DigiTech RDS 3.6 Rack Delay System

All these Guys who say that this is not a good Delay your nuts.I love the way that the worst ones are guys who got it for Free or $25.00 and then complain.Since they were not alot New,Kids would buy them,Beat the Hell out of it and then sell it People didn;t think DOD or Digitec were any good when they first came out I kept good care of all my DOD and Digitec stuff,and now some of them are true Classics

New or after some Jr.High school kid overloaded it being a EVH clone

ABRAMS TANK

They Stand behind all there stuff Always tryed to help me

For the list price This was one of the best.Anyone who paid $5.00 for theres are then bitch,shut up!!

the price i gave includes shipping, off ebay.

this thing is very simple to use, all of the functions are clearly marked, there's no way you'd ever get confused about how to make it do X or Y.

when you switch delay modes, there's silence while the buffer fills up or s/t. The delay is longer when you're going to a long delay time, and i think it's a full 3.6 seconds when you switch to the "up to 3.6 seconds" delay range. this is no fun if you like live tweaking.

Also the LFO is kinda funny, it's not a sine, it's kinda skewed so it takes longer to rise than fall, and it kinda shelves in certain places too, like it's a 4 bit lfo or something weird like that.. this may just be my unit, and it's quite un-noticeable at higher frequencies, and, to be honest, it's kinda cool, actually, to have a weird effect like that. It does attract attention to itself, however, so some may not want that.

it's got a solid sound. i used to use an effectron II 1024 and this sounds much cleaner, and it's less noisy.

One thing that really bothers me is that, according to what i found online, it has a sampling rate of 7.5khz. this means you're only going to get audio frequencies below 3.75khz. This really suckz because you get put a sound in on a long delay time, turn the looping on, then decrease the delay time, the sound pitches up and up and then it just disappears. Way before it starts sounding like a hearing test, mind you.

Bottom line: no high treble passes through the delay chain! may not be a problem for guitar users, but that's not my game.

just got it, can't say.

no idea

i make weird electronic music. Ambient, drone, noise, EAI, whatever you want to call it.

this unit is a lot of fun, and i got it really cheaply, so i'm quite happy with it. One of the things i like to do with it is put it in the aux loop of my mixer, then feed it back on itself so that the feedback is near unity, then sing into it, then put it on loop mode, then sing little short snippets of overdubbing by taking it on and off loop mode real quickly, you can get a cool pulsing rhythm out of it that doesn't sound like anything i've heard on record. Most readers of this site probably don't care, but if you like harsh noise/PE this thing sounds great fed back on itself and overloaded to shit, really sputtery and disgusting.

No treble tho. If i had paid more for it i'd give it a lower rating, but for so little money i can barely complain.

This is a simple unit to use,I have always had one in my rack,for the looping.I have the manual but you do not really need it

Some guys say that that unit distorts to muchIf it does put a preamp or compressor in front of it The same if you put it in a effects loop If the loop doesn't have a level you might get a little clip.also use the db setting in the back alot of guys dont use it,and put the wrong line level in

These things take alot of abuse and keep working,Mine have always worked fine,you just have got to get the right signal to noise ratio right

I once put a 110Volts into the input by mistake,and they fixed it for free 1986 I had hooked up a light to my pedalboard and put the 1/4in jack in the input

I play Rock,and heavy Blues Led Zepp1-2 SRV I started my first band in 1967 I have always used vintage gear with a small rack of delays and reverbs my digital effects go into a 63 Bandmasterand the stomp box's go to a 69 100 watt Marshall Plexi. I use the 3.6 as a looper at 7 seconds it still has full bandwith. I can really fatten up a lead solo

Pretty Easy

It kills. I've been recording since 87. This is about the only thing I've ever needed as far as effects. I still use some rockman stuff, an Aural exciter, some expanders, but this has a lot of sounds: Chorus, flange, Delay. Very quiet. Crytal like sound. I got it because their guitar delay was excellent. No one makes delays like digitech.

Never had a problem.

I've done pretty eclectic styles. Almost any pop rock. This effect unit is good for anything.

Like it's been said here before....if you can use a stomp box, you can use this...no problem. Good delay / echo sounds are just a knob turn away....in this way it really gets and "11"

I used this unit a long time ago when that whole "rack" thing came in.
I had an ADA MP-1 and SPX90II but, wanted just a button to push to get echo on and off.....so I picked this up, put it in the rack,hooked up a footswitch and turned the knobs till I was "there"...loved it!
Also used it with my modded 100w Marshall MkII Master Volume amp...
sounded great... and easy , easy to do Real Time adjustments on the fly.

Reliability? HAHA.........built Like a ROCK.
NEVER any problems. From freezing truck to hot club....club dust, flash powder, fog,..warm beer, you name it....lived through it all.
It is true that old rack stuff was built with lots of overkill like that. will prob. still be delaying sounds when I'm long gone!

Digitech for the most part always seemed ok to me....tho I never had to call them about this unit...kinda of a "Maytag repair man" thing...
it just don't fail.

I been playing for 30+ years, I'm a rocker, and we play loud, no modeling BS amps here..the real deal only-->Marshalls with Les Pauls and Strats. (except for that "ADA rack thing" for a couple of years, but I still used my amp with it..)
It's not fancy, it don't do much but delay and echo...it won't make you a better player if you suck, or get you a date....it just makes echo/delay effects.
I had always used an Echoplex, it did what I wanted..made echo...the noise factor got out of hand with all the high-gain stuff...enter this unit...for the cheap price of these, you can't go wrong.
I do miss mine and am looking for one again...Low Tech Rules *LOL*
BOTTOM LINE:
If you want a simple delay/echo that will out last everything but dirt....THIS IS IT.

