Ibanez AD99 Delay

Three knobs...about as simple as it gets

My effects chain is as follows.... Fasel Cry Baby /Big Muff /Seymour Twin Tube /EVH Phasor /EVH Flanger /Ibanez RC-99 /Ibanez AD-99 /BBE Sonic Stomp

Ive owned an Orig 70's RE-201 Space Echo but sold it because of its size and constant need of attention. I never used the Space Echo to its full wacky sound potential, just used it for a nice warm delay. After selling it the search was on for a more user friendly delay. The Ibanez AD-9 became the main pedal for years and then I used a Boss RV-5 for a while but went back to the AD-9. After borrowing a Ibanez FL-99 from a friend I became interested in the Ibanez 99 Analog Series Pedals. They are possibly the one Series that Ibanez should have continued making. I'm done with my search for a Warm Delay. This pedal sounds great no matter where the knobs are set.

So Far so Good....then again Ibanez(or I should say who ever Ibanez contracts out to make their products) Has a deserved reputation for reliability.

Ive been playing guitar for 33 Yrs. For me and my sound this pedal works PERFECTLY. I know that Boss has introduced the Space Echo in a stompbox and I'm sure its a great pedal. I just don't think it can get any better than what I have now. Great Pedal if your looking for a Warm tape like echo.These are still under the radar of "Pedals to Have"....they can be had for less than an AD-9 and to me are a way better pedal.

Your usual 3-knob analog delay. Realy easy.

I have had a lot of vintage analog deays. A Washburn AD-9, Ibanez AD-9, Boss DM-2 and a few others. In my opinion the AD-99 has a accurately defined sound that the others do not have. I play it through a SF Twin Reverb and a hod rodded Marshall 1974X (changed the trannies and the speaker). It works well with both. Since the 1974X has no reverb I mostly play the AD-99 with this amp. This delay works very good with clean to distorded tones.

It is 15 years old and I expect that it will work 15 years from now.

Never dealt with them.

A realy godd stompbox analog delay. If you want a better tone you have to buy a bigger ad like the Ibanez AD-100 etc. or a tube tape echo. for a stompbox it is 1. choise.

It's useable in some way at any setting, depends on your preferences
It's as easy as it's gonna get to operate. Three knobs and a place to stomp.

I use a 1999 US tele, a Ernie Ball volume, a fulltone Fulldrive 2 and a 1974 fender Vibro Champ inside of a 1968 cabinet with a 10" Weber Silver Bell inside of it. It's not too noisy, but, one can occassionally hear the analog swooshy hiss. (it does not show up on tape though) Look people, if your into analog delay, this one's a steal!. I've compared it head-to-head with a Boss DM-2 (from Japan, not Taiwan) and it sounded noticibly better. So why pay $200 on Ebay for a DM-2 when you can get this one for less than $100? This is bye far my favorite delay pedal, and I've owned a bunch (Chandler digital echo, boss dm2 dd5, Akai echo, DOD whatever) I want to buy more because Ibanez doesn't make them anymore. It doesn't handle extreme amounts of gain well (it got murky with the SIB varidrive i used to have); but it handles my fulldrive wonderfully. And if you have two amps, please use it in stereo, dry/effect, it's sounds so great.

It has not broken and I've had it for 6 years

I don't know

I play sorta wierd jazz I guess when I'm making my own music, it works pefectly with my intentions. I've played for 12 years or so. I would buy more even if it were not stolen. It doesn't use batteries, but, if you know anything about delay pedals, batteries don't last long anyway, so you'd be saving money with the wall wart anyway. It does overloud if you use ludicrous amounts of disortion, but I don't, so it doesn't matter.

(Update from previous review)
A very well made unit. There are several pedals in the
Ibanez 99 series- a rotary chorus,a flanger, etc. There is
no discernable noise with this unit IMO. The chicken head
knobs are very smooth, as is the switch. Very easy to operate.

Very warm analog delay, but very subtle. Does not have
long delays and does not self oscillate. No spaceship
takeoffs or landings with this baby. Just nice, warm slap-
back style echoes. This unit does reverb very nicely as well.

