Yamaha E1010 Analog Delay

All knobs, no memory or MIDI - this was built in the late 70s. But those knobs are nice and huge, and tweaking is easy. Built for stubby fingers on a dark stage or FOH rack. Two space rackmount analog delay unit, BBD chips with max 300ms delay.

Simple controls - input level LEDs, then the knobs are input level, bass boost/cut, treble boost/cut, delay time, feedback (positive only), direct/delay mix, modulation frequency, and modulation amount. There are also five push buttons for delay ranges; 10ms, 30ms, 75ms, 150ms, and 300ms.

There are input, output, and bypass jacks on the front panel. On the rear panel are duplicate input and output jacks, with an additional direct output jack.

Never got a manual for it - simple to use without one.

This is not among my favorite analog delay units for sound quality, but I keep it around because it has a panel full of knobs.

As to be expected with an analog BBD delay, the upper frequency range degrades with longer delays. That's not always a weakness, a natural echo has decreased highs anyways.

On my unit, if I use any mix level between all direct or all effect, the tone of the original suffers terribly, the output level drops. I can get around this by using the direct out and all effect on the mix for live/studio mixing, but guitarists should be forewarned this is *not* a good unit for inline effects like stompboxes.

I'm also not impressed with the fidelity of the original signal in the mid delay ranges (30ms, 75ms), but not sure if that's a malfunction in my particular unit.

The chorus/flange effect are not the greatest, which is the fault of the LFO - it's a sine waveform and the modulation is not smooth. You can hear the sweep slow between the extremes of the waveform. Triangle waveform is much better.

Most analog BBD delays are noisy, but not this unit. It includes a compander for improved S/N ratio, so it's nice and quiet. That's a big plus.

When I started playing clubs in 1981, our band had bought this unit and through the years it wound up in my hands. It hasn't broken yet.

I doubt that the mix problem is a malfunction, because I didn't pay attention to the fidelity until recent years and it's not the first unit to have such a problem (the old ART multi-effect boxes are notorious for this).

But it's getting old - hard to trust it without a backup, especially when Yamaha doesn't keep any parts for it anymore.

No experience.

However, Yamaha does in fact have a policy that they dispose of parts for any product over ten years out of production. So if I need parts I sure can't depend on Yamaha. Hence the worthless rating.

Well, it's not a good chorus/flange box, not a good echo box; what is it good for? Simple slap delay or Haas effects for simple stereo enhancement. Plus those knobs, can't beat the efficiency of knobs. I've been tempted to sell it on more than one occasion, and decided that there is no such thing as too many delays. For those applications where my Korg SDD boxes are tied up for doubling/chorus/flange, I still have the E1010 left over for simple slap delay and still have my digital multi-effect boxes for reverb. That's why I give it a "3" rating.

As for celebrity attachments, this is the box long favored by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee of Rush - you can hear it prominently featured on "2112". Enough with the associations with famous musicians, I have my own creative uses for this thing.

These things seldom come up used, which baffles me because there are delays with far better fidelity out there. I think there are two reasons why they are coveted: the analog sound does appeal to studios and musicians, and the S/N ratio is superb for an analog delay.