Boss SDE-3000D Dual Digital Delay Pedal

Roland/Boss need to learn how to write a manual.I found it convoluted and not worth my time to figure out..As the product does not beat my aging Eventide Time Factor.(TF much easier to navigate and offers so much more and sounds excellent still)To much hype around a product that doesn't offer all that much variety and a really steep learning curve..Had to fire the Boss.....

The BOSS SDE-3000D is represented as a pedalboard version of the Roland SDE-3000, which was released in 1983 and was a popular rack-mounted digital delays used by guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and others. At the original street price of around $500, I find this pedal hard to recommend to anyone but a very specific niche of players. However, after BOSS released a stripped-down compact version of this pedal (the SDE-3 Dual Delay), BOSS (or BOSS vendors) made the curious - but appreciated - move of slashing the full-size pedal to essentially 50% off, and it can now be found everywhere from Guitar Center to Amazon for around $250 U.S.The pedal itself is quite large, but comparable to BOSS's "500" series of pedal, including the DD-500 (more on that in a moment). It also has extremely high power draw, which I believe is around 400 to 500 mA, though BOSS does supply a bulky power supply with your purchase. Definitely keep that in mind, however, if you plan on using this on a pedalboard. I power mine with the Fender Engine Room LVL5, and there are a few other good options that can put out that much current, but many standard power supplies cannot.Essentially, the SDE-3000D is two delays in one. You can turn them on or off independently (which is convenient), or you can run them in series or parallel. Some players are into complicated stereo rigs, including EVH's "Wet-Dry-Wet" setup, but that's not really my thing. Even if you are running the pedal in mono (which means a guitar into a single amp, like the vast majority of setups), you still can use the pedal as a "dual delay". The delay times can be set independently and set by milliseconds or synced to a tempo (with a tap tempo button).While I am not a huge 80's metal fan, I do like and use the "dotted eighth plus quarter note" rhythmic delays popularized by U2's The Edge. The SDE-3000D can do this passably well. However, I find the modulation a bit warbly and difficult to tame. Generally, if you are not used to digital delays from this era, you need to completely re-calibrate your understanding of the output, feedback, and modulation settings. The values go from 0 to 100, but I am frequently using settings at 10 or less and still getting very noticeable (and even aggressive) delays. Once you sort out how to set things up, there are some great delay sounds in the SDE-3000D, and I do appreciate that these are different sounds than I am getting from the handful of other delay options I have in modelers and delay pedals.However, in keeping with the 80's retro aesthetic, there are some frustrations and compromises with the experience of using the pedal. I don't mind the old-school display at all, but because the pedal does so many different things, it is rarely clear what you are seeing on the display. For example, if I activate Delay #2 with my foot, the screen may be showing me settings for Delay #1, unless I press the button on the right side to change the display. Also, all of the delay times and settings are edited with push buttons, not knobs. Many of these things were logical on a mounted rack device with the limitations of 80's technology, but may just feel like nuisance to a user in 2024 with the device on the ground.Overall, this is a good, but not necessarily great device from BOSS. It's made extremely well, as BOSS products always are, and with the product heavily discounted, it's a reasonable value for a very specific type of delay. But if you are looking for a "Desert Island" pedal to cover different styles of delay, I would much sooner look at something like BOSS' own DD-200 (which I have) or DD-500, or a different brand, like the EHX Canyon.