Roland's first ever digital delay! A piece of history therefore. A truly classic delay unit released in 1981, the same year as the mighty TB-303 & Jupiter-8. This unit just oozes the typical design & build quality of that time when digital was just easing in these stylish semi-analog semi-digital devices, so the SDE-2000 is a digital delay but with a cool retro LED three-digit delay time display and a CV input with which you can vary the delay time from something like a synth's LFO... A well looked after SDE-2000 is truly a joy to behold.
The SDE-2000 utilises an 8-bit processor and 16Kbytes of 12-bit RAM memory to deliver two levels of delay time. In it's 'full bandwidth' mode of 10Hz - 16kHz you get a max 320ms delay time and this can be effectively doubled with the X2 switch so the unit then yeilds a max 640ms but at a reduced bandwidth of 10Hz - 7.2kHz. In either mode the delay time in increased/decreased by using the up/down buttons to step in either direction in single Ms steps... Yes, it's slightly fiddly compared to using a more typical quick reacting delay time knob, but buttoning in exact delay times in milliseconds is easily achieved with the SDE-2000.
The modulaton section allows the SDE-2000 to deliver the usual chorus & flanging type effects but unusually for the time it was made offers a switchable choice of sine or triangle wave, while the time control goes from 0.1Hz to 10Hz with the accompanying depth control simply marked 0-10. The modulation section can be switched out completely as can the delay feedback and the unit also offers a phase reverse switch to invert the delay output signal phase.
Additional features add to the SDE-2000's cool factor. The aforementioned ability to switch OFF delay repeats is achieved using the 'Single Delay' button, and therefore by chaining two SDE-2000's in series with the second unit switched to 'Single Delay' and feeback adjusted on the first unit, you can achieve double the delay time of a single unit.
The unit also features a Send / Return pair of sockets allowing the user to patch in an equaliser to subtley or drastically effect the tonal quality of delay repeats when the unit is working in a typical repeating echo mode. There is also a Hold foot switch to capture a sound in the delay memory as you can find on many of these early 80's delays.
Finally round the back you get seperate 'Mixed' & 'Delay' output sockets. If both are used the Mixed sockey utputs the dry through signal while the Delay sockey outputs only the delayed signal, but if only the Mixed socket is used then it outputs, yup, you guessed it, a mixed delay/dry signal with the amount of delay being controlled by the Delay Level control on the front panel.
Also round at the back in addition to the previously mentioned Send / Return loop sockets, Hold switch socket & the CV input socket there are also footswitch control sockets for Delay On/Off, Modulation On/Off & Single-delay On/Off... and it's these footswitch controls on the SDE-2000 alog with the sound which made the unit so popular with guitarists for their rack rigs.
There it is; the SDE-2000. It's super cool with a long lst of named users, and like most of these old 80's studio toys they are not cheap to buy nowadays on the old Ebay ad's... If only we could get a time machine and go back 20-25 years to grab a whole bunch of this old kit eh? These old & now classic units are increasing all the time in value like old Japanese motorbikes!
If you have used one of these or own one today, please give your experiences or other comments down the bottom of the page... thanks.
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