Ibanez AD9 Analog Delay

Once again, a highly sought-after delay is on today’s featured pedal menu, because delays are awesome, as you should well know by now. In a world full of overpriced “vintage” gear, there are still a few delay pedals who can boast that they are classics, they sound incredible and their prices are not even close to wiping out your bank account, as some others can be. The one we’re discussing today is that big, beautiful pink masterpiece, the AD9 Analog Delay from Ibanez.

Delay Time: up to 500ms, which gives you the ability to do doubling, echoes, slap back and more, all with the turn of only ONE knob, which is groovy. Delay Level: mixes your delayed sound in with your clean sound, enough said there. Repeats: amount of times the delay effect is heard after a note or chord is played, lots of tonal options here as well. These three controls are easy to use, and make for an incredibly useable delay with not overdoing the options.

One thing to talk about with the AD9, however, is the difference between the older models and the newer reissues. While most of us (myself included) probably don’t care as much, since the newer ones sound great on their own, some delay fanatics will notice that the reissues don’t allow for as many internal options as the vintage units do. While you can adjust the self-oscillation on the new ones, the separate bias adjustments for the trimpots on the internal chips are not available, nor is the balance trimpot, either. If that matters to do, I suggest digging a little more into it to make sure you’re getting exactly what you want (and remember, kids, any internal tampering will void your warranty!!).

Super simple. Wicked tasty. Great prices. Small pedalboard footprint. Analog, analog, analog… Not much else needs to be said about this gorgeous little off-mauve beauty, except maybe that you should go out and try to find one STAT to see for yourself. For less than a hundred bucks (most of the time), you can sound like you own your very own tape echo machine, and very few people would be able to tell the difference. You know, Ibanez makes a lot of other great gear, too, so maybe you should also go check out their website, and see what else lies in store for you…