AD9 Analog Delay
FP-777 Flying Pan
The beauty of a great analog bucket-brigade
delay is that milliseconds and tap tempo and
all the concerns of the digital delay world
are no longer of consequence. You can set
the knobs wherever and it somehow, almost
magically, just works, providing sweet
musical ambience that complements any
context. The Ibanez AD9 is just such a delay.
Nearly as iconic as the Tube Screamer, the
AD9 has reigned as one of the most beloved
of Ibanez’s 9 Series effects since its release in
1982. Like all bucket-brigade echo boxes it
has simple controls, but that’s all it needs to
conjure anything from brilliant, rich slapback
tones, to spaceship landing sounds, and
even subtle, reverb-like ambiences. It has
a mono input and dual outputs, such that
wet and dry outs can potentially be routed
to separate amplifiers for super-spacious
sonic landscapes. Another nice thing about
the AD9 is that it is quite common (though
no longer in production, sadly) and readily
available for small sums of money.
The early history of Ibanez effects is rife
with oddball noise boxes, but perhaps the
most wonderful of these is the FP-777 Flying
Pan. With its curious butterfly/hand graphic,
less-than-straightforward control set, and
seemingly nebulous intent, the Flying Pan has
more than its fair share of eccentric charm.
Luckily it also happens to sound pretty great.
Though it may be difficult to determine
at first glance, it is a stereo auto-panner
and phaser, with independent switches for
engaging each effect, and a quartet of knobs
for dialing in phase speed, phase depth,
panning speed, and whether the phaser
effect is spread across the stereo spec