and the sharpest digital shards are never uncomfortably harsh, even to my coward ears. Doing similar stuff with some pedals quickly becomes grating.

The effects: if you're listening Boss, the Level & Feedback knobs should always go all the way past meltdown - the sticklers for exact Space Echo replicas etc can stop at 6 if they get dizzy. And can we loop delayed sounds please? And can we hear just the delay without the played notes? (And if you really want to please me, a sample snapshot button to capture the nice random things that appear and store them somewhere, and a waveform synthesizer, and...)

The effects i love on this aren't the ones listed as effects but the ones you get from wazzing about with other controls like you're Lee Scratch Perry. I use the Reverse, Tape & Analog settings most for that. You know about the common settings so i'll share my thoughts on the three that aren't; one incredibly useful and two who're there to blow your mind in the shop but won't remember your name in the morning.

SOS (sample overdub, clean sound only sadly) - The only sensible answer to chris' comment elsewhere on this page ("who the hell needs 23 seconds sample time?") is: who the hell needs more than 3 strings on a guitar? who the hell needs the frets above the 12th? who the hell needs alternative tunings? who the hell needs more than one erogenous zone? Creativity finds ways to use whatever potential allows and 23 seconds allows a lot of things - including detailed representations of hell, chris. You can overdub continuously on the 23 seconds so there's actually far more sampling time, and you can 'punch in' the overdubs. Fantastically useful for songwriting, working out harmonies, live performance, improv, atmospheres. If only you could loop the delay-effected sounds...i'd never leave the house tho'.

Twist - Oscillates the delay with increasing speed & pitch. In technical jargon this translates as 'blasting into space on a spinning rocket'. Unfortunately the volume increases violently too, rendering it impractical at those moments when you need to blast off on a spinning rocket. Bit of a waste overall, although with one hand on the volume and some experimentation there are things like evil techno bass swells to be coaxed from it.

Warp - increases volume & feedback of delayed sound. The feedback level you begin with makes a big difference as you're either bringing back what you've played a second ago or everything you've played in the last 23. It increases and declines far too steeply for the supposedly subtle effect to be employed with much subtley. But i'm sure someone's doing something wonderful with it somewhere.

the LED went after a few months and now resurrects itself for short periods according to planetary alignments not charted in the manual. A real pain for using it live, i need to find a little light i can clip onto the box. I suspect the moral here is always follow the manual's instructions for switching the unit on & off - it seems to matter in this case.

I was joyously surprised to find it lets you misuse it so creatively: there's worlds of different sounds to be had from setting infinite feedbacks then altering the delay times with the knob, and doing it with the pedal gets different effects again. Don't get me wrong it doesn't have anything like the potential of plugging into a computer, but the fact i'm even comparing it to that and often use it in preference is remarkable. Its a simple little box full of complex sounds with liberating limitations and i've had a lot of fun with it, as a song sketchpad, a dub fx generator, to jam with myself, an improv engine, generating mad aphex twin-ish rhythms, soundtracking angels or devils. Highly recommended to the explorers out there. (Mis)using it live with a band would present a few challenges. It'd be great as a solo improv tool, although i've seen a cellist/singer (Mrs Pilgrim) use a green Line 6 Delay live to great effect - different limitations, i'd like both!

This is a hard one to give an accurate rating. As far as stompboxes go, yes, this is way more complicated than the average stompbox. But the user interface is so intuitive and powerful that you don't mind taking a half hour or so to dig in to all the features to see what all this pedal can do. They really thought through how a guitarist uses an effects pedal, and how it can be used in new ways. From having four presets that are a snap to save and access, to having a speed-jog delay time knob so it doesn't take forever to dial in the delay time, to being able to switch from a tempo display to a seconds display, to having tap tempo capabilities...the list goes on and on. If we were talking about it strictly as a digital effects processor, I'd give it a 10 for ease of use, but since it IS a stompbox, I'll give it a 7. Keep in mind, being feature-rich is not a bad thing.

Here's another one that's sort of tough. If we're strictly talking "digital" delay, then it's the best I've heard. Not only is the digital delay a dead-on copy of the original note, but the TONE knob gives you the abilitly to dial in a more analog-sounding delay if you prefer. There's also an "analog" setting to get an even closer simulation of analog delay - nice and warm and round. The only thing with with a delay time longer than 300 milliseconds that sounds better is the Maxon AD-900 - this is a true analog delay. But if you're looking for a good tape delay sound, you won't find it in the DD-20, it's tape delay simulation down-right sucks. (Try the Hughes & Kettner Replex for this, or a real tape delay.) There are other sound settings on the DD-20 that create interesting and even useful delay sounds, but I consider them more bonus experimental features that do not make or break this pedal and I therefore don't give much weight to them in my evaluation.

