Well I've packed up the Rocketride delay/chorus tourbox and will send it on its way. I've reviewed the Asteroid chorus previously, on an earlier thread, as I've been using one for some months now. I'll share some thoughts on the FEOTM delay.
Bobby's characterization of the FEOTM as a "luxury" delay is apt. It has a vast range of possibility that I wouldn't normally make much use of (but could lose many hours to, just fooling around). If I were adept at live looping, and was doing "jam-band" type gigs, I could see this being an extremely useful tool. The range of control over the different delay parameters begins to approach what's available on digital units that do lots of cool stuff but often sound unnatural in various ways (to put it kindly).
I had great fun turning the blend control up to where the initial attack was almost lost and then playing harmonized lines over a reiterated bass note - easy to create the sort of thing where if you hear it on a recording you'll wonder how the hell it was done. At the other extreme, FEOTM sounds great doing slapback or more subtle ambient delay, but I wouldn't give up the additional pedalboard space for stuff I can get from my old DM-2 (or an MP Deep Blue).
My only issue with the FEOTM is that with the Delay control at 12:00 or beyond there's a level of background hiss that persists as a sustained note or chord decays, and it is loud enough to be annoying. There's almost a gated effect with this - if you release the note or chord the hiss immediately disappears, but if you hold the note or chord through its natural decay the hiss level remains constant throughout the process, ultimately becoming louder than the fading note (or chord). I want to emphasize that this only occurs in this circumstance - when playing in a more staccato style the pedal is not noisy at all. Analog delays are, of course, inherently noisy on longer delay settings, but I don't recall experiencing this particular phenomenon before. Perhaps someone will explain...
Overall, thumbs up on both pedals. Love the Asteroid. Looking forward to checking out the Boss-Mod box when it finds its way here.
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:39 pm
