Boss SDE-3: The Legendary 80s Digital Delay is back
Get EVH's favorite delay in a pedal board-friendly size!
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Don’t we all love and yearn for the SDE-3000? Few other digital delays were as essential and as popular as Eddie’s, they even made a signature version! Today, Boss is shrinking the legendary sound to its popular compact pedal format with the Boss SDE-3.
Boss SDE-3: What’s in it, and what does it sound like?
Visually speaking, Boss went and stayed with the black-and-blue optics of the original as much as the bigger pedal effects of recent years that honor the SDE-3000. The Boss SDE-3 comes in the popular compact form that has practically become a standard in pedal size. In terms of sound, Boss promises that the SDE-3 offer the “original sound” of the SDE-3000.
Judging by the sounds in the product video, they seem to have gotten pretty close to the OG. You get all the swells, buttery slap backs, and swirly, modulated echoes the SDE 3000 was famous for. Boss has also added a couple of modern features that make the BOSS SDE-3 even better.
Ambient soundscapes and more
If you attach an additional foot switch to the SDE-3, you can trigger the hold function. Through this you can create epic soundscapes, not unlike the MXR Layers. In terms of functionality, you get discreet true stereo inputs and outputs. That means that you could, if you wanted to, attach two separated input signals, like a synth and a guitar, and get a separate delay for each.
If you, like most of us, attach mono signal, you can also switch between the stereo mode and a new panning mode which moves the delays around in the stereo field. In addition to the beloved SDE-3000 sound, there is a new offset parameter. With this one, you can easily create a wide stereo signal by offsetting one side’s delay to the other. The parameter allows for the creation of an absolute time difference between 0 and 100 milliseconds in the first half up to the middle position.
In the second half, the offset becomes synchronized to the set or tapped tempo (Boss SDE-3 can be synchronized via TRS-MIDI). The other three controls offer the usual delay parameters: level, feedback and time. Just like the original, there is also an LFO included which you can access to the secondary dials for level and feedback. They’ve also included the famed low-pass filter of the SDE-3000 – only they’ve named it Hi Cut in this iteration.
What does the Boss SDE-3 cost and when is it available?
The Boss SDE-3 is available now at Thomann*, and delivery will take two to three weeks.
More on the new Boss pedal
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