PROVIDENCE
CHRONO DELAY
DLY- 4
Rating:
Buy If...
you crave vintage sounds
but need modern features.
BY JOE CHARUPAKORN
Skip If...
you don’t mind imprecise delay times.
While its products are well regarded by pro players like Carl Verheyen and
Jon Herrington, Japan-based Providence is
still relatively unknown in the States. I first
heard about the company through Matt
Schofield, who touted its SOV- 2 as the best
overdrive he’d ever come across.
Since 2009, however, Providence has
been distributed by Godlyke—a partnership that’s likely to elevate the brand’s
visibility significantly. Providence is also
bound to benefit from superb pedals like
the Chrono Delay DLY- 4, which replaces
their cult-classic DLY- 83, but also adds
many significant upgrades that enable you
tailor a very vintage analog delay sound
with superb modern control and fine-tuning capabilities.
Feature Packed
The DLY- 4 crams a lot of control into a
relatively small pedal. In addition to the
usual controls—Mix, Feedback, and Time
(from 1 to 2700 ms)—there are knobs for
Echo Hardness, which lets you adjust the
delayed signal’s mids and highs, and Beat
Split, which lets you choose the rhythmic
subdivision of the repeats. There’s an LED
readout in the middle of the pedal that
displays the delay time, and just under
the lights are two toggle switches that let
you choose between having the delay time
represented as beats-per-minute or mil-
liseconds and selecting either A/B or Tap
tempo modes. At the bottom of the pedal
are two footswitches—On/Off and A/B or
Tap. A slim, power-strip-friendly 12-volt
DC wall wart is included.
Robust Repeats
I tested the DLY- 4 using a Gibson ES-339
and a Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb—running
the delay both in front of the amp and
through its effects loop. In either setting the
pedal is quiet and rich sounding.
Sustained bends with long delay
and tripped-out, Edge-style rhyth-
mic shenanigans, were both lush and
extremely warm and clear. A twist of
the Echo Hardness knob, sharpened
the repeats making them more defined
and almost percussive. It’s a little like
being able to move between the quali-
ties of a tape delay setting to a digital
sound with the turn of a single knob.
The beats-per-minute time display
option is a major convenience. Right
off the bat, I was able to sync delays
in time without having to convert ms
to bpms, pull out a timing chart, or
tap in a tempo in hope that it regis-
tered correctly. Once I set a tempo,
the Beat Split knob made it a breeze
to get the exact rhythmic subdivisions
I wanted from the repeats. For exam-
ple, if you want both quarter-note
Providence
Street $449
providence-ltd.com
CLICKHere… or scan this QR code with a mobile device to hear audio clips of this pedal at premierguitar.com/nov2011.
and eighth-note repeats at 120 bpm, you
could leave the Beat Split set for quarter-notes and save delay times of 120 and 240
bpm, which will sound like eighth-notes
at 120 bpm. Flicking two knobs is much
easier than calculating, say, how many ms
are needed to generate 16ths at 100 bpm.
And the more precise subdivisions can be
quite effective when used in conjunction
with the harder and more percussive Echo
hardness settings.
The A/B preset memory allows you to
store and recall two different delay time
settings—great for moving from slapback
to a long delay during a single song, for
instance. Parameters like Beat Split or
Feedback cannot be stored so you’ll have to
have some familiarity with how to best set
them for a given delay time to retain the
super-precise subdivision settings that are
such a strong suit of the Chrono Delay.
The Verdict
For most players, analog delays are the
standard for sonic quality—even if it
means trading precision for ballpark delay
time settings. The DLY- 4 pulls off the
considerable warmth of the classics, but
also allows precise and easy control of delay
times. And although it carries a hefty street
price of $449, and lacks stereo output or
fancy features like modulation, if optimum
delay time control and analog sounds are
what you need in a pedal, the Providence
Chrono is hard to top.
