Benson Amps - Delay Pedal v2
Please use the tabs below to read through the information about this product.
About
Stocking Benson products has truly been a bucket list item for me, one of those brands I have really admired and hoped I could stock one day, and I'm so proud to say that has finally happened! I first tried their Pre-Amp pedal courtesy of a friend that owned one and was not one bit disappointed. That playing experience has stuck with me ever since, it's a pedal that's on my personal wish list, and a pedal that I've wanted to stock here too!
A personal note here before getting stuck into the full details via Benson themselves! This pedal has been one noted by Benson a few times as being in development, and was also seen on the demo boards at NAMM. So certainly no tightly guarded secret by any means, but something that Chris and his team clearly wanted to be 'perfect' for what they wanted to achieve. I was really excited to plug it in for the first time and I loved it straight away, very intuitive delay to use which is always a good start for me (who tends to be of the mindset of 'if I can't get a good tone with the first few control adjustments then I emotionally check out' hah!). I was initially keen to see if I could get some cool, spacey, post rock delay tones which I most definitely could very easily and very much enjoyed the right hand side footswitch to 'hold' and oscillate the repeats for huge delay swells too. The LFO controls are particularly fun for spacey, shoe-gaze type tones too. As it can achieve those extreme delay tones easily, that does mean more regular and subtle delays, repeats and feedback tones are super achievable, and incredibly usable. But I was particularly shocked by how damn good it's vintage slap-back is, personally the best I've ever capture and was amazing fun to play with. I won't go into more findings and bore you all, there's enough info below to delve into without my ramblings but just wanted to share my thoughts after the very first plug and play, which I loved!
What Benson say...
Let's look at the full details and a bit of a backstory from Chris too -
THE NARRATIVE
The design process was characteristically obsessive and often dysfunctional, so we’ll spare you most of it. Lots of bright people in the industry left their mark in one way or another. Special shout outs to Jack Deville, Bryan Sours and John Snyder. Lessee...after dutifully slogging through the modern bucket brigade scene for a while, we found our paradise in the form of the ubiquitous PT2399. Turns out, when you treat it well, you can get a massive and great sounding delay range out of it. We utilized a combination of gooey compander chip, analog filtering, and extremely careful gain staging (amp designers are decent at that). We hope you love it." - Chris Benson
How to control it
THE MENU
To access LFO waveform and tap division menu, hold down BYPASS for two seconds, then tap TAP/ HOLD once. BYPASS switch toggles between SINE, SQUARE and RANDOM waveforms, which will blink 1, 2 or 3 times respectively. TAP/HOLD switch toggles through QUARTER, DOTTED EIGHTH, and SIXTH- EENTH note tap divisions, and the LED will blink 1, 2 or 3 times (respectively). Hold down BYPASS for two seconds to exit MENU.
SOUND
With Benson's history in tape and bucket brigade echo servicing, they were obviously going to go with the floaty and colorful repeats with a chaotic yet musical degradation. That’s the heart of the thing, the whole point.
RANGE
The Benson Delay goes fast enough to do chorus and vibrato and slap, and slow enough to create blurred and haunted soundscapes, with a whole range of warbly musical sounds in between. 30ms - 1250ms!
ALIENS
Hold down the tap knob to boost feedback for some self oscillation! Perfect for holding notes out, and especially for making alien invasion noises in tandem with the time knob (within a toe’s reach). Works when the feedback knob is up a bit. Does not introduce unwanted clicking sounds into the signal path. Adjustable via internal trim pot.
WARBLE
The Low Frequency Oscillator has a tremendous range of both speed and depth, as well as sine, square and random waveforms. Does warble, seasick, flutter, all the good sounds.
TAP
The Benson Delay has the most accurate tap tempo ever applied to the PT2399 thanks to Bontempo, an open source technology concocted by Antoine Ricoux at Electric Canary, which was then refined and implemented by film colorist Octave Zangs (two geniuses). Each pedal CALIBRATES ITSELF IT’S SO COOL.
SMOOTH
Benson wanted to avoid the more modern issues of delay design; like the digital jaggedness that can come from adjusting the time control on a digitally clocked device, whether analog or a fully digital simula- tion (ever notice that?). In other words, let’s not assume the aforementioned aliens have glitchy space- ships.
V2?
This listing is for a v2 Benson delay. The early batches when this pedal design was released had a detail where there was a slight volume boost when engaged. After the pedal hit the market and feedback began rolling in, it was decided that this wasn't best suited to the general consumer and the pedals have been reworked going forward to remove this volume boost. Leading us to this, the v2 Benson Delay.
Specs/Power
Center Negative 9VDC power supply, 100ma current draw. 2 years warranty excluding modification or damage.
Hear it
Do you have them in stock?
You betcha'. These are in stock, here at James' Home of Tone available for collection and ordering.
Ordering/shipping
Local pickup - If you are local and wish to collect any items or order in advance for collection on a specific day, then you can still place an order online and select local pickup at the checkout. Or drop me a message and I'll reserve the items ready for your visit.
For online ordering and dispatch - In stock, non made to order items are processed and dispatched 4 days a week; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday.
For orders that are placed on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday I have an order cut off time of 14:00GMT (with Royal Mail shipping services only) to allow me chance to process, pack and dispatch your order same day.
For non dispatch days (Saturday, Sunday, & Thursday) there is no order cut-off time, and these will be processed, packed and shipped on the closest following dispatch day.
I will always endeavor to fulfill orders as quickly as I can and if you have specific requirements for a delivery date please do let me know and hopefully I can help.
If you have more queries regarding order placing, processing, fulfillment or general shipping then please see the FAQ page HERE
Please use the tabs below to read through the information about this product.
