The BOSS DD-3 is a digital effect pedal and is the the updated version of the ‘old school’ Analogue DM-2 which Billy first used to develop his signature sound back in the 1980s.
The Boss DD3 Digital Delay Pedal compact pedal provides a digital delay effect with outstanding quality equivalent to that of a dedicated rack-mount delay unit. In addition to 3 delay time modes, a Delay Time control is furnished, giving you speedy, precise adjustment of delay time continuously within a range of 12.5ms to 800ms. The HOLD function repeats the delay indefinitely.
Billy explains how this pedal became so important to his live sound… ‘This is my go to pedal for subtle delays. When we supported Billy Idol in 1987, on the Whiplash Smile tour in America, I didn’t have any delay pedals and was blown away by Steve Stevens (Billy Idol’s guitarist) in the sound check. He was an amazing guitar player, still is, and there was this little echo after his guitar finished and I was like wow! The delay was there to make the guitar sound bigger and fatter and more impressive. Its not like a classic Echo which is a clear repeat, it’s a cheat on the ear, a bit like the kind of reverb you get in a church as opposed to being in a basement. I learnt that from Steve and very quickly grabbed hold of one of these pedals myself and just messed around with the settings until I found one, at about 800 milliseconds, that works for me. A year later in the studio, Bob Rock, who’s a great musician and engineer, explained the mechanics of this all to me. Another time, producer Ted Templeman told me that that little delay trick was what Eddie Van Halen used on the early Van Halen albums which helped explain why that one guitar sounds so amazingly big.
I’ve ended up using the DD3 ‘cos it gives you that effect in an easily replaceable, robust, very reliable way. When I’m stopping on these with my motorcycle boots, when they’re on airplanes and the back of trucks I don’t want them to break. I use Boss pedals ‘cos they sound great and they’re made well. I could never take something on the road that wasn’t reliable, it would just create incredible headaches.”
BUY ONLINE IN THE U.S. NOW…
Boss Dd-3 Digital Delay Pedal