Mouse Digital Delay

This thing slays. One of my fav delays, and I have way too many.

I should start out by saying I have played guitar for a long time and have never owned a digital delay pedal. I have a rack mounted, foot switchable, digital multi-effects unit that I have had for quite a while. It cost $600 new, so I have not owned anything remotely close to this pedal. That said, it compares favorably in sound quality with my rack mounted unit. It does not do some of the things my other unit does, but for what it does do, it does it well. It comes in a nice box, and the unit itself is housed in a very robust, heavy-for-it's-size metal box. The knobs have a substantial, well-weighted feel to them. The art on the pedal appears to be a decal, but was applied well, and seems like it will be durable. It is very compact, 3.75" x 1.87" x 1", so it will not take up much real estate on your pedal board. It does not accept a battery, so you will need to hook it up to a 9-volt power supply. On to the sound. Since this is a digital delay, each repeat sounds essentially like the original note. It is not like an analog delay in that each repeat on an analog delay general decays a little and has a little warmer sound for that. One thing I really liked is that the pedal added very little noise. If you crank the mix knob all the way up, there is a slight increase in white noise, but it is so low level that even a very quiet note will cover it up. It is probably my quietest pedal. When you plug in the power supply, the jack turns red. There is a dull red glow from the led when you are in bypass mode, and it turns to bright blue when you engage the delay. Besides delay, you can also get reverb, a chorus-like effect, and a fair facsimile of a flanger without the sweep. With the repeat knob at 12 o'clock, I counted at least twelve repeats. With it all the way up, it is basically infinite repeat. I let it run for a minute, and it showed no sign of letting up. With the time knob at 9 o'clock, the mix at 8 o'clock, and the repeat at approximately 11 o'clock, you can get a nice chorus-like effect. With all knobs at 9 o'clock, you are in the reverb slap-back range. Move the knobs a little one way or the other to get the reverb sound or the slap-back. With the time knob turned all the way down, the mix between 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock, and the repeat at 9 o'clock, you can get an interesting sound that adds a little sparkle and wetness. Of course, it has the full range of the delay sounds that you would expect it to have. It can repeat up to 1000 ms. , the same as my rack mount unit. In conclusion, for the areas that overlap with my rack mount unit, I would not hesitate to use this. It is a very comparable sound, and actually slightly less noisy. Again, the rack unit does a lot more stuff, but this does what it does well. I cannot honestly compare it with other budget digital delays as I mentioned earlier, but I think it is a well-built, good sounding piece of gear.

I wanted a delay to feed one of my stereo loops. When I first engaged this pedal (with delay going), I saw a tremendous boost ~12 db. Clipping out the input of the next thing in the line. So, I turned down the mix, and with the delay engaged I still see around 3db of gain. you will likely not see this if using this pedal at the end of the signal chain. Putting this before a sensitive pedal might give you untwoard effect. Defintely did echo like it was supposed to, so one star for that. It is enclosed in a decent enclosure and seems sturdy, just too hard to get a useful tone.

A few comments on the overall line (also copied into my review of the chorus), and a few about the delay. On the line: Normally Azor makes bare bones, ultra affordable mini pedals. The new "cartoon animal" pedals are a little more like what you'd see branded as Caline, a little higher price point and more effort into making them attractive. They're flatter than a normal Azor pedal -- a similar shape to my Caline Pure Sky but a bit smaller, as if you shaved about 20-25% off the length, width, and height. They're made of metal, but I'm not the biggest fan of the switch, which makes a light clicking sound but not at the exact moment the switch activates, so you can click them without actually switching the pedal. I'd be scared to stomp on them onstage, but luckily I'm a jam at home guy. Some points on the delay: -It has all the basics. If you turn down the repeats and the time you can use it to subtly double your playing -- but max the time and it cycles only about 60 bpm, so you can match just about any tempo you could want. Max the repeats and it will keep going pretty much forever. The mix knob affects how loud the repeats start before they begin fading. -The manual is so badly written it's not clear if this is supposed to be analog or digital. -If you adjust the time knob when there are already repeats playing, the repeats will be pitch shifted. Some people think this is a neat effect to play with, others find it annoying. -In general, if you like the cartoon animal art and don't have a delay, this is a decent one to get, though some others are cheaper. It might not be something you'll have on all the time, but it's a ton of fun to mess around with if you find yourself in a playing rut. -This doesn't let you tap in the delay time; you can only twist the knob. I'm not a fan of doing that anyway but some people like it.

I got this for my son who is an avid guitar player and it has become a pretty nice hobby for him as he was self taught and then went on to learn to read and to learn more and more about guitars and parts during his visits to guitar and music stores. He has tried out a variety of pedals, including delay but had not heard of Azor brand before. I didn't think Delay would be of interest for him but he said that he wanted to try it out for some of the older stuff he plays, as he does tend to play a lot of classics of various styles. He likes to play a lot of Chili Peppers songs as it is his favourite brand and he knows that John Frusciante uses delay pedals for some songs. He is still trying it out and did say that the quality of it was pretty good and pretty much on par from more expensive ones he has tried. So that is his part of the review. He really likes it and recommends it. As for me, hearing him play brought back so much nostalgia of when I used to go to outdoor concerts and you'd get the natural delay of songs, plus the songs from local bands who did use a delay pedal and songs from older bands that used delay. Lots of memories and to me it sounded great. I love listening to him try it. He recommends the use of it and sound. I recommend it by hearing it.