Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay review – a dynamic delay that lets you wire it up how you want it
$329/£299/€272, gamechangeraudio.com
Don’t ever stop being weird, Gamechanger. Eight years after stealing the show at NAMM 2017 with the Plus Pedal, this Latvian company is still going all-out for radicalness. And in the case of the Auto Series, that means three stompboxes – a delay, a reverb and a chorus – that each have a patchbay and a set of cables for customising the circuit.
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This, then, is a stereo delay pedal that thinks it’s a synth module. So if you like the idea of creating unique sounds where different aspects of the effect are controlled by playing dynamics or pitch – or possibly both – then things are about to get interesting. And if you don’t? Well, it could still be fun. In parts.
Image: Press
Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay – is it easy to use?
Relax – it doesn’t have to be bamboozling. Ignore the left footswitch, focus on the four full-size knobs in the green section, and you can lower yourself gently into the world of the Auto Delay without fear of setting fire to your brain. Because, to start with at least, this is a straightforward stereo echo generator.
Those knobs control delay level, tone, time and repeats (feedback), while a three-way slider lets you set the stereo panning – none, 50 per cent or full ping-pong – and another flicks between tape, analogue and digital modes. Easy – but brace yourself, because that’s where the simple stuff ends.
With the ‘auto’ footswitch engaged, the idea is to use the cables to set up secondary settings (adjusted via the mini-knobs) that will kick in according to the level or pitch of your playing. For example, patch from ‘dynamics’ to ‘level’ and you can make the delay get louder when the input signal hits a certain threshold; or link ‘pitch’ to ‘repeats’ and you can send it into cascading feedback whenever you go up the neck.
There are two patch outputs from the dynamic section, and two from pitch, so you’re free to set up multiple parameter changes at the same time – and you can of course choose the levels at which these changes happen. Sound fiddly? It is, and the manual is too wordy to be much help, but it’s mostly quite intuitive once you’ve cracked the concept.
Image: Press
Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay – what does it sound like?
In theory, you could buy this pedal as a standard delay and use the patchbay as a place to keep your mid-gig Snickers. If you do this, you’re unlikely to have any complaints (apart from getting chocolate on your fretboard); it does the job well, in mono or stereo. It’s a pity there’s no DMM-style modulation option, though – this might have been more useful than the three-way mode switch, which largely duplicates what the tone control is doing.
But it’s the dynamic effects that have brought you this far – so are they any good? On the whole, yes. There are obvious use cases for some setups: having the repeats get quieter when you’re playing low notes could be a nice way to stop things getting mushy, while toning down the brightness on louder lead breaks might prevent an overload of percussive hits. More creatively, you can also use delay time changes to create wild pitch-sweeps as you cross the threshold.
Sometimes the results of a new patching arrangement turn out to be less musically appealing than you might expect, and I’ve a nagging feeling that, for some players, the fun won’t last very long beyond the initial exploration. But Gamechanger must be used to that by now – it’s the price you pay for being weird.
Image: Press
Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay – should I buy it?
The Auto Delay doesn’t catapult you into unknown sonic territory in the way that some of Gamechanger’s previous efforts do – the advanced effects take a bit of dialling in, and can be more subtle in practice than they might sound in theory. So this is possibly the company’s narrowest niche yet… but if you want to add dynamism to your delay sounds, and don’t mind a bit of hands-on tinkering, it’s a unique piece of kit.
Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay alternatives
The Rainger FX Echo-X (£229) packs some similarly ingenious functionality into a titchy format, with help from the included Igor foot controller. More straightforward multi-mode digital delays include the Walrus Audio Mako Series MkII D1 ($399.99/£379) and Boss DD-200 ($274.99/£249).
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