HardWire DL8 at Practice
I used it last night with my Ovation Breadwinner, which is outfitted with Seymour Duncan pickups.
It goes well with my Danelectro Chicken Salad vibe pedal. Very large, 3D sound when I mix it with the modulated mode on the DL8. It also is nice with my custom OD pedal and the Ibanez Crunchbox delay. Even if it’s just splash chords, it sounds like there is a lot going on. With arpeggios and little lead lines, it really sounds big.
I pretty much stay with the modulated delay and tapping the tempo. I just hate bending down and twiddling knobs. I’m really happy that it has so much to offer, but I can’t really bother with it in the middle of a set. I can set it up before or between, but otherwise I’m not touching it. I can still get a slapback-like echo by tapping very, very fast. I’m getting the hang of the whole dotted eighth note thing slowly it’s not as natural as you’d think. Any idiot can get eighth or quarter note delays with tap tempo, including this one.
Also beware when you don’t have a drummer at your practice. If the band drifts off the rhythm even slightly, you end up retapping the delay to keep from sounding simply awful. This alone is a good reason to stay in tap tempo mode pretty much all the time. Sadly, when you’re in tap mode, it’s a little more time consuming to get to bypass mode.
Yes, I use true bypass. If I want tails, I’ll just leave the effect on longer.
The pedal looks great, it is a good height (for reaching over the lip of the pedal board), good LEDs, good usability. It works just fine and greatly enhances my sound now that I’m the sole six-stringer in the worship band. It may take a while for me to not overuse it, but it is really nice. I’m not sure how I got by without it. I would definitely consider more HardWire pedals.
