Ibanez AD-80 Analog Delay

Easy to get an incredible sound out of this.

Hands on organic.

I never had the manual since I bought it 20yrs ago. Easy I tell you, easy.

There is no upgrade path for this, but just be gentle tweaking the trim pots for longer delay, very gentle, and it will pay you back in cups overflowing with sweet fat repeats.

I have both the Maxon and Ibanez versions... What versions? They're exactly the same!

I had no trouble buying an 18v supply in the 80's. I don't know what all these other guys on this forum are on about. If you want lesser quality sound, get a 9v delay unit. If you want to use it a lot (and you will) buy an 18v power supply. Batteries last for 2 gigs and make no sense.

I use my two in the studio as my analog delay sends.

i do dance music and film music.

It's got noise and distortion but it's kinda hard to explain how welcome it is... don't allow yourself to veto this until you hear one, then you'll understand the top rating it receives from every owner. It's exactly like having a top shelf valve amp. Distorts and noisy just right.

The repeats are the closest I've ever heard to tape echo. I use it side-by-side with the Boss RE-20. It's all a dance and dub maker's dream. I used to use a Roland RE201 but we all got sick of the maintenance. (That's why there's so many vintage Space Echos for sale, they're good but no one my age wants to spend time with the thing on the blocks every few months.)

It gets a 10/10 because it sounds exactly like what you hear on records. Go figure.

Never broken down. It's Maxon disguised as Ibanez. They never break. You should see the prices the beaters get on ebay! They do not break. Incredible.

Someone else here said his dad's was broken and his friend fixed it, without a manual I'll bet. 1st time I heard of one breaking was on this forum.

Built like a brick ****house.

It's been out gigging with me but now they're too small and too valuable. One fat coat pocket from a passing stranger...

I have never called Ibanez for anything.

The Japanese are proud and they are true craftsmen.

(How can you upgrade a Rolex?)

The company is helpful in that they make gear that doesn't break. Now that's what I call Customer Service!

I play and record and release dance, dub, latin, production & film music.

I've been playing for over 20 years.

I have just bought a backup unit from a seller in Japan and it makes my analog delay sends a stereo heaven. This is the only delay you should own, get as many as you can afford (this is not b/s).

It feels just right, my ears like it, my clients love it. My Colombian dub artist client thinks it sounds beyond belief, he tweaks and tweaks and makes long songs out of 4 bar phrases.

I bought the first one in the 80's for $300 and the 2nd one on ebay last week for $269. Both 2nd hand. Australia is expensive. But so is cheap equipment, if you know what I mean. My local 2nd hand music shop sells them starting at AUD$350. that's $340 US at today's rate.

I have 2 other Ibanez delays, the AD-9 and AD99, plus the usual Alesis and tc electronic NR-1. Except for the tc, they're all a bit less musical than this one. I take them to gigs now because they'll never be as valuable. They're good, no doubt, but not like this one. This one stays home. (The tc is in another class...)

It helps me make music. Oh, It helps me make music. Yes, it helps me make music.

Don't be afraid to tweak the trim pots. Be careful opening and closing the unit, don't force the screws, no need to. Make sure the Philips head fits without slipping, buy a new screwdriver if it's not grabbing properly. Don't kid yourself. Use a small screwdriver and massage the trim pots, never over turn them, they have gentle souls these little pots. These things are small, well-made, expensive and worth the extra care. You'll need good tools for other projects later.

I wish two of the trim pots were on the outside. Maybe a mod...? Nah, too valuable.

One day you'll thank me.

Mine is actually a Maxon, which is no different from the Ibanez version (except for the Maxon logo on the chassis). Just three knobs - Delay Time, Repeat and Blend. If it sounds too difficult, don't buy it. Sounds great in every imaginable setting, although you should be careful when tweaking the knobs, because too much self oscilation can damage your amp, not to mention your ears.

I use it with an american made Telecaster, through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp. It's currently the only stompbox I use. I've bought it specifically for that 50's rockabilly slapback, and for that it gets a 10. I've never heard anything that would sound closer to a tape echo. Setting the delay time knob somewhere between 10 and 11 o'clock, and both the repeat and blend knobs around 8 o'clock gives you that unmistakable Sun Records sound. For longer delays (which I rarely use) it also works fine. It's warm, natural and very musical.

It's almost 30 years old and it still works. I gig with it without backup.

I've never had any problems with it, but I did write an e-mail to Godlyke distributing, asking them about the correct AC Adaptor which I should use with this pedal, and their response was quick and helpful.