As far as the delay and modulation parameters go, this gets a '10'. But it loses points for the input stage, which can be very tempermental, especially with respect to certain frequencies. The unit can easily overload unless you're rather careful with that input level. And unfortunately, not all of the overloading is musically useful. But if you get past this hurdle, the unit is a snooze to use...parameters are easy to adjust and straightforward.

It's old-skool digital, so of course there's a certain grittiness to audio here. But it doesn't have that certain digital brittleness that you find with other units of the same period. I use mine both as a live and studio piece. Good, solid, consistent delays + modulation weirdnesses.

I've put mine thru quite a bit with little worry. It's solid, dependable, and while you might lose a knob-cap or two, this is minor when you factor in the overall smashproofness.

It's no tc. 2290, no, but if I need a fistful of delay in a hurry, this is a good box to resort to without monkeying thru a bunch of presets, editing, blahblahblah. Knobs, moron-level adjustments, and so on make it a quick-n-dirty 'old reliable' for me.

Simple, knob based

The other reviews here are interesting...I find the unit has a rather damping effect on the signal, and there are some crackles and pops occasionally, but nothing you cant live with. Definitely not QUIET. But, the delay sounds great. Its not too trebely, almost analog, but not quite so good. Sort of inbetween digital and analog. You can get some crazy noises out of it.

All metal, knobs are falling off (its about 8 yrs old). I don't NEED a digital delay, its just for atmosphere and tripping people out...not like my maestro phaser, which I use all the time. As for road worthiness, I haven't taken it out with me yet. But otherwise, you can throw it around just fine.

Uhh...do any fx manufacturers offer adequate support?

Nice to play with, not a "staple" sound unit, but fun. They're cheap, too, and for the amount of sounds you can tweak out of 'em its definetly worth it.

Ease of use on this aging digital delay is very simple; it's all knobs that are clearly labelled. If you can use a stompbox, you can figure this thing out.

The only caveat is that unless you want spaceman sounds, don't use the modulation at higher delay settings. It does its job quite well, and the ability to make the delay time into a pitch control in real time is unique in its class.

The unit gets a bit noisy in the effects loop of my Fender Deluxe 112 if I crank the output gain at all, but it isn't unreasonable in the scheme of things.

The delay is reasonable for a digital; the modulation though is what I bought the unit for. It does absolutely surreal things when the modulation is engaged at the longer delay times.

I used to have an RDS 1900; this thing is basically identical save for the
longer delay time.

The reason I only give the unit a "7" for sound quality is that it purports to do chorus and some other things if you set the delay at lower settings; in that regard, it just doesn't cut it. Then again, you're buying it for the 3600 ms of delay, aren't you?

It's built like a tank; the old rackmounts with dials usually were. It does exactly what it's designed to do, day in and day out. It isn't phased by cold or heat.

I tried to get a manual, and it took far too long just to get the information on where to send the money. Hopefully I won't have to get this thing fixed.

For $50 US used (including shipping), I can't complain one bit. 3600 ms of delay for $50 is an absolute steal, especially when it comes with a modulator and the dials work like an old analog tape delay's pitch control for "held" sounds.

If you want something that propels your playing to new heights, providing you like experimental sweeps and oddities, get one now.

My biggest complaint (and this goes for all delay units of the same period I've sampled) is the lack of the "sample" or "sound on sound" capacity, but otherwise, this is perhaps one of my favorite delay units made. Get it, get an RDS1900, or any other of the "square button" RDS series, and you won't be disappointed.

As far as "would I buy it again", I had to sell my old RDS-1900, and after a few months of really missing it, I got its bigger brother. I'd buy a few more if I could find them at a reasonable price; they're great units and fit my playing style very well.

I had an immediate affinity with the RDS 3.6. I got it home and within couple minutes had it tweaked to the point where I was getting some awesome sounds out of it. It was my first digital delay unit. The one drawback is that there are no patches and no LCD/LED display... it is all free form turning of knobs, etc. I marked it down three points for that reason. If I find that I really like 750ms of delay with 3 generations and inverted feedback I want to be able to store that as a patch and call it up in an instant. You can't do that with this unit.

Excellent sound quality. No noise. Some fun stuff too like infinite repeat and up to 3.6 seconds of delay... you can do some serious looping of licks which is cool.

I would make sure I had a backup simply because RAM chips can go bad and the next thing you know your wet sound is distorting. I had to have the chips replaced in mine. The pitch continued to drift a little whenever I changed the delay time and didn't stabilize as quickly as I thought it should. DigiTech told me this was a typical characteristic of their delay unit. I was disappointed to hear that.

I picked this unit up used and didn't realize the memory chips were starting to fail on it. For $85 I had it serviced at the factory - this included parts, labor and return shipping. Pascal (the guy I talked to) was friendly and even threw some DOD battery covers in the return shipment when I asked for my stomp boxes that were missing them.

I loved this unit, but I wound up selling it because of the inability to save presets. It gave me some great sounds. If you can pick one up for $100 or less... DO IT!!! You won't be sorry.