Back in the days of fridge-sized guitar racks, the Roland SDE-3000 dominated the digital delay landscape. Since then, guitar rigs have shrunk to manageable proportions, and pedalboards have long since replaced racks. As such, the Boss SDE-3 is every vintage digital enthusiast’s dream, squeezing the SDE-3000’s larger-than-life sound into a compact BOSS pedal. Like its rackmount predecessor, the Boss SDE-3 serves up beautiful digital delay lines with a surprisingly warm, vintage-tinged sound and the distinctive modulation that made the original unit so captivating. That said, the SDE-3 brandishes two parallel delay lines, enabling it to mimic the functionality of a complex dual-SDE-3000 rack setup. Moreover, this pedal includes Offset and Hi Cut knobs for fine-tuning your sound, as well as tap tempo and carryover functions.
Furthermore, this feature-laden stompbox gives you two stereo delay options, three output modes, and a TRS MIDI input for flexible rig integration. You can also gain extended control over the SDE-3 with an external footswitch or expression pedal. If you’ve ever wanted to add the unrivaled musicality of a vintage SDE-3000 to your pedalboard, the BOSS SDE-3 delivers the sonic goods, along with the modern functionality demanded by today’s guitarists.
Introduced in 1983, the Roland SDE-3000 is one of the most revered rackmount delay units from the early years of digital audio. Although the SDE-3000 was used in recording studios, its most popular application was in ‘80s-era guitar racks, where its ultra-wide dynamic range, adjustable delay phase, rich modulation, and multiple seconds of clear-yet-warm delay tone made it the go-to digital delay processor. The Boss SDE-3 replicates the sound of the original SDE-3000’s digital processing and the analog nonlinearities to a T, but it ups the ante with two parallel delay lines. This enables the SDE-3 to mimic the functionality of two vintage rackmount SDE-3000s, ostensibly packing the performance of a refrigerator-sized guitar rack into a traditional BOSS stompbox enclosure.
Aside from its dual discrete delay lines, the Boss SDE-3 also includes two stereo delay options and multiple output modes, enabling you to tailor it to myriad applications. In Standard mode, this digital delay effects pedal is configured as a typical stereo delay with fully independent A and B channels. Pan mode allows you to alternate the left and right positions of each delay line on each repeat, which infuses your playing with dizzying, spellbinding dimension.
As for output modes, the Boss SDE-3’s default Stereo setting mixes your direct and effected sounds via the Output A and Output B jacks. The Wet + Dry mode outputs your affected sound via Output A and your dry sound via Output B. You also get a Direct Mute mode that outputs only your affected sound via Output A and Output B — a must-have for using the SDE-3 as an auxiliary effect.
Regardless of how you configure the SDE-3, its Offset knob is arguably its most powerful control, enabling you to fine-tune the relative time difference between the parallel delay lines to generate everything from subtle thickening and flam repeats to rhythmic syncopations and ear-grabbing atmospherics.
Even without taking its legendary pedigree into account, the Boss SDE-3 is still among the most feature-rich compact digital delay pedals around. For starters, the SDE-3 gives you up to 800ms of adjustable delay time in stereo and up to double that amount if you deploy it in mono. You get dedicated Rate and Depth knobs for tweaking the pedal’s modulation, as well as a Hi Cut control for high-frequency shaping of your repeats. The SDE-3 includes tap tempo functionality for real-time tempo synchronization during a live performance, along with a top-panel Carryover switch for determining the pedal’s bypass behavior. A TRS MIDI input is on hand for straightforward syncing to external clock signals, and you also get a jack for extended control using up to two footswitches or an expression pedal.
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