Boss DD-6 Digital Delay

Its fairly easy to use. Except I don't even understand the advantage of the whole tap-tempo thing that everybody raves about. Who is actually gonna be able to have such perfect rhythm that they can do that live on stage? It's just not practical. Besides that, the knobs are pretty self explanatory and easy to use.

For me its a really big deal that the delay echos smoothly into one-another, because you cannot use this pedal with distortion on. Its very very digital sounding and it just sounds horrible if you are planning on playing any solos with this thing on. There is nothing you can do with the settings to get rid of this either. With clean though, I will admit it does it's job just fine.

It's pretty solid I've had mine for about 10 years and it hasn't broken yet. It definitley CHEWS through batteries though, as someone else said below. I'd be suprised if you can get 2 hours out of this thing. You need an adaptor.

No experience.

I would look for something where the delays run smoothly into each other so you can get a good, clean sounding delay instead of a digital, noisy nightmare when trying to use it with distortion. I mean come on, if you were trying to play the lead solo in "Comfortably Numb" for example, it just would sound like wood chips splitting instead of a nice smooth delay. I haven't looked into whether there are any other pedals that CAN do this, I'm sure there are though. The delay on my amp is much better and does exactly what I'm talking about. Plus I think $160 is way too much for a delay pedal.

Using a boss pedal is a no brainer.If you had tried a DD3,the only things to learn is how to use the Tap Tempo and Hold function of this pedal.It took me only 3 minutes to find my ideal settings for the delay.

It's digital,dead quiet when not playing anything while the pedal is on.Unless you set it to self oscillate,or depressing the pedal while in warp mode-(produces that same effect),it is quiet.The label on the box,and on the pedal reads "digital delay",so i did not buy it and expect it to sound like an analog delay.In fact,i expected it to sound like the DD3,and it does,but with more clarity,specially on long delay settings which this pedal is capable of (5.2 seconds).If your basic clean or overdriven tone tone is toppy,has ear piercing highs,or in short,if you have bad tone,this pedal won't help.It only does what it's supposed to - add clear high quality digital delay to your guitar signal.

Totally dependable,been using a battered Boss DD2 pedal for years,it never broke.I'm expecting the same with this one.I would use it on gigs without a backup.Just be sure to use a power supply with it,delays eat up batteries pretty fast.

Haven't had the need for one so far.

I play a wide variety.From satch-vai type instrumentals,to pop/jazz/rock type of songs.A digital delay helps me achieve spacious,groovy sounds specially for solos.I can't live without this pedal.That tape delay setting on the Digitech digidelay is a nice touch but other than that,the DD6 is the best in it's price range.I just wish it had an extra tone/eq bias knob for more flexibility-will help tremendously if you wanna change the tonality of your delay sound.

Not too difficult to figure out what the knobs do, but it takes a lot of playing around with to finally figure it out.

First and foremost, this is a Digital pedal, and there is a major problem with digital signals from digital pedals.

The signal from your electric guitar is ANALOG. That analog signal from your guitar gets changed to a DIGITAL signal as it runs thru any and all digital pedals. Then the signal gets converted back to an ANALOG signal when it goes into any TUBE circuit or TUBE amplifier because TUBE circuits are ANALOG. That is why analog effects always sound better than digital effects thru TUBE amps. I find analog effects also sound better thru solid state amps too, much better sounding than digital signals.

The converting back and forth from analog to digital to analog causes a lot of degrading of the signal. That is going to effect the sound quality.

This Digital Delay sounds somewhat better than other digital delays I've listened to, but still sounds cold, tinny, cheap and weak.

My 2 biggest issues with this pedal are it is very noisy, and I cannot stand that obnoxious digital "clunk" and "thunk" that is attached to every single note and chord I pick when I am using this terribly bad sounding pedal. For the $140.00 this pedal cost new, I expected a LOT better quality.

It looks like Boss has devolved into making poor quality Chinese crap and selling it to consumers for over inflated prices. IE they have become a rip off.

I replaced this DD-6 with an MXR Carbon Copy.

Moot point. It sounded so bad I replaced it. So, I'll never know how long this overpriced piece of terrible sounding plastic would last.

N/A

Boss used to make good pedals. But they seem to have devolved into making poor quality, over priced, bad sounding junk. I'll bet the inner components are actually made somewhere in China for about $10.00, assembled into the mediocre plastic case you all know and own, and are then passed off as $100.00+ effects pedals to an unsuspecting public.

