HARDWIRE DELAY/LOOPER (review)

[afroman]

Well, in my continued quest for a great pedalboard, I bought an MXR Carbon Copy about 2 months ago. It's an amazing sounding delay pedal, simple but good. With that said, after a couple of gigs I decided I needed a delay with tap tempo capability.

Though about the TC Nova Delay but I think it's too expensive for what I need and I wanted a small footprint pedal. I started reading about the new Hardwire series and found a used Delay/Looper, so I purchased it.

Got it today and after about 2 hours...

Likes:
- Great sound in every setting
- Very versatile with the different modes plus the "Repeats" and "Time" knobs.
- Tap tempo works very well
- The looper is an added plus (still need to practice more to get the timing perfect)
- Inexpensive for all if offers
- Size is just a bit bigger than regular Boss pedals
- Very good headroom
- Selectable "trails" On/Off swith
- Very easy to access the inside of the pedal (no srews needed)
- No loss of bass whatsoever

Dislikes:
- To engage Tap Tempo function you need to press the pedal down for 2 seconds (a separate tempo swith would be great but would make the pedal bigger too).
- In tap tempo mode, you can't go straight to regular mode unless you press the pedal for 3 seconds to go out of Tap Tempo mode. This would make it difficult to transfer from Tap mode to bypass or non-tap tempo mode.
- Doesn't do the crazy oscillations like the Carbon Copy.

Overall:

I bought the Hardwire thinking of getting rid of the CC if it was good; well it is. I like the Hardwire a lot but I'm keeping the CC too, just for the oscillations and simplicity.

Oh well, anyhow I just wanted to share.

PS. Here's a very bad pic straight from my Mac camera

 

[Ryan Mohr]

Cool review. How are the tape, analog, and lo-fi simulations? Just curious, why did you need tap tempo for gigs?

 

[afroman]

I think the Tap Tempo enables me to use it on the fly and sometimes in improv jams I do with my cover band. I think it gives me a little more versatility.

Tape, analog and lo-fi are my fav modes by far. The Analog and Tape are very smooth but have different time repeats if you leave to knobs set and change between them (dunno why). The Lo-fi is great but the first repeat is louder than the original note.

 

[theunknowndude]

sorry to dig this up but I have heard that you need the pedal first in the chain to use more than one loop? any confirmations of this???

 

[Chronicle]

sorry to dig this up but I have heard that you need the pedal first in the chain to use more than one loop? any confirmations of this???

No. You do not need it first, delays usually go last.

 

[afroman]

Yes, delays normally are last or near the end of the chain.

 

[Swift713]

sorry to dig this up but I have heard that you need the pedal first in the chain to use more than one loop? any confirmations of this???

I don't understand this question. This pedal only does one loop regardless of it's position in a signal chain. It's a delay with a tape loop function not a bypass loop if that's what you're thinking.

 

[theunknowndude]

I don't understand this question. This pedal only does one loop regardless of it's position in a signal chain. It's a delay with a tape loop function not a bypass loop if that's what you're thinking.

no no no sorry to cause confusion

just one of the youtube video's the guy was saying he had trouble to get it to do more than one loop unless it was first in the chain,... which didn't make sense to me as (obviously) delays go on last so u can delay all the chain...

just wanted to make sure I was getting all the information regarding using it as a looper cos that would have been the make or break part! don't mind me,... im off to purchase now that has been cleared up
thanks everyone