Ableton Forum

so i'm considering using ableton's delay for my guitar. Are there any disadvantages/advantages that ableton has over a normal guitar delay pedal? I'm using a boss dd-20.

you can change the delay after you record. Thats probably the biggest advantage.

Lives delay lets you have different rates for the L and R channels.

cacti wrote:you can change the delay after you record. Thats probably the biggest advantage.

Lives delay lets you have different rates for the L and R channels.

oh whoops i should've mentioned this is for live playing.

As long as there aren't any problems with latency, it should work.

The main difference I can think of is that with a stompbox it's pretty easy to turn the effect on and off - with Live you''ll need to either stop playing for a moment to turn the device off or get a midi footcontrol to do it for you, or automate it. Slightly more fiddly then just stepping on the stompbox switch.

But if you've already got the necessary controllers or you won't need to turn it on and off much, live should give you a lot more flexibility, and plus if you're in time with a click when you play you can make your delay in time too.

The only problem with the live delay is that it's very clinical and clean-cut. An analog delay pedal like the EHX memory man / memory boy or the memory lane will sound a lot better... and that sound has been nicely emulated in software by the soundtoys echoboy. Really lovely lush delay, far nicer-sounding than the live effect even though it's a bit heavier on the CPU. If you need a foot controller behringer has a great one, even though it's pretty huge and heavy...

The sound quality of an analogue delay or a tape delay just cant be matched in my book. However with Live's delay you can customize it sonically, and have it sync effortlessly. Yet Live's delay is very digital,for example changing the delay rate while producing sound, sounds like digital delays do most of the time.

HOWEVER, there are some free tape delay emulators you can use in Live that sound really nice. Tal DUB II, is pretty sweet. And it can be synced just the same. The analogue emulation is really nice though.

Putting a little bit of saturation after a cold sounding digital delay can sound nice. It's also fun to experiment with post-delay effects in general with Live.

Have a look at NastyDLA too.

I would always go for s/w delay cos you can change it after, depends how hung up you are on the old sounds

T