Delay Pedal choices.

I like analog delay for studio stuff because of it's warmth and depth but playing live I prefer the cut of a digital (DD3). I also have a (Now vintage?) Digitech Double Play pedal that makes its way into things from time to time. Sometimes that effect has just the sound I want for the song.

So as is usually the case with effects, it all depends on what you're doing with it.

Also, you need to hear what you want in your head first and then buy the effect that gets closest to it. The last thing you should do is say "I want a delay to make me sound better" and just buy one, plug it in and see what happens.

I always tell folks to listen to a player you want to emulate, analyze his or her gear and start from there.

The biggest mistake you can make is buying a pedal based on some YouTube video. After I run anything through a New York compressor it sounds a lot better than it did coming out of the amp, lol. I can often hear some post processing in the demo that wasn't in the room when it was being played.

And then also remember that analog delays may not play well with the FOH where they may be adding more ambience, so your guitar can get buried in the mix, again why I use a digital. It sounds a bit harsh onstage but just right out front.

Chuck

I've never been able to find a use for analog delay. Too dark and low-passed to be useable. Something like an Echoplex or a pedal that tries to emulate it is just right- crisp repeats that get "wispy" as they trail, with just a bit of modulation. 

My dream delay is a Belle Epoch Deluxe

my echoplex darkens Ep3 the sound. it does not sound very good with my fender amps but great with my Marshall

Yes. It's easy to forget that magnetic tape was the highest quality recording and replay medium until CD came along BUT only if the tape was of top quality, in excellent condition, and the tape machine was in excellent condition. The best case scenario is truly excellent audio reproduction with a virtually flat frequency response up to 16kHz and zero perceptible pitch modulation. The high end frequency response would drop as signal level increased (which is why people think of tape saturation as "warm" compared to clipping transistors).

But no mechanical devices stay perfect and tape speed fluctuations would eventually become apparent in machines that are not regularly maintained. And as the tape was replayed over and over again, it would start to wear out and degrade, bringing audio drop outs and scratchiness and loss of high frequencies. The worst case scenario was too muddy for music listening and unpleasantly warbly. And vintage echo machines did not sit quietly at home in the living room next to the turntable and radio tuner, so they took quite a beating travelling with the musicians. That's why so many people consider that vintage echo machines had their sweet spot somewhere between the best and worst case scenarios above, because that's what most of the surviving machines sound like. That's what makes tape echos special from today's point of view but also what made the clarity and fidelity of early digital delays special in the 1980s too. 

Oh I know you get it, Rob. I was more thinking of the younger whipper snappers who might not know.

You're amazingly lucky then.   It's also not good for the heads/tape to not maintain it!