This pedal, like all Boss pedals, is not true-bypass. But as far as my ears can tell, it doesn't compromise my tone in anyway when it is off. Plus, this pedal is dead-silent when both on and off. And having the delay effect continue to trail off once the pedal is shut off (a benefit of non-true-bypass) is priceless.

All in all, I'm giving the DD-20 an 8 for Sound Quality simply because there are better-sounding analog delays out there and it totally sucks for tape delay simulation. But again, if I were only grading it as a strictly digital delay, I'd give it a 10, there is no better digital delay.

I'm offering no rating here as I haven't had it long enough to know for sure. Boss pedals have always held up for me. I don't see why this one would be any different.

Never had to use them so I'm offering no opinion here.

Overall, this is a fantastic digital delay pedal. I see the Boss DD-6 on many guitarists' boards, and the DD-20 takes everything that is good about the DD-6 and improves on it ten-fold by adding tone control, four-preset programmability, a parameter display and up to 23 seconds of delay (even though this is total overkill - who the hell needs 23 seconds of delay?) among many other features.

It seems many people today, when in the market for a delay stompbox end up choosing between the Boss DD-20 and the Line 6 DM-4 Delay Modeler. Well, when I bought this pedal, I also bought the Line 6 DM-4 knowing that once I made my decision between the two pedals, I'd take the other back. The Line 6 went back. As far as I'm concerned, no matter what Line 6 says, all of their stuff sounds sterile and digital. Their DM-4 is no exception. The Boss unit sounded more lively and "real." But where the Boss truely won out was in the features department: four presets as opposed to Line 6's three, a backlit LCD display so you can see what parameters you are setting (Line 6 has no display), editable tempo and note pattern relationships, it's smaller and cheaper, etc. The Line 6 unit also had a lot of unusable "psycho" sounds, but it DID have a better looper and a dedicated tap tempo button.

If you're only going to own one delay unit, the Boss DD-20 is the one to own. It's feature-rich, very powerful and sounds great, plus it's relatively inexpensive.

P.S.: Just don't plan on powering it with the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2. I emailed both Boss and Digital Music (Voodoo Lab) about this with no response. From my experience, using the PP2 with the DD-20 is unreliable at best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I would imagine it has to do with the power the DD-20 draws (It's rated at 200 mA by itself. The PP2's jacks are each only rated for 100 mA.) And unless you plan on spending a fortune in AA batteries, get the Boss PSA adapter.

if you cant figure it out with the manual you're a moron

IF you were like me choosing between the Line 6 and Boss, this is what you need to know

Boss :
-has SMOOTH transitions when you turn the pedal on/off or switch memory slots (it finishes the delays in memory)
-doesnt make ANY noise at all ever, and especially when you hit any of the pedals (on/off or memory)
-is very top notch pro quality
-has 23 seconds of delay

Line 6
-is very childish, not pro quality
-makes noise when you hit the buttons
-DOES NOT have smooth transitions when turning on/off or switch memory slots. A HUGE PROBLEM. the delays stop abruptly when you turn it off.
-sometimes has a volume increase/decrease
-COSTS MORE THAN BOSS

Hence, buy the boss. The only cool thing about line 6 is this:
-it has alot of weird trippy stuff. however, all teh wierd trippy stuff is useless if you know what your doing. For example, the line 6 has a sweep echo. This is EXACTLY the same as putting the Boss in mixed output (direct:A effect:B) and putting phaser after the B output. excpet in the line 6 case, its a shitty phaser, and you cant put it BEFORE the effect. its just a dumb pedal. it is infantile. not for pros.

Get the boss. Its pro/studio quality. Its everything you need in a DELAY pedal (...yeah, so it doesnt come with a stupid phaser setting....buy a phaser moron. if you REALLY interested, you can turn this delay into a chorus pedal by setting it on modulate, time=18ms, feedback=really low, level=high)

the only plus abotu the line 6 is that the modulate mode is SLIGHTLY SLIGHTY smoother sounding. at any rate, put the boss in mixed output and put a chorus after it or something. same crap.

boss...although the LED is a little scary...dont smack it...but i have had NO problems so i goto stick with 10. Also, you will be surprised how long the batteries last in this thing ! (just an extra bonus)...(althouygh it does take 6AA's not a 9v)

why would you need customer support with a boss....?

i play TOOL style stuff, lots of delay, lots of effects, lots of weirdness. This pedal is my favorite of all. It is the perfect all encompassing delay. you will never need another. justy buy this and be done with it. (although the other twin pedals arent so hot). No noise, ever, every setting you can want, easy use, memory slots, 23 sec delay, looping, reverse, modulate, smooth reverb, analog, wierd crap like twist and warp, sound on sound....dont be stupid and buy the line 6

