I have a line 6 pod go which I absolutely love but there are occasions when I put together a signal chain and run out of DSP and can’t get all the pedals I want. This led me to buy some external pedals to help free up some blocks on the pod go.
For this reason I was in the market for an analog delay pedal and was looking at the boss dm-2. Needless to say a few clicks later and I came across the DM-101.
What the mad scientists at boss have done is create a monster: a true analog delay with a digital control system which means all the warm goodness of analog delay with the convenience of custom presets and easy switching between banks with a dedicated foot switch.
It offers 12 delay modes, and tape mode and pattern both offer a further 10 modifications to the delay mode. My favourite is hard to pick but I love the tape mode which emulates a tape delay. It gives such a rich warm ethereal delay - think the most famous four notes in guitar history (shine on you crazy diamond) yet somehow even more psychedelic. Just a beautiful wash of sound. Together with the modulation control it is magnificent.
Switch it over to doubling+delay, turn delay time to max and leave intensity and volume at 12 o‘clock, and strike up some Metallica „hero of the day“, and it’s like a backing synth appears out of nowhere and carries you off into another realm.
Oh and before I forget: the vintage mode is basically the boss dm-2. I simply plug this into the effects loop of my pod go and I have tone for days.
Perhaps it’s singular shortcoming is that there are only 4 preset slots available to save all those delicious tones (the only reason I gave it 4 stars for features).
Is it a lot of money? Sure. But all you have to do is read the spec sheet and you’ll understand why. My sense is that this is going to be a modern classic and I‘m happy to be getting in on the ground floor.
