The FX Files: Boss DD-3

A smooth yet crisp digital delay, the DD -3 is the gold standard for compact digital delay units

1 E.LEVEL

This is Effect Level – a mix control. Apart from the digital delay chip in the pedal, the signal path is all-analogue, and part of the sound of the pedal is the way that the two signals are blended together before the output.

2 F.BACK

Feedback on a digital delay is usually a control for the number of times the captured signal buffer is repeated. On the early DD-3 units, however, the buffer was fed back into the chip via an analogue signal path, which had a particularly distinctive sound. On more recent iterations of the pedal, the buffer can be made to repeat endlessly without oscillating.

3 D.TIME

Delay time controls the length of the delay recording buffer, which is analogous to the tape loop in a tape-based delay. On a mechanical tape echo, the length of this buffer is controlled by speeding up or slowing down the passage of the tape, whereas on a digital unit like this, the buffer size is altered digitally.

4 MODE

The DD-3 has several modes, with delay times of 50ms on its short setting, 200ms on its medium setting and up to 800ms on its long setting. There’s also a HOLD mode for recording a sample, but, unlike its sister pedal, the DSD-3 Digital Sampler/delay, it’s not possible to record a sample and then play it back later.