Yamaha DDS-20M

Very easy to use. Although its a digital delay, it is only mono, so you have that sonic limitation from the off (frankly its so hard to find people capable of using stereo delay effectively that this particular limitation is actually doing most of us a big favour).

I've had this pedal since new, which was in 1988! I've used it live and on many recordings, on guitars, drums, vocals, everything. Originally, in guitar apps I was using it with my '68 Les Paul Deluxe thru a twinc speaker vintage Carlsbro Stingray Super amp (a la Alan Rankine). Currently I am using it with a Telecaster thru a Marshall Valvestate.

When used with a battery, there is no audible noise on this pedal whatsoever, and I mean NONE. I have heard some mains hum when used with some PSUs. But on a 9v battery its clean as a whistle. There are no on/off clicks.

This is a DIGITAL delay - the echo is PRISTINE - if you want warmth you should be using analogue, for which my recommendation is the Daphon. This pedal isn't about warmth, its about 100% accuracy, and for that it must score above any other delay - stereo or otherwise - that I have ever heard. All of my production clients are blown away by it.

I do have a few issues with it, such as battery life (about an hour on a standard 9v - you need a Duracell if you're playing longer than that) - my biggest gripe is that the active jack socket is the Output rather than the Input - Stage hands and guitar techs who don't know this will often leave the wrong end plugged in, which depletes battery life, as this pedal pre-dates the true bypass debate.

But as a delay unit, pedal hasn't failed me in 18 years. Not once, not ever. Its been in the wars, the pots are dodgy, its seen better days, the PSU input is knackered so I have to use batteries (better for ALL pedals anyway, in my opinion, no matter what the consumption). The Yamaha DDS - indeed the whole late 80s SDS series - are sorely underrated. They will see you through your whole career!

Yamaha customer services are a bit crappy in my limited experience of dealing with them, but I've never had any cause to talk to them about this particular unit, hence the "5" rating.

I've tried many other delays over the years, some are fantastic. But if you can lay your hands on a Yamaha DDS, well, the hell with the expense.

For sheer quality of the delay effect, nothing, not even an SPX900, comes close.

They use the full SDS range at Abbey Road as the standard pedals outboard - they have many other distortions, modulations etc. - but this is the only delay pedal they keep - and if that isn't a recommendation I don't know what is.

this was my first digital delay. pretty easy to use. the used guitar place i got it from the owner demo'd it for me. he did some amazing things with it. i had an ac adaptor for it, so that made it nice-no batteries to worry about. pretty simple layout. not hard to figure out.

since this was my first pedal, i didn't have much to compare it w/. i thought it sounded great! for 10 yrs i used it w/ my steinberger gl3t, rat pedal and old 50 watt amp. i mainly used it for echo sounds, etc. and it did those great. in the short delay mode you could get "flanging" sounds, if you played w/ the regeneration you could get a great metallic sound. fun and weird. the medium length was great for echos. the long mode could go up to 1.2 sec or so. i never used that much, i didn't get into looping until around '01. the guy i bought it from demo'd this feature quite well for me, could play in time w/ the effect etc and he demo'd the sample and hold part of it. when i had it, i couldn't get it to work real well, but i think that speaks about my ability/technique at the time. great for echo, etc though.

never failed for me.

never contacted them

great older delay pedal from the late 80's. has lots of uses. simple, straightforward. i sold it after i started acquiring rack gear, but think back to the days of simple controls and instant changes. i did use it w/ some of my other guitars at the time that had passive pu's (kramer pacer, etc) and didn't think it sounded the best w/ those. the active pickups w/ my old steinberger sounded great! i sold it in '01, it was a time for a complete gear change for me.

Very easy to operate. 4 Controls--Level, Feedback (Delay Repeats), Delay Time, and Mode--(selectable between 'short' 'medium' and 'long' delay. Also has a "sound on sound" mode and a sampling mode. Took some experimenting to discover what mode "R/P" and "P" were for without manual. These are the "sound on sound" and "sample" modes respectively.

I was impressed with the sound quality. I expected far less, but was pleasantly surprised with the crisp delay sounds from this pedal. Not harsh or overly 'digital'. Some digital delays produce repeats that are too bright sounding and/or the reproduced signal is not the same as the original signal (repeat is "colored" or otherwise altered in a non-pleasing way). This is a great pedal for the price, because most likely you will find one used at a very good price. To my ears, better than a Boss DD-3, which was my old standby. It kind of sounds like an older Korg rackmount (like SDD-1200 or 2000) but without the modulation section. Excellent sound quality for a pedal. My only gripe is that when adjusting the "feedback" (delay repeat) control, you cannot set it to two or three repeats and not have the repeat volume drop off considerably after the first repeat. You have to compromise and set it for four or five repeats to achieve a distinct repeat sound if you want more than "one" but less than "infinity". In other words you cannot make this pedal repeat distinctly on two to three repeats such as "ECHO-ECHO" or "ECHO-ECHO-ECHO", it is more like "ECHO-echo-echo.." (a quick dropoff)..until you turn up the feedback control to about 11 o'clock, where you now get "ECHO-ECHO-echo-echo...etc." Two distinct repeats achieved, but with a compromise...tail end medium-soft decaying echoes. You can 'fine tune' the repeats on a Boss DD-3, this one is not fine-tunable on lower repeats. This is a fairly minor thing, but for me personally an issue and just a keen observation I had to share. I base my score "vs. other digital delay pedals"...analog is a different catagory and should be addressed as such. Regardless this pedal gets "9/10".

Seems reliable. I bought it second hand, and no problems yet. Looks durable, but not totally indestructable. I think this pedal is from the late '80s, my guess. It will probably survive quite a while longer.

I'm sure this is a long discontinued unit, so no score here.

You can achieve up to around 2 seconds of delay with this thing. I would say you can emulate Gilmour/Floyd, Eric Johnson, and on higher delay setting/repeats Edge/U2. Edge uses (or used) KORG rackmounts like I described earlier though, with modulation capabilities, but this gives you the sound sans the mod/slight pitch bends. The sampling mode and extra long delays could be great for experimental/original music and DJs.