Boss DM-101 Delay Machine

Everything in this thing is superb, from build quality to sound qlty and expresiveness. I am more keen on analog type delays than any other and this thing just makes it for me, in my opinion it goes beyond the actual analog delays, avoiding the excessive sonic degradation at longer delay times. It also works wonderfully for soloing as repeats do not get in the way. In general repeats sound super musical to my ears. When put it into oscillation it just sounds gorgeous. I have definitely found the delay that works for me.

I have a line 6 pod go which I absolutely love but there are occasions when I put together a signal chain and run out of DSP and can’t get all the pedals I want. This led me to buy some external pedals to help free up some blocks on the pod go.

For this reason I was in the market for an analog delay pedal and was looking at the boss dm-2. Needless to say a few clicks later and I came across the DM-101.

What the mad scientists at boss have done is create a monster: a true analog delay with a digital control system which means all the warm goodness of analog delay with the convenience of custom presets and easy switching between banks with a dedicated foot switch.

It offers 12 delay modes, and tape mode and pattern both offer a further 10 modifications to the delay mode. My favourite is hard to pick but I love the tape mode which emulates a tape delay. It gives such a rich warm ethereal delay - think the most famous four notes in guitar history (shine on you crazy diamond) yet somehow even more psychedelic. Just a beautiful wash of sound. Together with the modulation control it is magnificent.

Switch it over to doubling+delay, turn delay time to max and leave intensity and volume at 12 o‘clock, and strike up some Metallica „hero of the day“, and it’s like a backing synth appears out of nowhere and carries you off into another realm.

Oh and before I forget: the vintage mode is basically the boss dm-2. I simply plug this into the effects loop of my pod go and I have tone for days.

Perhaps it’s singular shortcoming is that there are only 4 preset slots available to save all those delicious tones (the only reason I gave it 4 stars for features).

Is it a lot of money? Sure. But all you have to do is read the spec sheet and you’ll understand why. My sense is that this is going to be a modern classic and I‘m happy to be getting in on the ground floor.