Tone Report Weekly Issue 144 | Page 14

Boss DM-2 Is there still a reason to get excited about the compact delay box that started it all? I say yes. Even though I own almost every cool delay known to man, the little magenta box still sounds so warm and wonderful. It just sits right in the mix and magically never seems to be off sync with any tempo. I have owned three DM-2 variants at vari ous stages. The coveted MN3005 version was the first on the block and I gigged with it for years. I eventually had to give it back to a friend that let me borrow it and opted for the less desirable MN3205 version when I finally found one. Again the difference in price was huge and it sounded and felt exactly the same, even in an A-B test. The magic in the Boss DM-2 lies in the repeat filtering and collaboration of the circuit. all the mojo of the original in Standard Mode. Plus, I can jack in an expression pedal to control the rate and run it in stereo. Custom mode adds clarity and 500 more milliseconds to the fold. This is a perfect example of echoes from the past oscillating toward the future. It is progression, which is what this increasingly medieval world needs to embrace more of. Just because it is older, does not mean that it is better. I actually interviewed for a job with Boss a few years back and they asked me the ageold question “what would you change about Boss if you could?” I was honest and said the most glaringly obvious thing that sprung to mind—I’d reissue the DM-2. They told me there was no chance because the company ethos is “always look ahead,” which is admirable, but my belief is to keep making a magical tool that everyone still wants to use. Fast forward five years or so and I am looking at the Waza-Craft DM-2W on my board. It still has a place amongst the Strymon, Eventide and Source Audio delays because it does what it does better than anything else. This is because it has character and that character comes from the circuit as a whole, not the individual components. It sports readilyavailable CoolAudio BBD chips and retains 14 TONE TALK // Do Components Matter? A Case-By-Case Study