Well, I will never buy another Boss product again. I paid $140.00 for this piece of bad sounding junk. An MXR Carbon Copy is the same price and sounds 100 times better. If only I'd known !!!!

GOOD BYE BOSS !!!!

Very compact and feature-packed design, so user-friendliness needs to compromise a little here. Personally I'd rather have a tone control for the delay than e.g. that lame "warp" feature.

Great delay sounds,the different presets make sense, very useful. What really annoyes me is the high overall noise level - EVEN WITH THE DELAY TURNED OFF the noise floor is rather unpleasent. That's why I sold the pedal and got a Digitech Hardwire instead.

No problems here, famous Boss quality as usual.

Fair piece of equipment like all Boss stuff. Used to be a mainstay on my board but the noise issue kept bugging me so it had to go. The DD-7 isn't any better at that I heard.

There are many settings so it takes time getting used to it. Once you have your sound, play away without change. Some of the loop functions are very difficult to work.

Ok for the price. Don't expect an "organic, warm, lush" analog sort of tone. It is a digital sampling delay which does just that. Good for the floyd "wall" sort of muzak.

Here's where my DD-6 fell flat. Mine is hardly 3.5 years old. It started going all nutsy on me a month ago and refused to turn off. If I left it unplayed for about 8-10 mins it would automatically shut off! Now it's going even more stupid, and the rightmost selector switch has totally flaked out. Rotating it to change positions doesn't do squat.

I expected a little better from the great Boss, given that I have some old drive pedals from 1985 that still work like champs.

Not used - out of warranty and boss is not responsive.

Nice effect, junk quality (maybe mine is a dud).

It's extremely easy to dial in the delay you want and the feedback and intensity of said delay.

Good luck getting the tap or loop functions to work. It's completely impossible.

But since it's so easy to dial in the delay you want, you don't really need the tap either. You can just turn the knob a little bit.

This was my first delay pedal. I used it for three years until the MXR Carbon Copy came out and I realized that I prefer analog delay to digital delay.

But if you're going to go with digital, this is the pedal. It's the most versatile, it sounds excellent, and it gives you near-infinite ping. Seriously, it is virtually impossible to overload this thing with feedback looping. It'll echo for like a minute if you calibrate the settings right. For ambient noise, the reverse delay gives you a fun alternate option. In fact, I'm starting to consider buying one back off of ebay when I get the money.

What the DD-6 does mostly is that it makes the exact sound that your guitar made, and echoes for as long as you could possibly want. If you want something more organic and natural-sounding, go analog. If you want perfection, go digital.

Boss.

Boss. No need. They probably don't even have customer support. Seriously, has a Boss pedal ever broken anywhere?

I play alt/electro/rock and since I can't shred or play too fast I like to use a lot of delay, and the DD-6 gives you that in spades. I eventually switched to the analog MXR pedal and I'm glad I did, but this is a good pedal and I'll almost certainly end up owning one again someday.

Especially since, thanks to the DD-7 now coming out (is there any difference between the DD-6 and the DD-7? I can't tell) you can get these things for like $80 off of ebay now. And that is a STEAL.

pretty easy to use its not all that tricky

nice clear sound quality however it sounds very artificial and cold to me but then some people like that sound. the reverse delay is kinda cool but i couldnt think of a practical use for it

no problems with it

it good for a digital delay but digital delays suck

Simple EFFECT LEVEL, FEEDBACK, DELAY TIME, DELAY MODE.
This pedal can do some things other stomp box delays can't. For a compact pedal, it has a lot of settings that are useful. And the manual explains everything.

No noise for starters:D.

As far as the sound goes, the enchos aren't very warm, definatly a DIGITAL delay. NOT an analog sound or anything like it.
But the sound you have isn't terriable, it's definatly workable. I personally love it. Not a perfect sound but I don't want to get too picky.

The modes it offfers in a compact pedal is simply ggreat! A short loop time of 5.2 second, not enough to get a really melodic rythum in it but that's the improvment they made on the DD-7.

THe reverse effect is great. In slow sounds, you can let the delay do most of the work with the volume pedal letting of trail of echos of notes is great.

ON the tap tempo feature, you can get quarter notes is 3/4 time, eighth notes, dotted eighth note sand quater note delay times which is usful.

