Guyatone MD3 Micro Digital Delay

Relatively simple. However, I don't understand the very unneccessary overlap of delay time:

slow = 20 to 160 m/sec
med = 80 to 650 m/sec
long = 30 to 2600 m/sec

The two biggest problems are: The pedal is WAY too small at 2.5" x 4", and the knobs are also too small t ouse on stage in the dark. It disapears in my pedal board.

The pedal is Dark Blue, and you CANNOT see it on the stage when the lights are down or out.

Even in bright lighting, the lettering on the pedal is too small to read unless you bend down over it. What guitar player can or wants to do this in the middle of a tune?

I don't understand all of the the high points this pedal got in all the reviews below. I find the sound and tone of this pedal to be the most cold and digital sounding I've ever heard. There is no warmth at all to this pedal.

I have a Boss DD6 and the sound of the DD6 pretty much sucks, but sounds better than this Guyatone pedal in comparison.

If you like completely cold, soul-less, ice cold and useless tone, this pedal is for you. Otherwise AVOID THIS PEDAL AT ALL COSTS.

I would not risk gigging with this thing. The stomp switch feels like it could break fairly easily. The bottom is held on with a freaking rubber band sort of gasket. Come on, Guyatone, you have to be able to do better than this mickey mouse job. I mean, really, a rubber band holding the top and bottom together?

What a piece of crap !!!!

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AVOID THIS PEDAL AT ALL COSTS. THERE ARE BETTER BUILT AND BETTER SOUNDING DELAY PEDALS OUT THERE.

SAVE YOUR MONEY !!!

Very easy to use. It has the standard three knobs for a delay pedal, one controlling the level of the effect, one controlling the time of the delay, and the last one controlling the feedback, which is the length of time the repeats continue. In addition to those three knobs there's also a three-position toggle switch that lets you choose between short, medium, or long delays.

OMG . . . . Wow!! I was stunned when I first heard this pedal and I'm still using it every chance I get. Just before buying it I had sold my Moog Analog Delay that I paid $700 for because it just wasn't doing anything for me. It always made my sound slightly darker, even when playing really high notes. I also got annoyed at the ticking noises it leaves you with when you have it set for a fair number of repeats. The notes degenerated into this "tick-tick-tick" sound that wasn't very pleasing to my ears, although from what I understand that sound is very desirable to some and it's known to happen with analog, bucket-brigade delay devices.

I bought this on a whim because I saw it had good reviews here and it was pretty cheap, especially compared to Moog's Analog Delay. When I plugged in and played through it I was blown away. I play a PRS 513 into an all-tube boutique amp and this creates some of the most beautiful delay sounds I've ever heard. The repeats are clear reproductions of what you play and they have just the right amount of sound degradation to make them feel like real echoes. They can be shimmering, bright, and clear, but they can also be dark and muddy. It all depends on what you're playing. The pedal will also self-oscillate at higher feedback settings so you can get those weird spaceship sounds out of it if you want those too.

My only minor gripe is that it's not true bypass but there are plenty of ways around that, and I can't notice any loss of tone when I don't use a bypass box to make it true bypass.

I have to take away a couple of points here because it's not housed in die-hard metal casing. I wouldn't subject it to the same rigor as some of my other more sturdy pedals.

I think it's superb. You can get up to something like 2.7 seconds of delay on this thing and the repeats are the most echo-like I've heard from any delay pedal. I know it's digital so that means it's supposed to be bad but I couldn't be happier with it.

This pedal is very easy to use. It has 3 basic controls: Level, Time, and Feedback. Level controls the strength of the effect, Time controls the speed of the delay, and feedback controls the amount of oscillation. There is also a 3 position switch which extends the range of the Time control.

This is the perfect sounding delay pedal! I use it for bass, but it sounds great on guitar also. I tried several delay pedals and found they all worked decent on a guitar but sounded thin on a bass. This is NOT the case with the Guyatone. It sounds great on bass!

This pedal is very solid. I'm not crazy about the removable bottom that's held in place by the rubber gasket. I think that could've been designed better, but overall it is a solid pedal that sounds great.

I bought mine used so I have no idea.

It's a great pedal. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a dedicated bass delay, or a pedal they can switch between guitar and bass. I love the fact that it is compact because it's easy to squeeze it in on a pedalboard, but it's so small that it can be hard to adjust on the fly.

A Real simple pedal to use. Has three knobs. Level, Delay Time, and Feedback. Along with a switch to adjust the length from short, medium, and long. Very easy to use. The only thing I wish it had was tap tempo.

Overall its a pretty good delay. It definitely repeats without much tone loss and it comes very close to the original sound. It's not hard to get a nice warm delay out of this tiny thing. It is very adjustable and you can have a lot of fun with it. If you were looking for an affordable delay that sounds great I would for sure go with this.

I have never gigged with it but it has never let me down in my playing. It may be small but it shouldn't break unless its an electrical thing or your just stomping on it. I would say its dependable.

For the price compared with the sound its a steal. If it were stolen or lost I would most likely buy it again, although I would like to give the Line 6 DL4 a try. This pedal definitely fuels inspiration.

