Daredevil Pedals has taken a second pass at its Bootleg Dirty Delay, removing the external tap tempo input and making the tape echo-inspired delay pedal a little cheaper.
The circuit, however, remains the same, and that’s good news for those who crave a digital delay with a drive control to sauce up their repeats. That’s the Bootleg Dirty Delay’s USP.
The unit has controls for Blend, Reps, Time and Dirt, with the latter knob controlling a gain stage that adds dirt to the delayed signal. Set at minimum, there is no drive in the signal. Blend works as you might expand, controlling the level of wet and dry in the signal, while Reps sets delay feedback (the number of repeats) and Time sets the delay time, with the Bootleg Dirty Delay offering between 40ms and 400ms.
Circuit nerds will point to the clever stuff that is going on under the hood, with Daredevil utilising a Princeton 2399 IC chip to replicate the analogue feel of old-school bucket-brigade delays.
Like many analogue delays, the effect cuts out when you step on the bypass, but Daredevil says placing your guitar tuner in front of the effect will allow you to mute your electric guitar will the trails continue. That might not be too practical in the field, at least, not in many applications, but good to know.
Although the Bootleg Dirty Delay presents itself as a digital successor to analogue tape units, with its Dirt control allowing you to imitate the lo-fi skuzziness of a worn tape – albeit without the wobble – the sounds here are a little different, with Daredevil promising that the tone of the delay brightens as it fades out, whereas it would typically get darker and grainer.
The Daredevil Bootleg Dirty Delay Vol 2 is hand-wired, true bypass, takes a 9V DC supply and draws about 25mA, and it is available now priced $189. See Daredevil Pedals for more details.
If you like the sounds of it, there are some good deals to be found on V1 units, which of course include an input for tap tempo. GuitarGuitar is running a Black Friday promotion that sees them going for £169 – a saving of £60. See GuitarGuitar for more details.