This looks like it will last a long time with little
or no trouble with a reasonable degree of care. No batteries- ac operation only with all the 99 series pedals,
I believe.

Their customer support (especially for their older pedals) is not supposed to be legendary.......
I've never had to deal with them so "no opinion" here.

A very warm, well made unit with features from the older
stompboxes; chicken head knobs and a dpdt footswitch. The
original Vox Tonebender also had these features. It just
can't do long delays or self oscillate like some of the other delays. It is a very subtle effect that I find
rarely disengaged when playing. To me playing the electric
guitar would be extremely boring without it (or another
delay of equal or superior quality).

Very easy to use- delay time, feedback and delay level
knobs. Very easy to dial in great sounds.

This is my first analog delay pedal. I have a digital
delay. The analog is definately warmer. Believe the hype!
You do give up the longer delay times, though. I've placed
a distortion and an overdrive pedal in front of it-the
distorted, overdriven repeats sound great.The pedal is not
noisy. I'm new to analog delay so I'll venture a guess with
an 8 rating here.

Seems very well built. An adapter is required with this
pedal; it cannot take batteries. Quite large-much bigger
than a lot of other Ibanez stompboxes. Haven't owned it very long so I'll post no opinion here.

Never dealt with them, but I've read where they do not
provide good customer support.

Great pedal for my style of music. Echo/delay figures
prominently-I play lots of earlier Pink Floyd material.
I guess I really need a Roland Space Echo for that but they are somewhat cumbersome and do require routine maintenance.
This pedal is good for "thickening" the sound but no substitute for the Space Echo.

Very easy - 3 knobs :-)

I use 3 generic positions: all at 11 am, all at 1pm and all at 3 pm
and from that you can expand but i just need & like some slap or quasi-verb with my dry THD Univalve (the best designed and arguably best sounding amp in the world by any standards - verify with your own hands and ears)

Cannot give it 10 as it has only up to 300ms so it's 9 BUT
I gave it 10 to compenate for the lower rating by some others.

It is slightly darker than digital boxes but I use all analog and tube gear so I am used to it - have even too much treble these days as compared to the '60s :-)

NOTE: in the '60s most gear was horrible - journalists lie that all the gear was great and 'vintage' ...

No problem.

Do not know - I bought mine in Korea while on busines !

I like Danelectro slap echo BLJ small pedal and that would be my first choice for a hand slap (and it's cheaper).

But for most other situations this baby is very useful ... almost as much as VS H20 which is another great buy.

Beyond that it's the digital boxes ... Zoom 508 ain't bad !

In summary, if you like analog sounds and boxes - just buy one.

This delay is self explaining with its three knobs and external power supply. Its delay time is a bit short, but more is definitely not needed. The sound is warm, not that much precision, but adds lots of room and body to the guitar's and amp's sounds. My favourite setting is delay time about 2p.m., feedback bit before middle and used in parallel fx-chain (on amp maximum wetr setting) there are no porblems dialing in the right amount and loudness of the effect.

The AD-99 is used in the effects chain of my Engl Savage SE (set to "wet") with two other Ibanez effects (Rotary Chorus RC-99 and Classic Flanger CF-99) using Nobels Alex-1 for each to switch it into the signal path via Engl Midi switching. Used as the sole fx, it is quiet and has the fat warm sound that I like for soloing in distortion as well as clean picking things. With my Ibanez PGM 800 and 90ham models without trem it works very nice thickening the already fat sound up a bit more - but it is a very distinct sound and one must have this soft characteristics in mind, or you won't be right with this. With it I don't have the need for a compressor for thick solo lines - although the sound is different, of course. Not too much feedback, so that notes are a bit more than just doubled.

Very solid, no problems in any case, and it works without battery! For switching it is alsways turned on and fx is added by the Nobels device.

No problems with the unit!