Ergonomics: The dd-20 gets high marks for its ability to do temporary delay triggering.... the pedal on the left allows you to drop delays in and out at will; the feedback continues even as you go back into bypass mode. nice applications for that. This feature can be a nightmare for superlong delay times, though, where it's necessary to change the patch a few times to cancel out stray regenerations. Helpful that it's possible to store several patches at once. My main issue is that the actual sound of the delay is kind of foofy- means that you kind of end up using some of the nicer ergonomic features as workarounds. I've had this pedal for a few weeks, have gigged and practiced on it a bit.. Switching from a really great sounding Lexicon MPX1 setup with pedalboard. that rig was a pain to schlep around and the delays weren't designed to have as much variety- but you could just set it up and forget it, it sounded so musical. I was prepared for a bit of a step down, given the difference in price- but the Boss really sounds like an effect to me, and I'll probably end up using it as such if I keep it- just for feedback and looping.

I am a horn player with an electronics rig, I'm kinda sensitive about tone issues. I bought the DD-20 in order to avoid going the Line 6 route- I can't hang with the DL4's converters- even the line 6 rackmount sucks the life out of my sound. The DD-20 is much fuller in comparison, I can get through a gig using it. but the delay sound kind of lacks integrity, it's not that convincing to me. The pedal works well enough and it has a variety of delay sounds, but so far I don't feel that it adds anything useful to my sound. I always end up tweaking the mix levels and tone, trying to get a musical sound out of it, something that sets up a mood, inspires musical thought, not a lot of luck so far. I also have an Adrenalinn II- this box isn't really promoted as a delay pedal, and the implementation is nowhere near as flexible or convenient- but the delays sound much better to my ears. Not cleaner, crispier, sweeter- just stronger, kind of inspires confidence in a way. Hard switching from a (good) Lexicon unit, though- YMMV.

I don't think it'll break down- but the way that the bypass is implemented (see above; you have to change patches a couple times to totally wipe the memory buffer & lose the regeneration) can make for some weird moments onstage. I'll keep experimenting, there may be a simpler way to work around this.

The DD-20 has plenty features, I especially am digging the looper and the way you can kind of drop delay bombs with the "soft-bypass" switch . I give Boss props for designing a stompbox that doesn't totally shred the incoming signal also.

that said, the delay itself is not all that hip sounding. It's not bad for a $200 pedal, but I don't like the way the delays regenerate or trail off- and it doesn't sound particularly strong or convincing to me the way a higher-end digital unit does. The modeling and equalization they did approximates the sound of an analog rig to an extent- but the vibe really isn't anything special.
delay pedals should make all the girls want to go home and jump their boyfriends! you know what I mean? Otherwise, there's no real point.
Again, for the two hundred + bucks, it's a decent value.
And this box may have been specially designed for the register and impedence of a guitarist's setup - the sound issue may be less crucial for some of the guitarists out there. But I have a fair idea of what the pedal wants to do- I'm driving it with a mic pre, going for a huge, big fat juicy sound, looking to get something sexy out of the box and it just hasn't been happening. I'm probably gonna sell this and check out the H&K Replex or the Maxon AD-990 when it comes out.

This will not be the easiest pedal to get up and going with. Give yourself a few days to really learn it, before you plug it in with your band. Learn at home time. Once you know it though, it is simple enough to change on the fly. There are pedals far harder to master (Try the UD stomp for example; a programming nightmare).

It sounds wonderful, and the tones are very much like the effects they are claiming to be. The reviewer who mentioned noise must be using some other pedal, or just configuring it wrong. I run this on the FX loop of my Vibro-King; the amp is all tube, and tends to take any noisy devices and play hell on my sound. This thing is silent as a mouse. Not a whisper. The delays are adjustable from vintage analog or tape sounding types (with the modulation you can make even more tapish style delays) to pristine digitals. I think the standard mode sounds wonderful.

Some of the people reviewing the pedal cite as faults what is really their misunderstanding of how an effect works. If you choose reverse delay on any pedal, if you do not have the mix set so the effect is 100% of the sound, you will still hear your original guitar line. Come on guys! Think about it.

The manual could be clearer, but it does the job. The pedal is a keeper, sound is the best I've tried (I am notorious for going through delay pedals).

No idea. It's a boss - I suspect it would be reliable, they have been making them for years.

BTW - Interesting to note, other than the CE-1, this is the only Boss pedal I have ever bought and liked (as in kept). I usually don't buy their stuff - the effects are usually too limited in control, and cheesy sounding duplicates of the good ones. This pedal is a definite exception - it is a stellar delay.

I am not goint to move my score down and penalize them for not making this pedal easy enough for a barbarian to use ;-)

YOU MUST READ THE MANUAL. THAT IS UP TO YOU.

Other than that caveat, I simply haven't heard a better delay outside of a decent recording studio. This tops any rack units currently slopped out by GC by a wide margin.

