Premier Guitar | 10 years ago
Read the review: http://bit.ly/FreeTheToneFlightTimeDelay
Analog fixated as we can be, it’s easy to forget the days when digital technology was hailed as a triumphant savior. “Hmmph!” we said back in the ’80s as we chucked our obsolete Boss DM2s into waste bins and set to mimicking bands like Mr. Mister, both sonically and sartorially.
Many of us rethought the merits of digital (along with our personal fashion decisions) and returned to the charms of analog delays, and “digital” became a dirty word for many. But the Flight Time from Japan’s Free The Tone reminds us how much potential there is in digital delays—especially when the echo-shaping power that used to take up a rack space has been reduced to the size of a double pedal. This little pedal does a lot.
There aren’t any knobs on the Flight Time’s faceplate—most controls use small pushbuttons instead. But that doesn’t mean that programming the unit requires a voyage down a logarithmic rabbit hole. In fact, parameter adjustment is very intuitive.
The faceplate is organized in sections: The top row is home to controls like mix (labeled “delay”), feedback, and output level. The latter allows the user to add up to 3dB to a preset—handy if you want delayed solos to really pop. (If you’re shy, you can lower the volume instead). The next section contains controls for filtering and modulation and adjusting note subdivisions (from whole notes to sixteenths, with dotted and triplet options along the way). The second row controls preset banks, MIDI, delay time (which can also be set via BPM adjustment), and the master up/down and write controls. A third level has on/off switches for trail (spillover), loop controls, delay phase, and the BPM analyzer mic. The bottom left pop switch does triple duty for effect bypass, loop stop, and preset-down scrolling. The one on the right is for tap tempo, starting loops, and preset-up scrolling.
To continue reading the review, visit: http://bit.ly/FreeTheToneFlightTimeDelay