I own many diferent effects, but as I've mentioned before this is the only one that I use on regular basis. It's a great pedal and I strongly recommend getting one while you still can. I won't give it a 10 because of how much I had to pay to get this delivered to Poland (where I live), including tax and all other expenses (over $300 in total), but I had absolutely no regrets when I finally got it.

Just having three knobs, it's not quit hard to get a decent tone. The time knob is a bit short, I mean that there's a lot of difference with just a little tweak, but at 5 o' clock it's still a quit short delay. And if you want a relativaly quite delay, you'll have to tweak the level button almost at his lowest.
overall it's a simple pedal, but one complaint: it needs 18 volts and it's really hard to find an 18 volt adapter, so OR you'll keep buying batteries OR you'll have to search a bit longer for a 18 volts adapter.

here's where it gets really nice. you can get those 'empty room' sounds, over an slapback echo to a nice soundcarpet. and those freaky alien sounds, I just love 'em!!

I use a gibson nighthawk tru boss OS-2, a wah-wah and digitech chorus to a H&K metroverb.
you notice how the 18 volts affects your sound, it coulors your sound as you turn your effect on. It inspired me to make a lot of new sounds and even songs, just based on something that came out of this little, pink pedal.

well, it's really old, I got it from my father and when he gave it to me, this pedal was dead. So I went to a friend who does electronics and asked if he could fix it. Few months later he brought me a fine working, nice sounding analog delay. And how thankful I was!!
but just a few weeks ago the adapter input died, so now I have to use batteries.

It's such a wonderful effect, befor this delay I just kind of ignored delay, I thought it was unuseful, or only for solo's, but now I use it in al types of song. It's really warm and coulorful and inspiring. And the alien stuff is really cool.
only matter that bores me is that once in a while when I step on the pedal it doesn't work exactly as it should, so I have to step real carefull, but that's no big deal, not for this pedal

plain easy to use

BRILLIANT! warm analogue echo stuff. always sounding good. i use it with vintage small stone, tuna melt, turbo rat, frequency analyzer, and other FX, mostly at the end of the chain.

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experimental, noise, ambient, drone, dub, trip-hop. i use a roland sh1 and a modded casio sk2 thru many guitar fx..
but i am not a guitarist!
it's brilliant, saynomore! i used to have DM-300, vintage stereo memory man and vintage deluxe memory man, wem copicat, dynacord echocord mini, some digital delays from ibanez 10 n 20 series, carl martin red repeat... well, this one is the best of the stompboxes. it is a little stompbox, sounds almost as good as the tape echo echoes, at least as the old memory mans, sweet self-oscillation=good-old-psychedelic-noise while tweeking the delay time.

I LUV IT!

I think that generally having just 3 knobs anyone can get the grips quite quickly, and there's an almost infinite number of combinations of tone and delay available from this pedal, the only bad point is having to tweak the knobs quite a bit to find the perfect setting you want as they are very sensitive.

Easily the most awesome sounding effects pedal i own, by just hitting a note and then tweaking the delay knob you can get insane psychadelic sound from it, you can experiment for hours with this, and its mindblowing live. the tone is so most better than a digital delay. awesome.

i wouldn't say i depend on this pedal, but id certainly miss it, especially as i gained it from a friend who owed me money for a dragonforce ticket, not knowing of its value :p

i play alot of metal, and use this pedal for alot of chorus style effects when playing clean, generally i dont use it much in my music, but its an amazing pice of kit, if it were lost or stolen id love another but simply wldnt b able 2 afford it.

One important point I forgot to make in my review of 10/26/2006 is that after about an hour & a half of being hooked up, this pedal will start bleeding out a light chorus effect in bypass mode! What's even weirder is that this phenomenon is more noticeable with some guitars than with others. Anyone else have this??

Only three knobs, but minor tweakage can alter the sound quite dramatically so it takes a while to find the most useable settings. I find it's best to keep the Blend knob low at all times, but then I'm a straight-up rocker who only steps on this pedal occasionally to add a bit of ambience. Delay time anywhere below 12 o'clock is pretty unusable IMO. I've had this pedal for a year and I'm still feeling my way around with it. Some incredible sweet spots, but I've never memorized the settings (or only vaguely). Maybe I should (duh)