Read the manual to find out the depth of this pedal. As far as just picking a delay, tapping the tempo, and getting what you want, it is pretty simple.

Super quiet. The delays are beautifuls. I don't have much use for the warp or twist function but everything else is useful.

TO EVERYONE THAT THINKS YOU HAVE TO HEAR YOUR ORIGINAL SIGNAL WITH THE REVERSE DELAY. TURN YOUR EFFECT KNOB ALL THE WAY TO THE RIGHT. THIS WILL GIVE YOU THE REVERSE DELAY ONLY!

The analog patch is dead on. Best digital copy I've heard.

Smooth is well . . . smoth.

The modulated delay are warm and funky.

Best pedal I've bought this year (and I have wayyyyyy too many pedals)

I've only had it a month but seems as sturdy as any other Boss pedal.

Great pedal, I give it a 9 just because the warp and twist modes could have been used for something more useful, but overall, what it does, it does great!

A little baffled at first, but the manual is pretty clear and I now find it very easy to adjust my settings. Its quite easy to get a good sound, and a little bit of extra work will get you a great sound.

Only problem arises when changing to a different patch - the delay time appears but not the other settings. Just means you need to know exactly what each patch is before using it.

Really should have included the adaptor - another #20, but I talked them down to #15.

I originally was using this between guitar and amp. It sounded good, but was a little noisy. Got a couple of new leads the other day and have been using it in the effects loop. A lot quieter and sounds better. The other advantage is that the repeats still have a distorted tone to them, rather than if it was before the preamp in which case they would sound cleaner when the are programmed quieter.

All the different styles are good, with modulation being a favourite. Warp and Twist are a little OTT and couldn't be used more than once in a set.

If you are after revesre, it works best between the guitar and amp - that way you will only hear the reverse if required. In the loop you get the forward guitar first and then the reverse repeat. It takes a little getting used to but does sound good when used lo-fi.

Favourite thing at the moment. If you set up the 1st patch for a 300ms infinite repeat and volume swell a chord, you can change to the second patch while you get a sustained chord from the first. Put a little delay (450ms) on the 2nd patch. Playing 'Eastern' sounding parts sounds really good.

Only gripe is that the repeats always fade in volume. Brian May style solo harmonies (ala Brighton Rock) don't sound quite right. He uses two pedals for this set to 800ms and 1600ms. They are both the same volume when he plays, but not when I do. Only a small problem.

When I first got this there was some problem with the pedal - on a few occasions I wasn't getting a delay, but instead a strange 'metallic pipe' sound. Only happened a couple of times, and never again. I'll see if that develops into anything.

Never dealt with BOSS. The shop I bought this from are friendy guys, but in a different part of the country from me. I was totally taken in by the spiel the guy in the shop gave me, and when he started playing U2 I was sold. I'm so easily convinced. Still, he was right.

This is a great pedal. It is my first delay pedal and I chose it over the cheaper DD-6. Most options and sound better. I also looked at Digitech but have heard that a lot of them are breaking down.

I haven't fully exploited all the potential of this pedal, but think it is capable of really changing how you play.

This pedal is pretty easy to use one knob controls the delay time the others control the effect level, tone of delay signal (nice touch) the modes (there are a ton of them) and the right pedal scrolls through your saved settings.Editing is a snap, heck of a lot easier than some of the other pedals out there. Comes with a manual and you should scoll through it if you want to figure out the more techincal functions. Only knock is that it does not have a dedicated on/off switch (have to remove the AC jack or remove the input jack) and it takes 6 AA batteries which is alot. BUY THE AC ADAPTER!!

Very quiet unit, and the effect quality is steller! I'm using it with a Fender Deluxe Reverb and Fender American Strat and have had no problems with using this unit. I'm a die hard fan of Dave Evans (AKA The Edge)of U2 and have gone through lots of delay units trying to get his sound.This unit switched to the "Modulation" setting nails his sound. This setting incorporates delay with a deep reverb with a hint of chorus. I'm also a big fan of Andy Summers of the Police and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine and with a bit of messing around with the unit you can get their sounds as well. Also if your into modern Alt rock bands like Longwave or the Yea Yea Yeahs you can get their sounds as well.But this unit can do it all from 60's Surf music and Hendrix/Beatles reverse guitar to deep reverb for country.

I usualy take good care of my effect boxes so I have had no problem with it. Its built pretty solid (like most Boss pedals) but I wouldn't jump up and down on it constantly. I have gigged with it and haven't had any issues.

Never had to call them.

If your a delay freak like me and like creating really interesting sounds then this is the pedal for you. Although it is a 200+ dollar pedal it has a just tons of cool settings. Like most guitar players I don't like throwing my money around unless its a good deal, and for the amount of potential this pedal has its definitely worth the price.