TC Electronic ND-1 Nova Delay

I don??t know, if it easy to use. When I first plugged it between my guitar and the amp (in front of the amp, not the loop) I noticed a remarkable sound loss, even without having it engaged. I could not believe it and I had my friend plug and unplug it very quickly while I continued playing. For both of us, the sound loss was really noticeble!
I can??t live with an effect which degrades my sound (for which I??ve spent thousands of EUR to get it as good as it is) as much as this unit does.
I am staying with my Hughes & Kettner Replex, which colour the tone when it is engaged (in a good way) but it leaves the original sound as it is, when the effect is disengaged.

see above

An effect of this prize category made from a company which has such a good reputation should not degrade your original sound, when you put it in your chain. I am very disappointed.

Very easy to get a great sound out of.

The sound is the best I've heard from a delay pedal. Uncoloured, no volume boost or drop off. Musical in every way. From digital to analogue settings the quality is immaculate.

All seems to be very good

There is one feature that I find completly annoying that no other reviewer has mentioned. Why doesn't the unit show which patch your on rather than the beats per minute? Live this is very frustrating if your swapping patches for each song ie( what bloody patch am I on!!!). And then when trying to go from one patch to another if you don't hit the right footswitch then the left and scroll through the pacthes you can reset the tempo and alter the patch by mistake. I've done this a couple of times and been really annoyed at trying to get the tempo etc back to what I had. I rarely want to work out the tempo anyway based on tapping my foot and having that as the display for a gig. Counter intuitive if you ask me!!!

If you're a gigging musician and need several different delays and need to switch back and forth between them, this unit is not for you. While it does produce excellent lush modulated delays, TC Electronics didn't make it easy to use on stage. What I don't like about this unit:
(1) to change presets you have to hit the tap / tempo button then quickly hit the on / off switch pretty quickly or it won't change presets.
(2) you can't go to one preset on the fly; you have to cycle through them. My feeling is that they should have put a 3rd button to cycle through the presets to make it much easier.
(3) while you can set tempo by strumming the strings and pushing down on the tempo / tap button for 2 seconds (which by the way, is a brilliant idea), it cuts off the volume while you set the tempo). For stage work this might not be a good option.
(4) Tapping the tempo while standing is not always as easy as it looks and is a little difficult on stage. Not difficult to do at all when sitting down though.
(5) Slight hum noticeable. I think this could have been fixed with better shielding or better design of the power supply which seems to be the source of the hum.


Okay the pluses +:
(1) VERY GOOD delays; particularly the modulation effects. If you want to sound like U2 this unit will do the job.
(2) Ability to change tempo in real time via tap / tempo or use or by strumming strings is a great idea and is genius.
(3) Digital readout very easy to read in the dark.
(4) compact size of the pedal leaves more room for other pedals on your board.

I tested the unit for a day using a Marshall AVT275 amplifier and a Fender Stratocaster 60's retro strat with HS-3 and YJM pickups and an Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II (new). I have been playing for over 30 years and have listened to a lot of delay units in my time including Eventides, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, various Boss delays including the DD-20 and those built into my GT-8.

I did notice that the modulated delays did have a tendency to make the distortions resonate and feed back a little strangely. Not the best lead sound on certain settings per my experience with the unit.

The normal "built like a tank" addage works here. You could use it without needing a backup.

No experience with customer support.

I play metal, classic rock, alternative rock, gospel / christian, country music...a little of everything, especially after 30 years. Believe it or not, I listen to and like a lot of the current bands that the teens listen to. Good music is good music, regardless of the genre or age.

I have listened to a lot of other units and did a lot of research before buying the Nova Delay ND-1 which I am sending back because of it's difficulty for using in stage work. The delay units that sound best to me are the Eventide, T-Rex, and the Line 6 DL4. If they would make the DL4 more compact, put it in all metal casing, change that ugly green color and make a few cosmetic changes, and just generally build it better it would be in a class by itself.

Having said all this the Nova Delay ND-1 would be excellent if they eliminated the hum and made it more stage friendly. It would be excellent for recording in a studio as long as you eliminated the hum.

It's not immediate but takes max 1 hour to understand. There are some special features like different mod types, a nice ducking delay, and especially the audio tap tempo, which lets you set tap/delay times with hitting the guitar with your hand in rhythm while the output is muted, VERY good. Also the different available note values (with triplets and stuff) is very nice.

Also there is adjustable level which can take quite a range, and the unit is selfadjusting the levels to your amps loop, which is really cool.