It is extremely easy to use. It always delivers what you have in mind if you accept its limits. The manual is simple and puts even monkeys to the right track, but then even monkeys could do without it.

I play Fenders and a Gretsch. The MD3 is last in my boutique pedal effects chain, in front of my Fender Twin Reverb.
The sound quality is absolutely beyond expectation for a $99 pedal. It's digital alright but so warm, lush and inspiring that it doesn't matter, really. And very silent, too.
It can replace a reverb, it can land UFOs on stage, you can lay phrase upon phrase until you run out of ideas, or you can set a moderate speed with humble feedback and just leave it on to sip your overall playing into mysticism.
However. When I tried to pluck it with a battery, yep, the annoying sounds that other users have already told you all about it were there... I gave up the battery idea very soon (dear readers, it is a fact, the battery can not be put in properly or harmlessly, it is clearly a designing fault, full stop) and I used a power supply that eliminated the curious sounds for good.

With a battery, no way. I do use it without a backup all the time actually, but it's mounted. Plus if it dies on stage, I can still get the girls backstage.

Don't even know which continent they are on.

For now, it's a keeper. If it breaks down I'll throw it away and move on to something better, probably 4 to 5 times its price. Or I could buy 4 or 5 MD3s and hope one of them would make me consider it reliable. Don't get me wrong, though. I really like this little blue devil and so does whoever sees and hears it. It's just that it's like those girls you easily fall for them but they manage to somehow make you watch your back.

Very straight forward. It doesn't have that many features anyway.

That's where I have really mixed feelings about this pedal. I liked the character of the delay. A lot of people say it sounds like analog. I don't think it sounds like analog but it definitely has warmth. The repeats are clear and warm. Nice thing that you can twist the delay time on the fly and get your signal pitch sifted and time stretched in a quite musical way, if you're into this type of stuff, BUT...
In my opinion, there is a huge design issue with this pedal. The repeated/delayed signal comes out mixed with some ugly noise. The higher you turn up the knobs the worse the noise gets. That is something that in my opinion makes this pedal unusable. If you have the pedal on a low, discrete setting you might get away with it when playing live. On any other occasion the noise is too much to tolerate. Because of that, any creative musical potential of the pedal (like fiddling with the time knob on the fly) gets lost. Forget about studio use too. The noise was always present whether I was powering it using a FRESH battery or a REGULATED power supply. I ended up swoping it for a Boss dd-6. It was a straight swop with a guy I jammed with who had a brand new dd-6 and didn't like it. I thought the Boss had way more potential than the Guyatone. I got the dd-6 and never looked back.

That bottom holder is a complete joke!

Never had to deal with them.

As I said,...mixed feelings. I'm glad I got rid of it. I want to have one delay on my pedal board which can serve more than one occassions. The mainstays on my pedalboard are: a handmade overdrive with two channels, a volume/wah pedal and the delay (now the dd-6). All powered with regulated dead silent power supply and connected with George L's patch cable. I'm a fun of the "less is more" approach. For studio and recording I have a nice selection of some more toys to throw here and there if I need to.
The only way I could use the Guyatone was at a very subtle, almost reverb-like setting and nothing else. I've read a lot of complaints from various people about the same issue I had with this delay. Some people have come to defence of the MD-3 stating that whoever complaints should blame their power supply or whatever. Forget it! The thing is just noisy. Maybe there are quality control issues and half of the people get good ones and the other half get lemons...who knows? What I know is that although there is a nice voicing on the repeats of the pedal, the noise issue and other design flaws leaves little to be desired.

This little box is very simple to operate , much like an analog delay unit...but with up to 2.6 seconds delay..3 knobs,Level,Time, and Feedback theres a switch that allows you to go from more of a slapback range , to more of a common echo, to even a loop-like setting....experiment with the different settings...kinda hard to find a bad one, unless you put the feedback and level to 10!! and even thats kinda cool...

Im using an american fender chambered-ash tele w/stock p/u's and a re-issue fender strat with a bridge dimarzio humbucker into a HotRod Deville 2x12 (w/ JJ Tesla Tubes) ...I have a number of high end pedals I use in different combinations, all of which are true-bypass.This being the only non true bypass ,I usually have it on all the time for just a subtle amount of echo...I notice zero drain on my tone...the switch is also silent..it really is more analog sounding than digital ..it tends to get a little distorted when getting crazy using excessive repeats, so I'll deduct a point , but then again so do vintage echoplexes....

I have been gigging with this thing for almost five years...have not had a single problem...nor used a back-up...

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I play alot of types of music from rock,country,blues,funk,jazz, reggae,jamband fusion,etc.. Ive been playing almost 25 years,I have toured extensively, done many a studio session ..I own alot of higher-end boxes,(fulltone,radial,keeley,etc)..to be honest most effects reviews are overhyped, but this pedal is worth every penny,completely blows away every other delay in its price range,(I have owned most of them)and rivals most of the ones double the price...I would replace this in a heartbeat, the one thing i wish it had was the true-bypass...but really has not been an issue thus far...overall Value Is a 10, but overall product is a 9

Very easy to use.This delay pedal has lots of great sounds.
It is digital but sounds and reacts like an analog pedal.
You can get any sound you want out it with little adjustments.
My model is stock and a small manual comes with the pedal.

