Home › Forums › Vintage EHX › Vintage BLUE Deluxe Memory Man [yes, WITH modulation]
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June 25, 2009 at 4:38 pm #78479DemolitionColorSchemeMember
Hey guys! [first post! – nice to be on the board]
I’ve found an old Blue Deluxe Memory Man and bought it today. You can see it here:
– http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/DemolitionColorScheme/BlueVintageDeluxeMemoryMan.jpg
I was really wondering what’s up with these units? Are these transitional models? Perhaps one of the very first Deluxe Memory Men? It’s not the blue one that you can see here, obviously:
– http://electroharmonix.ronsound.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=45I’m really curious about this. I’ve always loved my older DMM, it’s a bigger chassis one, not with a power chord but not a DMM XO [these are, personally, to my ears, inferior to the original ones]. I really had to get this as a lover of the DMM. It’s my all-time favorite delay. Me, as being a delay freak, this says a LOT!
But .. I’ve noticed, with this unit, that it reacts very differently than the one I’ve always used. It’s darker, it’s pre-amp breaks up sooner, it’s dirtier and it’s a bit more noisy. Its modulation is also much stronger than the one I’ve got. The dials are VERY sensitive as well. When I dial the feedback to 10 O’ clock, it goes into oscillation pretty fast. With my other one this happens when having it over 12 O’ clock and a bit. This feature is really nice since this enables you to have pad-like textures underneath my playing. It’s harder with this unit.
The delay time is 550ms though, whilst my other one only has 356. I know this is a common ‘problem’ with the DMM’s.
My blue one also has a bit of clocknoise on higher delay times and when I engage the chorus. It’s not that apparant, but it’s definitely there.I also had some feedback when I had it in my FX loop, like a static feedback, very weird ..
The blue DMM is now underway to a friend of mine to have it modded a bit, true bypass etc, since the leakage of the signal when ‘bypassed’ was pretty obvious.So, I’m wondering. What are the differences and what’s the story with these units? I’d love to have an answer!
Cheers from the Netherlands,
Michel.June 25, 2009 at 8:04 pm #98386TheCapitalJMemberI don’t know the answer but thats one sweet memory man.
June 25, 2009 at 11:04 pm #98394ghostMemberMy best guess, as I’ve seen quite a few Blue w/ Modulation units – is that they were the first DMMs w/ Chorus/Vibrato before switching to the black and red color scheme.
As for the sound… My experience is also that DMMs all sound a bit different. Although you can usually count on the older ones breaking up sooner, and dirtier, and being a little “wilder” sounding over all. I have a black face with AC cord attached (year ?), but it sounds fantastic in it’s primitive ways.
I’ve played with a few of the newer units, and while still sounding lush and beautiful, they bored me compared to mine.
June 25, 2009 at 11:11 pm #98397DemolitionColorSchemeMemberQuote:My best guess, as I’ve seen quite a few Blue w/ Modulation units – is that they were the first DMMs w/ Chorus/Vibrato before switching to the black and red color scheme.Yeah, that’s as far as I guessed it myself, that these were the first units. Interesting.
I wonder how much these are worth? I would definitely presume more than the current ones. I have no clue of how many of these Blue ones there are out there.Quote:As for the sound… My experience is also that DMMs all sound a bit different. Although you can usually count on the older ones breaking up sooner, and dirtier, and being a little “wilder” sounding over all. I have a black face with AC cord attached (year ?), but it sounds fantastic in it’s primitive ways.I’ve played with a few of the newer units, and while still sounding lush and beautiful, they bored me compared to mine.
I can imagine that you like the older ones. To each his own, of course. I personally like to have my DMM a bit cleaner without break-up so it really floats underneath my playing. I often use it in a textural manner.
And yeah, DMM’s are little souls on their own, I’ve never encountered one that sounded exactly like another one.We’ll see how it sounds when it comes back to me after the true bypass mod and some calibration.
