The Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy is a smooth analog delay that takes its heritage from the 1970s Memory Man and the legendary Deluxe Memory Man. The Memory Boy uses the Deluxe Memory Man as a base, expanding upon it with additional modulation features and an optional expression pedal input for external control over delay time or modulation rate.
Memory Boy features a 550ms delay time, allowing you to explore limitless textures. A three-way toggle switch lets you add in vibrato or chorus, or control the delay time with an external expression pedal.
Since the early 1970's, Electro-Harmonix has been designing analog delays featured on some of the greatest recordings and used by iconic musicians throughout the world. From the original Memory Man guitar pedal to the Deluxe Memory Man, still available today, EHX delay pedals are desired instruments for the organic tones that deliver textures that define quality.
All analog delay with Feedback
Up to 550ms delay time
Selectable Chorus or Vibrato modulations rates
Choose between triangle or square modulation waveforms
Expression pedal control of delay time or modulation rate (expression pedal extends the range of modulation rate)
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If you use this pedal correctly it can be amazing!! I have read many reviews that rated it poorly and said it doesn't sound good and the modulation is useless etc. It will be useless to anyone who doesnt know how to use it.I wouldnt recommend this pedal as a main delay that you would use any ordinary delay for. This is not an ordinary delay pedal! You can't use it like one for 2 reasons, its delays sound dark and its delay times are short. I recommend you use this pedal for sort of ambience delays (Turning the Blend knob down a bit, and adding chorus with low Depth and long feedback to create a "reverby" delay.) or single note delays, (Turning the feedback knob to where it only creates one delay, which for me is about 11 o' clock). I use this along with the delay on my Vox amp that I use as my main delay because I can tap in the tempo. I only use this pedal on clean because when distorted the sound can be overpowering. Ill end with this, the Modulation is NOT useless, it sounds amazing when its on a low Depth setting on a CLEAN channel, and set in the triangle position. This is my FAVORTIE SETTING, it shows that cranking up the Depth knob can create beautiful delays, not just wacky sounds: Delay- 3 o clock, Depth 12 o clock, Blend- 12 o clock, Feedback 11 o clock, and have the modulation on triangle and on Vibrato. The possibilities are endless with this pedal. Try it out you will be amazed.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.A buddy gave this to pedal to me, citing "awful and strange delay noises" as the cause for why he was getting rid of it. He said that if I could "fix it", I could have it or offload it, etc.
After testing it out, I think my friend just didn't understand what this pedal does, and that he misunderstood the nature and character of the modulation effects.
I'll start simply with the delay. As others have noted, this pedal sounds dark. Yup. Absolutely. Don't ever change that, because that's a GOOD thing. Actually it's neither good nor bad. It's just the nature of analog delay, and it's what you use it for. It's NOT a digital delay, so it will naturally darken your tone a bit. Dude, a good analog delay is so smooth and dreamy, and naturally un-bright. But if you don't like that, then move along to a digital delay. It's okay to do that...it's your tone and your rig, meant for your needs. But I love it, and it's great in so many applications. So vintage when you need it to be, and so ambient when you need that too...and BOTH, if that's what you're doing.
The delay is only around 500ms or so (I believe), so you need to know that up front. Again, this is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It just IS. But it takes this pedal out of the "jack of all trades" pedal. That's why there are DL-4s, TimeFactors, TimeLines, and a whole plethora of digital multi-delay units. But this is not that. If you want those other things, then you're going to need to spend more money. Bottom line.
As for the modulation. Dude...the Chorus has a lush detuning and tape warble. The Vibrato can give you some Leslie-esque vibe and it can also be subtle. Most of the normal mod sounds you'll want or need are somewhere at or before 9 o'clock on the Rate dial. It's pretty sensitive, IMO. [[I like the triangle/square wave selection, but I'll confess that I haven't dove too much into the major differences in their dynamics and scope beyond just a tertiary glance.]] When you go past a Rate setting of 9 o'clock on the dial (earlier, on the square wave setting with my particular unit), then you start getting into random tone generation territory. Oh, buddy, do you ever! There's a lot of brilliant noise making to be had in that place! Paired with a fuzz set to "destroy" and a loud band mix, it's probably too awesome for mere words lol. It's definitely got "8-bit synth" sounds all over it lol. And I think THAT'S what my buddy encountered and thought was a "broken" pedal. He just didn't know what an analog delay - or even specifically an EHX Memory Man (an iconic delay in it's own right...so iconic, that the DL-4 specifically models it!) - is and does. So he got rid of it.
His trash is DEFINITELY my treasure, though! And I absolutely intend to let him know!
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.I took this pedal home after comparing it with a carbon copy. I liked the overall warn analog tone of the delays and the modulation made it possible to do all kinds of crazy things. I liked being able to dial in a nice chorus sound, a tape-like warbel, a sort of auto wammy and way beyond. None of that was possible with the fixed mod setting of the carbon copy. Once I took it home though I started noticing the pedal's shortcomings that really limit this pedal's effectiveness.
The biggest thing for me was it's very short delay time. Anything before 12 o'clock on the delay dial is slap-back style delay and dialing in longer times gets fairly difficult. To have longer delays in time with most music is a turn on the dial between 3 and 4 o'clock, meaning dialing in more precise timing takes miniscule adjustments. It would be fairly difficult to do in a live setting. Plus only 550ms of delay (it may actually be shorter than that) doesn't give much headroom for experimenting. The other turn off was it's blend, which I couldn't seem to get right, especially with longer delays. Instead of adjusting the "level" of the effect like many pedals, the blend knob decreases the dry signal as it increases the wet signal. I can see why this would be useful, but finding a good balance is pretty difficult and you either end up with a quiet wet signal or a weak dry signal paired with an abrupt sounding delay.
