Guitar Gear

As many might know, one of the first places I test out new gear is at my weekly church gig. Church services are especially great for testing gear that you normally use clean or with just a little grit, and it proved to be a great venue for testing out the Time Machine.

All I can say about the Time Machine is, “Wow!” It really was made for being run in front of an amp! I know that some people don’t like it because it can’t be used in an effects loop, but in front of an amp, it works great! Don’t know how VOX did it, but it doesn’t seem vary the output gain – at least as far as I could tell – so it didn’t give me pulsing grind when I set my amp at just the edge of breakup. That really blew me away because I was concerned about that happening as I always set my amp on the edge of breakup, so increases in gain, whether due to volume knob or attack will give me some light dirt. Amazingly enough, the Time Machine didn’t push my amp over the edge at all.

That gave me tons of confidence to really experiment with the pedal. As with most church services with contemporary christian music, the flavors of songs change throughout the service. This provides ample opportunity to test gear. Whether used in smooth ballads or rockin’ with some slapback, the Time Machine delivered on all fronts. I was particularly impressed with using the Time Machine on slow songs where I could dial in a real long delay (it can get a delay time of up to 5800 seconds). Setting the feedback to about noon and the level to around 11am, I was able to get this great ambient, ethereal tone with an approximate metronome setting around 58-62 bpm by using the tap tempo toggle.

I dig the tap tempo on the Time Machine. It’s always on, so making midstream tempo adjustments is simply a breeze. In one of our songs this evening, the group sped up for some reason, and it really threw off my delay tone. But a quick tempo adjustment – while I was still playing, mind you – got my delay back in sync. That was so incredible!

As I mentioned in my review of the Time Machine, I’ve been waiting for a couple of years to get a new delay after I gave my old DD-5 away. I’m glad I took the time to wait. The Time Machine is the bomb!