Guyatone MD3 Micro Digital Delay

Here's a short review of the Guyatone MD3 Micro Digital delay as used with pedal steel guitar. This thing is TINY! It has just one input and one output so it's not a stereo delay. The echoes it produces are pretty clean but not totally pristine. I'd say they are cleaner than the original Ibanez AD-9 but muddier than most digital delays I've tried such as the Boss DD-20. As such it producees some pretty smooth sounding delays that don't totally stand out and tend to blend well with the original dry sound. The provided controls are LEVEL, DELAY TIME and FEEDBACK and they work the same as on other delay units. A 3 position delay selector switch selects between short, medium and long delay ranges for the Delay Time control allowing for 30-2600 milliseconds of delay time.

The ON/OFF footswitch is silent and has no "click" it allowing easy on/off selection. A red LED tells you when the delay is active. I didn't try this with a battery, but powered it with a Danelectro DA-1 "zero hum" AC adapter. There is no noticeable hum in this setup with the delay on or off.

I paid $75 for the MD3 used on ebay and $10 each for a 2 pack of the Danelectro DA-1 on ebay.

The small size of this unit makes it easy to pack away and it doesn't take up much floor space. If does not have a full bypass, direct connection when off, but the loss in tone (highs) is so low that I have been leaving it in line all the time. Reviews of this unit seem to praise it's sound while knocking the tight fit of the battery and the less than average reliability. My unit arrived in one piece and I've had no problem removing and fitting the battery back in. While diminuitive in size, the unit's case, controls and switches seem very sturdy for my use.

Some pictures and sound samples are provided below. All audio samples use the exact settings in the pictures below and include a Boss RV-5 set on Plate reverb between the foot volume and MD3.





Audio Samples:


Sample1 Sample2 Sample3 Sample4 Sample5



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