In the end I ended up returning my Memory Boy. If I already had a digital delay to pair with it I would consider keeping it on my pedal board. It's fun to mess around with and I think you could find some cool uses for it. However, I need something a little more versitle and I don't think I could handle it being my sole delay pedal. I might consider getting the deluxe memory boy since it addresses most of my problems (longer delays, tap tempo, note divisions and a gain knob to compensate for the blend knob), but for now I don't think analog delay is for me. I'll most likely be purchasing the Boss dd-7 since its less fluky and more of a basic modern delay.
If you're looking for an analog delay on a budget and you're style is more along the lines of 50's and 60's rock and blues, this is probably a great bargain. If you want to do anything beyond that this pedal probably isn't for you.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.This is the stripped-down version of the larger Memory Boy. I was on a budget, which was why I chose this over the larger version (as well as the full Memory Man). I'm using it as a tertiary delay, strictly for textural uses. What it does, it does very well. The modulation options are really cool, ranging from non-existant to completely absurd, with a lot of control. In conjunction with an expression pedal, you can do some fun stuff with it (which can control delay time as well as modulation amount). I wouldn't recommend this as a primary delay, mostly because it lacks a tap tempo (available on the larger version), but for texture, it does great. My only complaint is that the ring-mod-like sound you get at very slow delay times (on just the repeats) disappears at faster times, which is a bummer as it's a really great effect.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.So I bought this pedal a few months ago, have played with all sorts of setting configurations, and done everything imaginable to try and get a nice tone out of this. And I can't. This pedal really destroys your tone. So, I think I'm being quite generous with my ratings. I love EHX but I think they dropped the ball on this one. C'mon guys, do better.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.This pedal may not meet all your echo and delay needs, but it does certain effects very well. It has numerous options and controls. It is quite good for short rockabilly/surf echo. At the other end of the scale you can get some otherworldly spacey sounds if you crank up the feedback, similar to an old-fashioned tape echo. But for certain longer delays it does not sound so good, causing the sound to deteriorate considerably. You would get a cleaner effect from a digitial delay, I think. The chorus effect is reasonable as long as you don't set it up too high, though not as warm as you may get from a dedicated chorus pedal. The sound gets a little "tinny." The vibrato effect may be fun, but doesn't seem particularly useful in most cases. I'm not sure why the chorus/vibrato effects use either a square or a sawtooth wave -- it seems to me a sine wave would be more useful. Build quality is good. All in all, it is a nice pedal, with limitations.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.This is a very useable delay, with alot of amazing one of a kind sounds. You can get normal sounds out of this also, so in that case it would be pretty much the cheapest analouge delay out there. The only two bad points are that all the knobs go to extreme settings that are occasionally out there (ie; blend knob goes to 100% wet) and it doesn't self osciallte very well.if you canovercome those shortcomings, this is sweet.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.Just got this pedal & it has some cool features. I think a lot of people who are hating on this didn't take the time to "feel it out". You have to really tweak each thing individually & take some time to understand it & you will get some great vintage chorus,vibrato & echoes. I agree that some features are useless for most applications.The one I've noticed off the bat is the controls are very sensitive & you can't just crank everything way up or you get some useless far out noise. Keep the controls low & go from there.I do like the tone I get from this,nice chunky,dark,warm vintage tone through fender tubes but I am running it in a chain,so I don't know what it sounds like alone.As far as the delay alone,it's not the best or most versatile,but it's not awful either you can get some rockabilly slap to some ambient trippy sounds to some dub stylee echoes,it does have an overall short delay like mentioned around 400ms or so. It's not my main delay,but it's a good value for a few extra effects in your bag.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.I have to wonder if some folks just received bunk units? I picked this one up a couple days ago along with an LPB-1. It sounds very nice on simple delays. Warm. It is quite easy to get single repeats as well as endless chaotic feedback. The modulation options are pretty neat. I do wish that the square wave modulation was replaced with a sine wave. That would be more useful than square I think. The sound is not trashy or even what I woudl call lo fi. It is darker than the more digital delays. it only seems to sound degraded when you try and run a long delay for long repeats. One complaint I wuold make about it is that the expression pedal/cv input is very touchy. It only seesm to respond well to a very limited range. When using an Maudio expression pedal it seems to live in an area that is only 15% or so of the pedal travel.When using ma Moogerfooger pedal to capture envelope it will go from barely registering CV to overesponding by far with only a slight increase in CV level. After further refinement I was finally able to get a delay that woudl get more modulated the harder I hit the guitar. But this took a lot of tweaking. When I tried this in store next to a Boss-DD7 and a tech21 Boost DLA this pedal was not only cheaper than both, but combined the best as[pects of both, while shedding features I will likely never use.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
.The Memory Boy has a number of nice features for its low price, but its problems are for too serious for it to be used for the professional or the "tone snob." Whenever it is engaged, it boosts a rather nasty section of your upper mids. This makes your overall volume jump up and it also radically reshapes your tone. Also, it has nothing like 550ms of delay. At most, it has 370ms. When contacted about this problem, EHX will demand you ship it to them with a money order for 12 dollars to fix their mistake. Unacceptable. Avoid this pedal. It has an obnoxious sound, does not have the delay time specified, and EHX does not stand behind its products. Consider a used Carbon Copy which will cost just, and is a far superior pedal.
Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy Delay Guitar Effects Pedal
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