ElectroHarmonix
July 2010 Guitarist 119
£150 & £125
EFFECTS
The Bottom Line
Ring Thing
We like: Onboard memories;
varied effects; stereo output
We dislike: Takes time to get
to grips with
Guitarist says: This is a very
versatile sound creation tool
you never knew you needed
Memory Boy
We like: Analogue sound;
tap tempo; effects loop;
expression pedal option
We dislike: Repeats sound
very lo-fi with max delay
times via tap tempo
Guitarist says: An analogue
delay with a great set of
practical features to control
it at a very affordable price
Electro-Harmonix
Ring Thing
£150
USA
Single Sideband Modulator
pedal
Blend, Wave, Filter/Rate,
Fine/Depth, Coarse knobs, Mode
switch, Preset/Tune and Bypass
footswitches
Nine programmable
memories
Instrument input,
Mod input, Exp input, L (mono) & R
output
Supplied 9V AC adaptor
150(w) x 120(d)
x 60(h) mm
Frequency
Analyzer (£80)
Test results
Electro-Harmonix
Deluxe Memory Boy
£125
USA
Analogue delay with tap tempo
Blend, Gain, Rate,
Depth, Feedback, Delay knobs. Tap
Divide and Exp, Mode buttons, Tap
and Bypass footswitches
None
34-700 milliseconds
via delay knob. Tap allows max of 1.5
seconds
Input, Output, Send,
Return, Expression pedal
Supplied 9V AC adaptor
150(w) x 120(d)
x 60(h) mm
Memory Toy
(£52), Memory Boy (£70), Deluxe
Memory Man (£200), Stereo Memory
Man (£140)
Test results
eighth note, quarter note
triplet, eighth note, eighth note
triplet or 16th note. A second
button with LED indicators lets
you choose whether any
connected expression pedal
will adjust rate, depth, feedback
or delay time.
Sounds
Using genuine bucket-brigade
chips, the DXMB has the classic
analogue delay sound where
the repeats are slightly
degraded in quality and bed
nicely in with your sound. If you
want a little more than straight
echoes, a bit of modulation will
jolly things up. With minimum
delay time the modulation
controls will give you chorus
and vibrato effects rather than
repeats, but by turning the
delay up to get repeats, you can
get a bit of tape echo wobble and
some nice rotary speaker-style
shimmer at shallower depth
settings and, turning up the
depth, more extreme stuff
including some very out of
control sick-sounding repeats.
To really change the sound of
the repeats you can add another
effect pedal via the send and
return jacks – you can get cool
musical results with a pitch
shifter set for an octave up.
Tap tempo, of course, is a
great asset, especially onstage if
you need to keep in time on the
fly; more tactile control is
available if you plug in an
expression pedal, especially to
control the feedback amount,
and wavering around the
tipping point where the repeats
take off into self-oscillation and
endless sustain.
Verdict
While the Ring Thing may
seem a little complex to set up,
that complexity is the key to its
sonic versatility and the nuance
that’s available when dialling-in
business – it’s especially
effective when set to an octave
up. Finally, there’s plenty of
weirdness on tap by turning up
the filter/rate knob, selecting a
waveform and modulating your
pitch shifting.
Deluxe Memory Boy
The Deluxe Memory Boy
(DXMB) is a bucket-brigade
analogue delay at heart, but
comes equipped with three
extra operational features to set
it apart. Firstly there’s Tap
Tempo with a dedicated
footswitch and a choice of six
note divisions. Secondly there’s
the possibility of adding an
expression pedal to control a
choice of four parameters, and
thirdly you get a send/return
effects loop, so you can add
another pedal into the feedback
loop if you want.
Six knobs control the basic
delay functions. There’s a gain
knob to set the pedal’s input up
for various signals and a blend
knob to set the ratio of dry to
effected sound. Delay and
feedback knobs set the delay
time and number of repeats
respectively, while modulation
can be added to the repeats by a
rate knob and a depth knob that
adds increasing amounts of
either triangle or square wave
modulation. The rate knob (in
combination with a button
push) can also be used to reduce
the low-frequency content of
the repeats.
Two presses of the tap button
will set the delay time. The
DXMB interprets the time
between the taps to be a quarter
note and sets the time
accordingly, unless the tap
divide function is active to
divide the tap tempo to create
shorter delay times in sync with
it. A front panel button (with
LED indicators) sets this and
gives you the choice of dotted
a sound and, of course, you do
have the presets, which means
that there’s no need to worry
about any knob tweaking
onstage – all of that can be
done beforehand at home or in
the rehearsal room. It might
not be a pedal you’d use in
every song, but the Ring Thing
is versatile sonic resource – a
schizophrenic stompbox that
can make your guitar nasty,
metallic and industrial or, with
low settings of the blend knob,
sprinkle some sparkly fairy
dust on it.
Were the Deluxe Memory
Boy just to feature the
standard analogue delay with
modulation, as made popular
by the original Memory Man,
then it would be a fine-
sounding value-for-money
pedal, but the extra features
put it into another league – one
inhabited by pedals that
usually cost a lot more. It’s a
definite Guitarist Choice.
GIT330.rev_ehx 119 19/5/10 5:12:49 pm