Also going from Digi to Analog to Tape tone wise is cool.

For the price and the build quality of this unit, it's a straight 10.

I don't dig so much the dynamic delay (I would like to be able to set a delay level for the ducking, so it doesn't disappear completely while playing).

Reverse is funny.

Pan/PingPong not so relevant for me (playing mono) but wanna try with a second amp.

But the simple delay is great! With the many controls it can be tweaked to deliver MANY different tones, from U2 to Gary Moore, from Pink Floyd to Doors to very modern stuff.

Have tried it in both, a Marshall Vintage Modern and a Bogner Shiva, and both amps are picky about stuff in the loop, and in both this pedal sounds absolutely neutral, dynamic, clean (or dirty if you set it that way). Especially on the Bogner I was only satisfied with Lexicon rack gear so far, so this is the first pedal being as good in that context.

Again: for the price this is as good as it gets!

seems rugged but just had it 2 weeks. no opinion yet

couldn't tell

just what is available on their website in terms of downloads and information is really cool, which is an important part of overall service

Compared to other units in the market, the Eventide or Damage Control or T-Rex or TC or Roland, this is the best price/value and quality option on the market.

I have owned delays from Ibanez, T-Rex, Lexicon, Danelectro, and this is a great unit, both usability as well as sound wise.

Pretty straight forward delay pedal, all the parameters are fully understandable although a careful reading of the manual is necessary to discover all the little tricks this unit has!

I am using it in the loop of my Mesa Mark IV! I can notice a difference in tone *it's not tone SUCK* when I enable/disable the loop, but to be perfectly honest I love that little "something" this pedal adds to my tone, like it makes it a little brighter!
Of course the quality of the delay is over the top, really pristine and clear and with all those options you can have some beautiful sounds!
I really liked the mod function with my cleans cause I don't have a chorus pedal and it maked them shine!

Seems very solid, built like a tank, the footswitches feel great, it's kinda heavy (but for me heavy=quality :D) and seems sturdy!
I wish I had the extra money to have a backup for gigs, although I don't think I'll be needing one!

Never contacted TC! I hope I don't do it soon, because customer support=problems :D

I've been playing for 9 years now, I currently own a Mesa Boogie Mark IV, a Morley Wah, a Behringer Delay (that was before T.C. :D) and two Ibanez's! I was looking for a great quality delay to buy and I think I have finally found it! Absolutely perfect for the styles I play (progressive metal and stuff), if someone steals it from me I'll make him suffer big time! ;)

It took me about 15 to 20 minutes to figure out all the knobs on this thing, but thanks to the display it was easy to dial in some settings once I got the hang of it. After you enter in your presets you can change settings/styles quickly, which makes this thing a lot of fun to use. I only gave an eight because it does take a little bit to set up to your taste, but once you get there it's great.

My setup: '62 reissue strat or Epiphone Les Paul w/ Gibson '57 pickups > vox v847 wah > mxr dynacomp > proco rat > visual sound jekyll and hyde > voodoo lab microvibe > electro-harmonix deluxe electric mistress > nova delay > Orange Tiny Terror through an Avatar 1 x 12 cab with Celestion V30. I will be adding an Analogman BC 108 Sunface in the coming days to round out my attempt to make a David Gilmour style setup.

I haven't noticed any noise from this pedal so I would ignore the person complaining about the lack of true bypass. It sounds great, plain and simple. Doesn't seem to alter the tone in any noticeable way when it's not switched on.

I bought this pedal because so I could at least sound like an Edge since I'm not the Edge. I haven't run the pedal through two amps to use the stereo set up, but the pedal is supposed to approximate it through one amp and it does a good job. Once you get the presets dialed in you can get a sweet David Gilmour and Jimmy Page sound. I have plans for the reverse delay to see if I can do some Beatles backwards solo stuff, doubt it will be perfect, but could sound pretty cool.

I got the pedal only about 2 weeks ago. It's built like a tank so I don't anticipate any problems... maybe I'll follow up in a year.

Haven't dealt with T.C. Electronic at all so I couldn't tell you.

I've been playing for about 7 years now and I typically play or butcher the normal classic rock bands... Beatles, Floyd, Zeppelin. If my Nova Delay were stolen I'd probably bust a vein, but slowly replace it and everything else that was stolen. The pedal sounds great and can switch between some pretty varied styles on the fly. I love all the options and especially the modulation you can add to the delay. Sounds amazing when you add a little mod to your clean signal. All the strange things you can do with the pedal make you want to make music.

