Tape Machine Delay

A Mini Delay with A Colossal Sound

Who doesn’t love a good mini pedal?
The real beauty of mini pedals is that they can offer you iconic effects in a smaller casing, allowing for more room on your pedal board. Some manufacturers – Ibanez in particular – like to keep these effects simple, saving their real innovations for the bigger, bulkier beasts. Tone City have taken the opposite approach however and the result is the Tape Machine Delay.
Is it a success?

This Pedal is The Perfect Hybrid

The first thing worth noting about the Tape Machine is that it’s a Hybrid delay pedal. With an analogue dry signal and a digital delay circuit, the Tape Machine Delay really is the best of both worlds. This unique combination allows the pedal to keep your base tone authentic whilst offering the vast delay options that only a digital circuit can provide.
In terms of layout, it’s a simple, 3-knob affair. That might sound limiting, but in this case, it really is all you need. This mini delay offers up to 600ms delay time and sounds beautiful when you run it through a Tube Screamer.

Should You Buy The Tone City Tape Machine Delay?

There are plenty of digital delays out there on the market, many of which offer largely the same product. The Tape Machine is certainly a little crisper than what you’d get from a standard digital delay, but that’s neither a pro nor a con.
In terms of price, there are few pedals that could compete. At $50, this pedal is an absolute steal, and easily as good as some of the more expensive alternatives.

At the end of the day, as always, the final decision will come down to personal taste. Fortunately, here at Tonepedia, you can listen to a wide variety of delay pedals to get a real sense for which sound is right for you.