Re: Is this the "golden age" of delay?
It may be a golden period in that the '80s brought chorus, early digital delays and the foundations of modelling (Tom Scholtz Rockman), and now we're seeing and hearing those concepts progress and flourish as they move into their third and fourth generations of development.
For decades, the standard instrument for playing jazz was the Gibson ES175. Many people would emulate that kind of sound with other guitars and get reasonably close, although obviously not exact. If you listened to the music, did it really matter if they had the benchmark instrument or had a similar tone from some other instrument ? Surely what they were playing would have been of greater interest, even if their tone wasn't a perfect match for the holy grail ?
Some time back i posted a clip of myself playing a Strat through an El Cap directly into the computer, no amp, speakers or mic's. It was simply a late-night soundscape/ambient/noodling kinda thing but i thought it captured a mood, and that was the reason why i posted it. A bunch of people responded, and a couple mentioned that they thought the El Cap sounded good, but the majority of responses said that they enjoyed the playing and particularly the mood. Any reasonable delay would have worked for me, but fortunately it was what i was trying to capture with my feelings, my hands and my guitar that resonated with the listeners. Would they have felt differently if i'd told them i was using a real tape delay or a cheap Behringer pedal ? Hopefully not.
I've owned several tape echo units (Copycat, Space Echo and an all-tube Klempt) but i sold them all. I simply couldn't access people to re-bush worn pinch rollers and other mechanical issues that these old units eventually suffer from. I like a good-sounding echo, but there is a point where i need to focus on what i'm actually trying to do with music and the guitar, and that is more important that what gear i'm using.
Good gear is important and often inspiring, but at some point surely the player has to take responsibility for what the listener hears, with their playing, feel, interpretation, emotion, etc.
What I do hope is that it won't be a 'golden age of delay usage' like the '80s was a 'golden age of chorus usage'. What i mean by that is that i hope that we don't enter an era where delay becomes so prevalent everywhere that there will be a backlash in the next decade and it will become a despised sound, and anyone who wants to use some delay will be derided for using it.
And some views in this thread seem to be verging on the classic "It sounded really good ...UNTIL i saw what they were using". Who cares ? Listen to the music, the ideas, the emotions, the performance, the message. Gear does contribute, but i hope the other things i just mentioned are much bigger contributors. After all, most people who listen to music, buy records and attend live shows don't know any of these details, they simply listen and decide if they like it or not ... whether what they hear touches or moves them in some way.
We come here because we like gear, but let's try to keep it in context. Technology has moved forward and will continue to do so, but it's good to remember that it's ONLY technology. Good, innovative, impassioned, exciting music can still be made on an acoustic guitar if the emphasis is on the player and the message.
