# maxon ad999 delay pedal



## dino (Jan 6, 2009)

Hi Folks , I have the chance to buy a used maxon ad999 delay pedal. Is anybody here familar here with this pedal and what would this pedal be worth used in excellent condition as the seller described it?
Thanks , Dino


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## Shiny_Beast (Apr 16, 2009)

I like mine. I haven't tried much to compare it to. I use it in font of an overdriven amp. 

It died on me the other day tho, it's off at Maxon right now, we'll see how that goes.


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## 2manyGuitars (Jul 6, 2009)

I like mine as well. I use it mostly for clean stuff.

New, I think they're over $350 plus tax. I seem to recall paying around $220 used.


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

I owned this pedal briefly a while back. I honestly couldn't understand why this pedal was/is so expensive. All I will say is compare it to other less expensive analogue delays before you buy.


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## 2manyGuitars (Jul 6, 2009)

Rugburn said:


> I honestly couldn't understand why this pedal was/is so expensive. All I will say is compare it to other less expensive analogue delays before you buy.


I agree, when bought new this pedal is very expensive. The main reason is try finding another analog delay with almost a full second of delay.

If you can get a used one for around $200, there's not much out there in that price range.


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## dino (Jan 6, 2009)

*battery in the maxon ad999*

I posted already on here about the chance to buy a maxon ad999 delay pedal. Does anybody know if this pedal uses a battery or does it just run on an adapter ?

Thanks , Dino


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When it was first reviewed in Guitar Player, there was a gut shot of one. If you look inside the AD999, you'll know why it was so expensive. That sucker had 8 bucket brigade chips (now easily replaced by two) with two trimpots per chip. The labour costs for adjusting it and setting it up were easily half the cost of the pedal. Plus it is a heavy sucker and large, which means more packaging and shipping costs.


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## Shiny_Beast (Apr 16, 2009)

mine's adapter only


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## seanmj (May 9, 2009)

I really like mine... though it's a very specific sound that it has. If you're looking for Edge (U2) style repeats... this isn't really the delay pedal for it.

The repeats have a lot of high end rolled off as there is some built in eq on the repeats.. that's what gives it the sound. The repeats are big and warm.... really great for thickening up your sound without the echo getting too obtrusive.

One of the main reasons I bought this pedal was for the full second of delay time... actually I think it's just under a second but pretty close. The self oscillation feature is nice too.

I paid $240 for mine used... still a good deal as you would probably pay almost $500 for it new when you factor in tax.

Another analog delay pedal to check out is the byoc one. I think it may even have up to 2 seconds of delay time in it. You can have it built for you... or you can buy the kit and assemble it yourself. Either way... it would be cheaper than a new Maxon 999.

I also have heard nice clips of the Joe Satriani Time Machine Delay pedal... not analog... but voiced very similar. Plus it can give you transparent repeats as it is digital.

Sean Meredith-Jones
http://www.seanmeredithjones.com


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## bduguay (Jul 15, 2009)

seanmj said:


> Another analog delay pedal to check out is the byoc one. I think it may even have up to 2 seconds of delay time in it. You can have it built for you... or you can buy the kit and assemble it yourself. Either way... it would be cheaper than a new Maxon 999.


A BYOC Analog Delay offers anywhere from 800ms to 1200ms depending on calibration and how much clock noise you can deal with.
And yes you're right Sean, a pre-built kit from me is around $200.00
B.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When Tim Larwill was planning out the Retro-Sonic Delay, he bought himself an AD999, just to see how they did things. Although the Retro-Sonic unit attempts to mimic the sonic attributes of the DM-2/DM-3, it borrows some clocking tricks from the AD999. I cannot speak to how similar they sound. Both the AD999 and the Retro-Sonic (and many others from the sounds of it) use 8192 stages of delay. the AD999 uses an octet of MN3007s while the RS uses a pair of MN3205s (possibly V3205SDs these days). If 4096 stages can get you 400msec or so with reasonable bandwidth (though nothing you'd call hi-fi), then 8192 stages can get you 600ms with even better bandwidth. It could get you even *more* delay time (as this unit, designed by buddy Mike Irwin shows: http://www.modcan.com/modhtml/delay.html ), but you'd need to have better filtering, and be willing to tolerate very low bandwidth at delays longer than 800msec.


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