The Warp mode can go on forever if you hold the pedal down which is cool but I never use it, no need for it really.

You get a lot of reverb feel when the pedal is engaged BTW.

TANK

Only down fall to this pedal besides the warmth of the delay is that the tap tempo thing.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW ABOUT THIS PEDAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: To tap the tempo in, you have to hold it for more than 2 seconds so to change it on it off during parts of the song, it sucks. When you want it off, you have to wait for it. That's why I pefer the DD-5 over this.(But the DD-5 knob for modes is very small but that's another story)

The overall use of the pedal couldnt be more simpler. It has a quick manual that explains some of the more complicated fetures like the tap tempo hold and looper feature. The ony complaint i have here is that it is hard to distinguish which mode you are in on a given time.. or maybe my eyesight is just bad.. The looper feature is hard to use.. this catagory gets a 7

Its Digital.. What goes in = What goes out. What I cant understand is people swearing about analog delays.. why would you want a muddy sound with a delay. Delay... hence the name should do exactly what it sounds like. delay the sound but produce the exact same noise that was made in the first place. Here you cant beat digital delay clear pristine delay that sounds exactly the way it came in.

Its Boss nuff said

never dealt with them

A very god delay pedal. The extra features are just icing on the cake. Some are hard to use and like i mentioned earlier sometimes its hard to see which mode your on. As a general rule you cant go wrong with a boss digital delay

First, I'm taking the time to submit this review because I'm really tired of ill-informed people whining about "digital" effects as if they are somehow tainted or inferior to analog products.

I've been playing for 32 years, and a lot of that time was spent kicking around undependable, quirky, over priced, static-riddled, short-prone analog boxes. Ask any (honest) older player and they'll tell you about the bad-old-days of all-analog gear, and picking up an effects box right before a gig to hear something rattling around inside the case (hand wiring right there for you - that doesn't happen with a circuit board, but that's another post).

MXR went out of business 25 years ago because their boxes were so unreliable and overpriced. The NAME was purchased by Jim Dunlop, and they resurrected the look. Same thing happened to numerous others. Only recently has the infatuation and nostalgia with all things "vintage" dredged up some of these psuedo-good-old-feelings for analog gear.

Have you ever actually used a tape delay? (and held your finger on the tape to slow down the playback?) I have, and man it sucked, in more ways than I can count -- and was a really good way to ruin an expensive piece of reel-to-reel gear.

To all you younger players - don't be so quick to buy into this whole "vintage" thing. It smells to me like a way to get you to part with lots of cash so you won't feel inadequate about your gear. That's BS - buy what SOUNDS GOOD. Use your ears and your heart only.

Anyway...that being said...

I absolutely love being able to dial in a delay perfectly, than switch it on and get exactly what I played returned back to me, with no coloring of the tone. If you use a DD6 and don't like what you hear, it's your playing pal - pure and simple - because this box gives it exactly back the way it goes in. The DD6 has all the features and flexibility that a session player needs, without being overly complex or requiring you to mentally climb into a rack effects unit to figure out how to do something simple.

And it's indestructable. I have a whole pedal board full of Boss "chock blocks" because they work, sound awesome, are quiet even in a long series, and are fairly transparent and let the tube tone come through.

Awesome, but there again, this delay doesn't do anything to your tone, other than repeat it back in millsecond intervals as you specify. Totally transparent, as it should be.

My gear as follows:
custom Strat w/ EMG 81 and SA
Marshall JVM 410H and 1960A to FX loop -
Boss TU-2, MT2, DD-6, DD-3, BF-3 and CH-2.
Fin.

The reason I have the DD-6 and DD-3 is that I like to use the DD-6 for deep, sweeping delays for solos and an atmospheric quality and as a looper. The DD-3 acts as a background slapback for regular play, where I need an echo or just a little signal thickening. The two together are just scary cool. You can do anything you can imagine, including get chorus and flange effects with mucho depth.

They're Boss. Nuff said.

Never had to deal with them, in years and year of ownership.

If you are a working peformer or session guy, you will eventually end up using Boss pedals at some point (after your expensive boutique analog boxes cough up a hair ball...) Everyone does. Petrucci even has the TU-2 in his road rig, and all his footgear is custom made. For the tone, price and simplicity, you can't beat them. In fact, go to guitargeek.com and look at the rigs - the chock blocks are everywhere.