Any sound you want is at your finger tips.It is very compatible with all my pedals.I am a Telecaster player and use lots of effects.
This delay pedal has a wonderful small,medium,and large switch that allows you to switch between three different settings quickly.
This is without a doubt the best bang for your buck delay available.

Very nice.I would gig without a backup.

I called them prior to purchase and was treated with respect.
They took lots of time with me and answered all the questions I had.

I play the blues and rock mostly.I would replace this pedal if something happened.I looked at alot of pedals prior to purchase.
This is a great value and all around winner in it's price range.I believe this pedal is under rated big time.It has a small foot print with is also nice for pedalboards.

3 knobs..how hard can it be?

all i can say is that guyatone md3 beats boss dd6 and dd3..or maybe a bit better than the dd3.dd6 is a joke.its not noisy at any of my settings well at least on mine.you can get a good delay sound on any setting.course it doesnt have those warp features and etc like the dd6 have but sound wise it totally beats dd6

for me it is..not too sure with others..

buy one and you wont regret it

it's pretty easey. three simple knobs and a switch to make the delay short, medium or long. there was a guy a few reviews down who apparently didnt like this pedal very much and gave it a 7 on the sound quality because of the difficulty he had replacing the battery. that just didnt make any sense to me. the 7 should have gone up here. but that guy must be a moron because the battery does fit (a tight fit, but it fits). just wiggle it around a little and it'll get in there. and it's really not that hard to put the rubber lining back on. the first time i tried, i had a little difficulty but once you figure out how to do it, it's really quite easy.

the sound quality is amazing. it actually sounds like your own guitar going over and over again. the way it's supposed to. that same guy who complained about the battery thing, also complained about the buzz he got when powering it up with his ibanez ac adapter. well of course it's going to sound bad. if you dont plan to use a battery, you should always use the recommended adaptor with any pedal you buy. if you know anything about electronics, you'll know that there are actual reasons for that. and again, alot of people complain about the "poor design" of the pedal. it's not a poor design, it's a money saving design. if this pedal was designed the same as boss's pedals, it would probably cost 200 dollars. because this thing sounds about a million times better. so the only way to keep the cost down is to make the casing cheaper to manufacture. this was what guyatone had in mind. great sounding effects at lower prices. the electronic components however, are very high quality. i compared this to a brand new boss dd-6 ($160 by the way plus another 20 for the ac adaptor) and the dd-6 sounded harsh. not defined at all. the repeats sounded like digital recreations. and if you tried to mess with the knobs while it was delaying, you'll hear funny pops and buzzes. what a piece of crap. with the MD3 however, you can do whatever you want to achieve the sound you're looking for and it reacts just the way you expect it to. ive never seen that in any other digital delay. and the sounds you can get... amazing. if you trun the level and feedback down, you can get these beautiful reverb sounds that are very unique. (impossible on the dd-6). and by turning the feedback up, that's where the spacey, ray-gun, ufo sounds kick in (that's what they mean when they say self-oscilation). and all the delays in between are simply amazing. and that's pretty much all you have to know to get any sound you could possibly dream up. no messing around with mode settings and all that crap. basically, this 99 dollar pedal is equally on par with reissue analog pedals costing $300 or more! everywhere i play, people ask me what pedal i'm using and where they can get one. the only thing i'm worried about is these things becoming too popular and mine will no longer be unique :( lol. quite simply, this is the best delay pedal out there.

the pedal broke down on me after a few months. but that's because i was apparently using the 12-volt power supply used for their Flip series pedals instead of the 9-volt powersupply. this actually ended up being musiciansfriend's fault. you can read below for mor info on that.

after contacting guyatones customer service, they were very helpful and understanding. we discovered that the problem wasnt with the pedal at all. musiciansfriend.com is actually to blame. they recommended the wrong powersupply. they guyatone 9-volt powersupply is the correct adaptor for the micro series pedals. musiciansfriend, however, recommended the guyatone 12-volt powersupply. in my excitement (and seeing guyatone's name on it) i never gave a second thought to the voltage. i have yet to find out if musiciansfriend will replace it for me. but they damn-well better. i'll let you know how that turns out. but guyatone deserves a 10 for being so helpful and quick with their responses.

i play a 2001 Fender USA Ash Telecaster through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10. my other effects include the Tonebone Hot British distortion, Digitech Whammy Wah, and Dunlop Classic Crybaby wah. and ive got to say, this is exactly what my setup was missing. this pedal really inspires me to creat new sounds and melodies. try hooking it up with a wah pedal. some very cool sounds there. or setting the volume on your guitar to 0 and rolling it on while the MD3 delays, some very cool etherial whale kind of sounds. also, the reverb/chorus kind of sounds are beautiful as well. just experiment. the MD3 will help you achieve any sound you can think of. to hell with boss's reverse delay and tap tempo and all that crap. if you want high quality delay, this is all you need.