Fantastic. Totally unique & warm sounding pedal. Like I said, I only use this for an occasional flourish so this is the only delay pedal I need. It's not an integral part of my sound & I could easily go without, but I'm very glad to have it! It seems to sound best without any amp reverb, I've noticed. It can sound swampy otherwise. Sounds best through my Sovtek Mig 100H which is warm, dark & powerful sounding, just like this pedal. Through the Sovtek with blend at 7 o'clock, repeat at 8 o'clock and delay time 3 o'clock to dimed it sounds a lot like the Watkins copy cat tape units used by Thin Lizzy on the Live & Dangerous album. A slightly higher blend setting yields great Ruts/King Tubby dub-style sounds. Lower the delay time and you have the perfect Cliff Gallup-style slapback.
I really don't use the unit much though, as I dislike bands who overuse delay (U-spew & Coldgay both spring to mind)

Definitely dependable. I have an old US plug 18V adaptor with a current converter to make it workable here in Europe. Otherwise it takes two 9v batteries, but will devour them fast (though it takes ages for the batteries to actually die, the sound will start degrading quite soon & get murkier, though that in itself sounds quite cool).
Wouldn't need a backup as I don't depend on delay for my sound. If it packed it in during a show, I'd simply unplug it, finish the show & get pissed off about it afterwards!
It's heavier than a Boss, but probably more breakable, as it's made of zinc alloy. The paint was already pretty chipped on mine when I got it.

This pedal is from 1980 or 81. These days, Ibanez are much more into flogging their line of crappy spandex-friendly guitars most of which are now made in China & I don't think Maxon'd be much help either (they deserve the credit for this gem however, not Ibanez)

A classic! Far more soulful than any digital delay I've ever experienced but possibly less malleable. Who cares? C'mon Everybody!
If lost or stolen, I'd definitely try to find another one, but they're not cheap or plentiful alas. If I couldn't find another AD-80, I'd try for a Boss DM-2 or DM-3, or a Maxon AD-900.
It's not perfect, but c'mon, what is?

One of the best analog delay ever created!It's not just a delay, rather a filtering delays enveloped or something like that.

I made a web page with pictures and some information about this pedal:

http://www.sonicurbs.com/ibanezAD-80

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Great worm lo-fi analog psychedelic sound. Maybe it comes from Mars!

It's unique delay for guitar. I'm definitely addicted.

All the best go down quickly!

check my web page about the AD-80, maybe it could be useful: http://www.sonicurbs.com/ibanezAD-80

I think to use this pedal till the end. Maybe I need an other one to store.

very straight forward and easy to use

to me, and I am an analog delay freak and own most if not all of them, this is the greatest analog delay ever created bar none. The two reasons are: the Chip used: the Panasonic MN3005 chips are no longer produced and for some reason they are far superior than other analog chips produced today. Kind of similar to the tubes of yester-year compaired to the tubes made today. Old stock tubes are better sounding. Reason being is that technology has surpassed the use of the vacuum tube and the applications of the vacuum tube have been replaced by far superior digital and nano-tech products. GE does not even make vacuum tubes any more.
However, for musical applications, we all know that the tubes of yesterday were of a much higher quality.
Second reason for this pedal's superiority is the 18 volts of power. In my opinion, Maxon, the manufacturer of the AD80 created this design and went a little over board by giving it 18 volts. This is why you get a quick increase in volume when oscillation point is reached. And it gets louder rather fast, and if you have ever used this pedal, you know that if not attended to immediately, you can blow speakers and/or ear drums.
However, this gives the creative artist so much more room to create. This pedal just doeas so much more and reaches far beyond any other analog delay. I know of no other analog delay that uses 18v of power. It's the equivilent of using nuclear power in place of a conventional bettery to power your car.
So, to me, this pedal is magic. Not even the highly engineered Moogs, or the AD900 which uses the same chips (but only 12 watts) comes close to this bad boy. They will continue to increase in value and even today a Panasonic MN3005 chip commands $35 and up. I use this pedal combined with other delays, and sometimes have 2 or 3 AD80s hooked up to my rig. There is no analog delay pedal in this one's leauge (sp?). It is the BEST. Get one, it will someday be the most valueable pedal on the used market.

I own about 12 of these. All have been extremely dependable, and the circut boards are easily repairable.

never dealt with Maxon or Ibanez for customer support. But Maxon makes the best pedals in the world and I am sure their support is just fine

I play psychedelic 'Acid-Rock'. This unit is an intigral part of my rig and is a mind blower

very easy to use!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
three knobs:delay time, repeat, blend.in my opinion this is the best analog delay that you can find in the word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my setup is: fender mustang '66+ maxon od808+ proco vintage rat+ ibanez ad80+boss ce-2+ fender '59 bassman ltd.
the pedal is clean and sounds good+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i love this pedal.i play classic rock, blues, alternative and the AD80 is perfect for my sound