Electro-harmonix 16 second Delay reissue first impressions

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

So the thing they said would never exist, does indeed exist.  Now, I 
never owned or even used the original, but I'll give my first 
impression of this little box.

First thing that struck me is that the only way you can set your loop 
time is by using the sliders.  No "step-step" to define your loop.  
Actually, I dig it.  Reminds me of the way I used to use my JamMan.  
Step once and when the predefined loop length is up, you're loop 
begins.  Even better the EH16-2 can put you directly into overdub.  
Sweet.  Perfect for seamless ambient washes.  Not so good for a tap 
tempo delay, but that's not what I bought this for.  It says it's a 
delay device, but let's face it  IT'S A FUCKING LOOPER.  WOO.

So.. why is this thing a "stomp box?"  Silly.  As with a lot of EH gear 
this thing has too much on it to want it on the floor.  Mine will be at 
stomach level.  Because you can't define a loop time with your foot I 
barely can think of a reason you'd want to use it that way at all.  I'm 
going to use it as a tabletop device and maybe get the additional 
controller for it... I read something about that, I'm not sure what 
functionality you can get that way.  No matter, I'll probably be fine 
with it without.  I don't even take my MIDI controller out for the 
Repeater any more, I'm fine using my hands for most functions.

There's no actual display to see what your bpm is and the sliders have 
no "click" spots on them so it's a bit of a guess if you're shooting 
for a bpm at a certain number of bars.  Cool thing is there's a not 
very annoying metronome (like the horrible Repeater metronome) you can 
have running... bad thing is there's no headphone output.  Having a 
headphone out with the ability to channel the metronome only to the 
headphone.  Oh well.  I've gotten good watching the blinking light on 
the Repeater, and this one has that with a bar accent blink.  BLINK 
blink blink blink-BLINK blink blink blink....

Fidelity... seems OK.  Hard to tell as I was playing with stereo sounds 
and this thing is mono, so the loss of that stereo feel was noticeable 
but I'm not sure if there was an overall degradation of the sound 
beyond that.  I bought this for live use, and I'm sure it will be fine 
for that.  I heard that long loops in the original got a little lo-fi, 
but I didn't hear that at an 8 bar loop at somewhere around 120 bpm.

The tempo slider?  Nothing compared to the beauty that is the Electrix 
Repeater, but OK.  Very glitchy when you're going down, better going 
up.  Pitch slider seems more fun.  Very cool up and down, but it's not 
a continuous slider.  It's "stepped."  Still very cool but it effects 
both speed and pitch like a tape loop, not like the Repeater where the 
two can be independent.

The sweep is cool  Basically a chorus/phaser effect.  Not much to say.  
Works well.

Reverse.  Not much to say here either, but it's cool.  Overdub back and 
forth.  Weee!

OK, I had to cut my experiments short due to a Monday dinner party, but 
I'll fool more with it tomorrow.  At one point, I had totally 
independent asynchronous loops going from my Repeater, the EH-16 and 
the Gigadelay  (Suite and Tie guy, is the Jiggadelay the Irish version 
of that device?) and it was swirly crazy madness.  FUN.

Mark