Resonably easy to use. Very good layout. Text isn't back-lite, so it's difficult to read in low light.

Note to the previous reviewer: THIS IS NOT A TRUE BYPASS pedal. The AD/DA converter runs all the time, whether the pedal is switched on or off. Don't believe me? Then unplug the power and see if your signal can be heard. It shuts the signal off. A true hard bypass design would not. I CHECKED WITH TC, AND ALTHOUGH SOME OF THEIR TECHS TELL PEOPLE IT'S DRY SIGNAL IS BUFFERED AND MIXED WITH THE DIGITAL, THAT'S INCORRECT. TC researched this and informed me that the dry analog signal is NOT mixed with the digital signal. When you have more than one AD/DA converter on all the time, you can forget about getting good tone. Try the Eventide (they have true hard bypass.) They the T-Rex Replica - it has both.

On a pro pedal, it should have hard bypass, and the dry signal should stay analog. Try the T-Rex Replica. It has both.

Its not hard, its not so simple, but tinker with it and you will figure it out. Manual is classic tc electronic, which is short and sweet.

WOW! For the first time in my life and I DO MEAN THE FIRST TIME, I have true bypass, YES, true bypass and for the first time in my life, YES I DO MEAN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ANYONE"S life the original tone is unaffected, just repeated!!!!!!!!!! I could not believe my ears. I had someone continuously switching the delay on and off whille I was palying and it was scary!!! The FEEL was exactly the same, the tone was exactly identical and I could not tell which signal was on until I held a note to hear the delay. Even very expensive older digital delays color the tone, in a good way of course, but this little thing DOES NOT!!!. Technology has changed and the time has arrived for uncolored tone during effect engagement. Even the great G-force's delays color the tone, but not this little bugger. The key is the MIX knob.Add too much and its like any other great dely, but decrease to taste and you will have perfection.I ran the new gibson robot guitar (unimaginable tone!), run through the loop of a Mesa Road King II head with 2x12 road King cab. I do not suugest using the presets since they are mainly for store auditioning with heaps of delay. Remember the MIX knob and you have the best delay money can buy. YOUR TONE WILL BE UNAFFECTED!!

I thought this thing was a piece of light plastic, but its a heavy piece of metallic bliss, thick and tank-like. I was fooled by the photos, wait till you touch this beast, its bomb proof!!!

Ive always had great relations with support with my G-force. they wew always helpful.

Buy it, play with it and its even better than the Eventide, cauz I played one and tha is the next best delay unit, but I felt and heard a differnce with my original tone and signal, but it still sounded great. But this peda wins hands down!!

It's a bit more complex than your average AD-9 of course, but the layout is pretty darn good and you need the manual only for the special control features, which are remembered pretty fast.

Editing and saving patches is a great plus for a delay unit, and the Nova Delay gives you the chance to save 9 patches, more than most other units in pedal-form. editing and saving is very easy, as it's layout is as a usual stompbox. the display is gold! finally you have a stompbox that let's you set the exact ms or bpm. although it's much easier to set all the other options with a digital readout!

Minus though is - no compare function. if set, it's set. the unit has no function to show you where you set it. a small dot or even arrows that show you where to to twist would be a great comfort and i am a bit disappointed that TC didn't think of that in a otherwise nearly perfect unit!

maybe this can be done in a firmware update, cos it's a real worthful feature!!!

Tap-Tempo is wonderful smooth and very good at the point. The switches are just great - some of the best i've seen/used. But - i think the unit is not true bypass. But if it does affect my tone, than in a very good way. The newly Audio-Tapping is a nice feature for faster taps - hold the tap-switch and play the tempo on the e-string - release - perfect! for normal use i prefer tap-tempo, but for faster taps this is topnotch!

The pedal has two modes: Preset and manual. Great thing! In manual the control knob settings make the sound, in preset of course the saved presets are available. it's easy to change from one to another. Tempo can be set global or for each preset!

A 9 here, 10 if it had a compare function!!!

