Budget Delay Pedals: The best value alternatives for your music
Cheaper pedals sound cool too you know
3,4 / 5,0 | 
Are your solos missing that extra flare? Don’t want to break the bank? Well, it looks like you’ll need a budget delay pedal. Let’s check out a few options. You’ll be surprised what they can offer for minimal cash.
If nothing in this list takes your fancy, worry not! You can find so many more over at *Thomann. There’s no better time to browse, thanks to Thomann’s 70th Anniversary Deals.
Budget Delay Pedals: What even is a delay pedal?
So, before you start looking for a delay pedal, it’s probably best to get a rough idea of what you’re looking for. Initially, a guitar pedal is a musical device that can take on many responsibilities. Essentially, they provide you with a desired effect; such as delay, distortion or flanger.
Delay, by definition, is an audio-signalling processing technique. Whereby, an input sound is stored and then played back over a specified period of time, time, time, time. Therefore, there are plenty of ways to achieve this echo-like sound.
Here, we’ll be taking a brief look at some budget delay pedals. Overall, allowing you to explore the weird and wonderful universe of delay.
Harley Benton Digital Delay
Kicking us off, we’ve got arguably one of the cheapest ways to get into delay pedals. This digital delay pedal from Harley Benton features three controls to help master the sound you’re looking for.
Within this cool blue casing, we’ve got the standard yet essential true bypass switch. Allowing you to completely cut out this pedal from your signal chain.
Moreover, we’ve got controls for the overall delay time, repeat and level. At this price point, you get a pretty good range from 25-600ms of delay time.
- More from Harley Benton
Electro Harmonix Slap-Back Echo
Secondly, we’ve got this cheeky throwback reissue of the Electro Harmonix pedal from the 1970s. Benefiting from modern features in one compact box.
Here we’ve got twin knobs controlling the amount of gain and blend. Furthermore, there’s up to 20db of boost for doubling effects should you require.
This budget delay pedal also has an LED running light, along with the ability to be powered via a separate 9v battery. This has only been available for just over a year, so it’d be cool to check out a relatively new pedal.
- More from Electro Harmonix
T-Rex Replay Box
Taking us north of triple figures, this budget delay pedal is still something to consider. Something for rhythmically concerned players, choose from quarter, triplets and dotted eighth delay patterns.
Unlike the other pedals we’ve seen so far, this Danish delay pedal from T-Rex uses stereo input and output jacks.
Providing clear delay sounds with studio quality. Additional hardware includes a Tap switch for an additional three seconds of delay. All housed within one pedal, powered via 9V DC power cable.
tc electronic Flashback 2: Budget Delay Pedal
Working our way up in price points somewhat, we’ve got another stereo budget delay pedal. However, this example from tc electronic allows you to use the footswitch as a pressure-sensitive expression controller.
There’s plenty of bang for your buck here. In addition to having a digital delay pedal, we’ve also got the use of TonePrint. Meaning that you can load signature tones onto the pedal. Moreover, you can create your own delay effects via the TonePrint app.
Should you want to use this as a mono output for whatever reason, the stereo input can be used as a Tap Tempo input for an external foot switch. Tipping the scales at 300g, there sure is a lot crammed into this one little box!
- More from tc electronic
- Guitar pedals on synths
Boss DD-8 Digital Delay
Concluding our look at budget delay pedals is, naturally, the most expensive on our list. Don’t worry though, this digital delay pedal is one of Boss’ most extensive compact pedals.
Visually, it’s pretty bland compared to the others that we’ve looked at. However, we get 11 different types of delay, and a looper function to work with!
Maintained by level, feedback and time controls, you’ll always have control of how much delay you want. Complete with a true bypass switch, indicated via LED.
- More from Boss
Budget Delay Pedals: Hard decisions ahead!
There we have it, a quick look at some of the delay pedals on the market that won’t cost an arm and a leg. Furthermore, you can be happy in the knowledge that these entry-level alternatives will be the perfect starting point for exploring delay.
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- Budget Delay Pedals - Harley Benton Digital Delay : Thomann
- Budget Delay Pedals - Electro Harmonix Slap-Back Echo: Thomann
- Budget Delay Pedals - T-Rex Replay Box : Thomann
- Budget Delay Pedals - tc electronic Flashback 2 Delay: Thomann
- Budget Delay Pedals - Boss DD-8 Digital Delay : Thomann
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5 responses to “Budget Delay Pedals: The best value alternatives for your music”
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Really budget?
Music gear is forever financially ruinous. However, if a pedal does what you ask of it, it’s undoubtedly a bargain.
DD-9? 🙂
I was afraid I had missed something.
That would be cool if there was a DD-9! Good spot, thanks! 🙂
I’ve been using a Rowen delay that is priced under $30 from Ali- Express. Sounds pretty decent.