I play melodic Heavy Metal with my band, which is definitely not the style this thing is used normally. But at the right places it is the only effcts unit I want to hear and therefor it adds a distinct sound to my music. Earlier a t.c. G-Force was my Effects-unit, but I did not like that it cut off some important frequencies (thin sounding with my setup) and the whole characteristics, but now this thing makes me happy! On ebay these units are traded often, but pricy, too! If you like high quality effects without too much sounds, but one very interesting sound, it is worth it! The only negative point I would say is the missing remote function for switching. Besides that it it is really important for me even for writing song-parts, because its warm sound inspires creativity.

A three knob unit...not a lot of long delay only 300ms but it's so warm and quiet and helps my sound...not a bad setting to really complain about...just turn the knobs till you get what you like. I run it most the time with them all at 1 so it give a nice amount of color to the tone...it will produce a reverb sounding tone when just tweaked at 8 and it produces some great tones.

Les Paul with a Classic 57 & Burstbucker #>Boss TU-2>Teese Custom Wah>
TS-9 modded by Keeley>AD-99 Delay>Carvin Legacy Head with 20watts Class A power thanks to 2 Yellowjackets. The delay compliments this set-up and I can put out some great blues SRV all the way to Hendrix and some good ol' rock too....this delay is a great value and I would not trade it for one of the new digital toys....BOSS DD-6 want a dead tone with no soul...go digital....

Seems to work flawless for now...

Good match for the blues or any other music requiring real warm tone.
I have tried a lot of gear in 25 years but keep going back to what I started with. Good Guitar, analog effetcs, Tube Amp.
A little delay is always fun for sure...The Boss Analogs are great too and I got mine on ebay for $85.00 so it's not to pricey..
I would get another right away if this got stolen...I use it on my voice and acoustic too... www angelfire.com/ca/mrpayne for a listen to
hear some analog delay on some homemade music...get this delay if you can find it...they are around but you must hunt while on a Tonequest!

No manual - no need. Easy to get the right delay sound

My stuff: modified 1989 EC Strat or Fatdog hollowbody with great p-90s (sweet) - Carl Martin limiter (nice) - TS-9 - Boss GE-7 EQ - Ibanez AD99 analog delay - Vibrolux reverb or Allen Old Flame. I can't stand the digital tone destroying little mutants.. The Ibanez is totally quiet. The delays are warm - decent slap-back or long pulsating stuff. Didn't rate a 10 because tape echos are still the best.

I've had it six years with heavy use. No trouble. I don't carry a backup.

donno - doneedit.

Of course it 's much better than all the digital junk. I'vwe never compared it to other analog units. It enhances my stuff.

Mine was NOS/demo from a local music store and came with no manual. A manual is not required to get tone from this effect. It is simply a matter of dialing in the amount of delay you want and setting the decay.

I'm running a PRS Santana SE -> CS-2 -> AC-2 -> TS7 -> OS-2 -> PH5 (yuck) -> AD99 -> Johnson JT50. When testing, the AD99 was alone in the chain. It is quiet, except when the feedback setting (middle knob) is turned nearly all the way up. At this point, a small amount of feedback is present in the signal. However, I never need that much feedback in the signal, so this is not an issue. It does, however, subtract a point from the sound quality rating.

Externally, the unit is of solid construction. I'm not hard on my equipment and expect this unit to last as long as I want to use it. I will not need a backup, although my amp has a digitial delay built in so I have one.

I've never dealt with Ibanez directly. No comment.

I've been playing guitar for 30 years, mostly acoustic, and electrics and effects are new to me. However, I know good tone when I hear it. I am currently playing for the church worship team and switch between acoustic and electric, plus some vocals. I don't play metal, but just about anything else and love blues and classic rock. I was asked by one of my friends at church to help out with some originals that he wrote and we've got the beginning of a project. The AD99 gives me a sound that I was looking for. We do a Chris Isaak cover (Wicked Game) that this is a perfect match for. I got that rich thick sound for the lead guitar part and the warm tone and natural signal falloff sounds much better than digital. I've played with a lot of digital delays and they're great for certain things (like really long delay times). If I lost my AD99, I'd try to hunt another one down.