This Delay Unit is about my fifth or sixth. I also own the Line 6 Echo Pro and the Roland SDE330 - both great units. Both got features i like, so it's hard to only use one delay unit. I still get to know the BEST Delay unit that's there...
The Nova Delay is near. Soundwise it's pretty much the best i heard. Very natural and dead-on. A Tone-Control let's you dial in more analog or digital sounds (and - tape - it says, but...) in a very good way. 3 modulation modes can be dialed in. they are great, although i wished, there was one preset for more phaser-like modulation (i think of Line6s sweep delay which i love!).
6 Delay-Modes are possible: Line Delay - normal Delay mode, Dynamic like in the TC2290, Reverse, Ping-Pong, Pan and Slap. I Think the modes are o.k., although i personally don't use the dynamic delay - is the hype too big for this or don't i get the hang of it?! idk. and - i think slapback delays sound better with delayline than with the slap function. therefor would be imho space for at least one other delay mode (maybe a sweep mode like L6 got - would be perfect for me :-). i know a lot of people like and need dynamic delay, though it's a good choice to include, if not for me.
Subdivision let's you choose - well subdivisions! Quarter notes, dotted eights, eights triplets, and combinations for left and right channels - which are great, but preset. Line6 let's you choose freely.
Of course the usual other controls are included - delay, feedback (it can selfoscillate but it's nothing compared to an analog delay of course), color, modulation and mix level.


Ah, of course it's true stereo!

I often play via headphone and i must say that - with the Nove Delay on, i often wakie up hours later still playing just the same lick and listen to the crisp and wonderfully natural ethereal sound!
Yes, soundwise it IS the best i heard until now!

Wonderful feature is: you have the option of 0 - 2290 ms, which means quite good modulations like stereo chorus/light flanger and superlong delays!


I still have to test the eventide timefactor, for it seems to be the only one who could outdo this unit in features (and sound?!).

I love the TC Nova Delay and it's just wonderful to play with!

Well, i don't know. TC's got a good reputation and it seems good built. The switches act great, but don't seem to be as sturdy as on other pedals, but i think that's just because they don't "click". ;-)
for live use it's fantastic, so i hope it's reliable too. i'm not the kinda guy who jumps on his stomps and lament about they're dead afterwards!

I e-mailed them and the answer came within a day. that's good!

I play almost everything, mostly ethereal stuff (love pink floyd, slowdive, flaming lips) for about 17 years.

I wish this unit would have a phased delay mode, like the Line6's sweep delay. And of course a COMPARE function, so you wouldn't have to write your settings down still!
I owned the following delay units: cheap ibanez delay from and in the 90ies - my first and o.k. all the time i played and didn't know all the others! Line6 DL4 - great delay presets and good sounding, even a small looper which was fun to play, but TC sounds much more natural, doesn't have volume drop and is easier to save and more settings (thrice). Roland SDE-330 - not easy to use but great to preset. just 16-bit which IS audible. otherwise one of the best! Line6 Echo Pro - great unit, super sounds, 100 presets or so. 1 minute looper midi and everything, BUT - not good controllable live (i don't like to have a midi-pedal the size of my usual pedal-board...)! Line6 Echo Park - great features in a small unit, but the sound is nothing compared to the echo pro. still, the TC Nova Delay sounds best!
I have to check for the timefactor, as it seems to have a phased delay modulation, you can choose subdivision for both channels the way you like it and you have two delays in one.

TC Nova Delay - nearly perfect!

You need to read the manual to know how to get this to really work and shine, but it does a good enough job and you can start creating some great sound with an hour or so of practice. With the LEDs, it's easy to see where you are at. You have a little tapping to do to pull off some live switches, but there are some nice features, like limiting delays to cycle through (3 instead of 9, so you can return to delay #1 in fewer stomps), and being able to hold the footswitch down and release when you want to change from manual to preset.

Truly awesome. I'm using this all over the place now as a doubler or reverb, if not in a traditional sense. The 3 modulation effects are subtle, yet distinct sounds which all have a chorus, flange, phaser-like sound, and can be varied in intensity. The color knob is outstanding, you can create a warm, smeared tape sound, to a smooth analog, and piercing digital sound. The mix level I haven't found much use for, other than for some trippy reverse sessions. Dynamic delay is a cool feature for those who play fast and don't want delay leaking all over a lead. Slapback is ok, need to experiment more with that. Subdivisions also add some nice variety for different synced delay. And it's all in stereo, with several effects like panning and different subdivisions on different channels.

The thing looks like it's built like a tank, it's lasted the week I've had it. Ask me again in a year.

I plead the 5th.

I've been playing metal, and I use it to create a more ominous effect and it does the trick. I was looking for a higher quality delay pedal and I'm very happy with what the store owner recommended to me. It was definitely worth the little extra I spent to upgrade my old DD-6. The main features I was interested in were good analog delay simulation, tap tempo, presets, and most importantly, preserving the almighty tone. I can switch the pedal on and off with little change in sound integrity. The only feature I wish it had was a hold function.