...And the one that I had to get back!

Laugh all you want. The Zoom 508 Delay was/is a KILLER delay pedal. Is it the best delay pedal ever? Nah, but it goes far above the "honorable mention" category. I think I bought this little guy about 1996. I could be off there, but I know I was dating my wife when I got this pedal. That's not important. What IS important is that you know what kind of feature-rich pedal this is. (Note: I'm using a pedal made in the 90's, so I have to say 90's buzz words like "feature-rich".)




So's I hads this guy forevers, then I started accumulating other delay pedals and it just got silly. I think I had 4 or 5 when I saw Christmas coming one year and said, "Yeah, this one's destined for ebay." So I sold it. I think I listed it for $48.00 and didn't even expect a nibble. It was gone in 2 minutes flat! Oh well, more money for the Christmas fund.

Anyhow, soon I started missing this thing. It weighed, I dunno, like 9 ounces? And surely since it was an "entry level" Zoom pedal it couldn't have been that good right? And it would "hiccup" once in a while and I'd have to take it apart and reset the SIMMs. And it did have just that limited silly red LCD display. Yeah, I wouldn't miss that thing...

OH MAN was I mad at myself. I told myself I would have it back someday. Here's what I missed so much about it:

-One of the BEST tuners I've ever used.
-Excellent external tap tempo. (Via FS-5U or my homemade one)
-Fantastic sound-on-sound delays, which were wonderful for layering droning chords.
-Bankable patches. (Yes, even I need those sometimes.)
-Excellent buffers/no tone coloration.
-Lots of hidden features like master volume, sample/hold (4 seconds!!!,) reverb-like delay, tone rolloff,

In fact to this day, I still haven't seen a pedal do what it does in that price range ($99 new) with a footprint that small with a built in tuner. About the only thing it lacks is modulation & reverse. And since I never cared much for either of the two, it did a great "analog emulation" by taking the tone control way down.

And for "punching buttons" to program it, it was surprisingly simple and all of the buttons hold up well.

I've had 3 of these now. I just sold another, again needing some cash. I didn't need two really. I don't think I'll ever get rid of this one though. It's on my pedalboard now and will probably stay there for some time. I've had the DD-3, DD-20, DL4 & others, but I keep coming back to this one for it's simplicity & small footprint. A real gem. If you can grab one, GET IT! They're a collectors item in the UK. Enjoy! :)

http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1622&brandID=4