About
Stocking Benson products has truly been a bucket list item for me, one of those brands I have really admired and hoped I could stock one day, and I'm so proud to say that has finally happened! I first tried their Pre-Amp pedal courtesy of a friend that owned one and was not one bit disappointed. That playing experience has stuck with me ever since, it's a pedal that's on my personal wish list, and a pedal that I've wanted to stock here too!
A personal note here before getting stuck into the full details via Benson themselves! This pedal has been one noted by Benson a few times as being in development, and was also seen on the demo boards at NAMM. So certainly no tightly guarded secret by any means, but something that Chris and his team clearly wanted to be 'perfect' for what they wanted to achieve. I was really excited to plug it in for the first time and I loved it straight away, very intuitive delay to use which is always a good start for me (who tends to be of the mindset of 'if I can't get a good tone with the first few control adjustments then I emotionally check out' hah!). I was initially keen to see if I could get some cool, spacey, post rock delay tones which I most definitely could very easily and very much enjoyed the right hand side footswitch to 'hold' and oscillate the repeats for huge delay swells too. The LFO controls are particularly fun for spacey, shoe-gaze type tones too. As it can achieve those extreme delay tones easily, that does mean more regular and subtle delays, repeats and feedback tones are super achievable, and incredibly usable. But I was particularly shocked by how damn good it's vintage slap-back is, personally the best I've ever capture and was amazing fun to play with. I won't go into more findings and bore you all, there's enough info below to delve into without my ramblings but just wanted to share my thoughts after the very first plug and play, which I loved!
What Benson say...
Let's look at the full details and a bit of a backstory from Chris too -
THE NARRATIVE
The design process was characteristically obsessive and often dysfunctional, so we’ll spare you most of it. Lots of bright people in the industry left their mark in one way or another. Special shout outs to Jack Deville, Bryan Sours and John Snyder. Lessee...after dutifully slogging through the modern bucket brigade scene for a while, we found our paradise in the form of the ubiquitous PT2399. Turns out, when you treat it well, you can get a massive and great sounding delay range out of it. We utilized a combination of gooey compander chip, analog filtering, and extremely careful gain staging (amp designers are decent at that). We hope you love it." - Chris Benson
How to control it
THE MENU
To access LFO waveform and tap division menu, hold down BYPASS for two seconds, then tap TAP/ HOLD once. BYPASS switch toggles between SINE, SQUARE and RANDOM waveforms, which will blink 1, 2 or 3 times respectively. TAP/HOLD switch toggles through QUARTER, DOTTED EIGHTH, and SIXTH- EENTH note tap divisions, and the LED will blink 1, 2 or 3 times (respectively). Hold down BYPASS for two seconds to exit MENU.
SOUND
With Benson's history in tape and bucket brigade echo servicing, they were obviously going to go with the floaty and colorful repeats with a chaotic yet musical degradation. That’s the heart of the thing, the whole point.
RANGE
The Benson Delay goes fast enough to do chorus and vibrato and slap, and slow enough to create blurred and haunted soundscapes, with a whole range of warbly musical sounds in between. 30ms - 1250ms!
ALIENS
Hold down the tap knob to boost feedback for some self oscillation! Perfect for holding notes out, and especially for making alien invasion noises in tandem with the time knob (within a toe’s reach). Works when the feedback knob is up a bit. Does not introduce unwanted clicking sounds into the signal path. Adjustable via internal trim pot.
WARBLE
The Low Frequency Oscillator has a tremendous range of both speed and depth, as well as sine, square and random waveforms. Does warble, seasick, flutter, all the good sounds.
TAP
The Benson Delay has the most accurate tap tempo ever applied to the PT2399 thanks to Bontempo, an open source technology concocted by Antoine Ricoux at Electric Canary, which was then refined and implemented by film colorist Octave Zangs (two geniuses). Each pedal CALIBRATES ITSELF IT’S SO COOL.
SMOOTH
Benson wanted to avoid the more modern issues of delay design; like the digital jaggedness that can come from adjusting the time control on a digitally clocked device, whether analog or a fully digital simula- tion (ever notice that?). In other words, let’s not assume the aforementioned aliens have glitchy space- ships.
V2?
This listing is for a v2 Benson delay. The early batches when this pedal design was released had a detail where there was a slight volume boost when engaged. After the pedal hit the market and feedback began rolling in, it was decided that this wasn't best suited to the general consumer and the pedals have been reworked going forward to remove this volume boost. Leading us to this, the v2 Benson Delay.
Specs/Power
Center Negative 9VDC power supply, 100ma current draw. 2 years warranty excluding modification or damage.
Hear it
Do you have them in stock?
You betcha'. These are in stock, here at James' Home of Tone available for collection and ordering.
Ordering/shipping
Local pickup - If you are local and wish to collect any items or order in advance for collection on a specific day, then you can still place an order online and select local pickup at the checkout. Or drop me a message and I'll reserve the items ready for your visit.
For online ordering and dispatch - In stock, non made to order items are processed and dispatched 4 days a week; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday.
For orders that are placed on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday I have an order cut off time of 14:00GMT (with Royal Mail shipping services only) to allow me chance to process, pack and dispatch your order same day.
For non dispatch days (Saturday, Sunday, & Thursday) there is no order cut-off time, and these will be processed, packed and shipped on the closest following dispatch day.
I will always endeavor to fulfill orders as quickly as I can and if you have specific requirements for a delivery date please do let me know and hopefully I can help.
If you have more queries regarding order placing, processing, fulfillment or general shipping then please see the FAQ page HERE