June 25, 2009 at 11:26 pm #98399ghostMemberWeird. I’ve always thought it was just EHX using up the 4 knob enclosures. But if you look at it, they’ve pushed the word Man over to make room for the 5th knob, and it clearly says E/C/Vibrato. Probably just using up the ink then – who knows.. (probably EHX Man)
June 26, 2009 at 5:21 am #98416DemolitionColorSchemeMemberQuote:Weird. I’ve always thought it was just EHX using up the 4 knob enclosures. But if you look at it, they’ve pushed the word Man over to make room for the 5th knob, and it clearly says E/C/Vibrato. Probably just using up the ink then – who knows.. (probably EHX Man)EXACTLY. That’s why I’ve been wondering about it .. They’re obviously different enclosures.
June 27, 2009 at 2:12 am #98480Fender&EHX4everModeratorI have one too. It’s my favorite generation of the DMMs. Judging by the look of the circuit board, I’m guessing that it’s one of the earliest generations of the 5knob DMMs, if not the first.
Like your description, mine also has very strong modulation and a longer delay time. Mine does not have any leakage problems, but it does have the standard unity gain problem – that is, the bypass is always louder than the engaged signal.
June 27, 2009 at 5:27 am #98483DemolitionColorSchemeMemberQuote:I have one too. It’s my favorite generation of the DMMs. Judging by the look of the circuit board, I’m guessing that it’s one of the earliest generations of the 5knob DMMs, if not the first.Like your description, mine also has very strong modulation and a longer delay time. Mine does not have any leakage problems, but it does have the standard unity gain problem – that is, the bypass is always louder than the engaged signal.
I see! Do you know which version is the first? Were they also blue? Or are there some black ones that are the first? If so, why are there these blue ones?
About the bypass, you didn’t have it modified to true bypass? This would make it much easier to set it to unity gain.
Mine is at a friends place right now. He’s doing some small upgrades to it; getting it true bypass, switching the AC cord to an adapter so we can reduce hum etc. He’s gonna bias it correctly and recalibrate the unit. I hope it’ll come back good as ever. He did mention that this DMM did have the inferior Panasonic chips. We’ll see how it sounds .. at this moment my newer bigger chassis DMM is the one to beat.
June 27, 2009 at 5:28 am #98484DemolitionColorSchemeMemberBy the way, this is what I got when I contacted EHX:
Quote:Analog delay using Bucket Brigade IC chips was relatively new technology in the 1970’s. Early chips and circuit designs were noisy and had issues with dynamic range. Also, there were variations in delay time and the sound of each unit due to component tolerances. Electro-Harmonix continually incorporated circuit changes and improvements in order to address these issues. At one particular point the delay chip was changed from the SAD1024 to the MN3007 when it became available from Panasonic. The sound of the Deluxe Memory Man changed somewhat because the MN3007 was less noisy, had a better frequency response, and had better dynamic range than the SAD1024. The quicker high frequency rolloff of the SAD1024 gives some people the impression that the older Deluxe Memory Man pedals were “darker” or “warmer” sounding. There is not a whole lot of detailed information on many of the production changes. A lot of this information was lost when Electro-Harmonix went out of business and was liquidated in the middle 1980’s. If you are able to locate schematics of the various versions of the Memory Man series, you will see the changes that were incorporated in order to improve the product.July 1, 2009 at 7:05 pm #98718The EH ManModeratorQuote:He did mention that this DMM did have the inferior Panasonic chips. We’ll see how it sounds .. at this moment my newer bigger chassis DMM is the one to beat.Inferior to what? The Panasonic MN3005 was a better chip than the Reticon SAD1024.
July 1, 2009 at 10:34 pm #98735DemolitionColorSchemeMemberQuote:Quote:He did mention that this DMM did have the inferior Panasonic chips. We’ll see how it sounds .. at this moment my newer bigger chassis DMM is the one to beat.Inferior to what? The Panasonic MN3005 was a better chip than the Reticon SAD1024.
I’m not sure. I’d have to check.
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