A delay pedal is among the necessary nutrients in your guitar diet. There’s no complete pedal board without a good delay, and sometimes delay pedals come with extra functions like an oscillation switch that can shape your delay feedback in exciting non-traditional ways.
A delay with an oscillation switch is handy for controlling the wild nature of oscillation. Besides adding an extra level of interest to the feedback repeats, it can help you stand out by conjuring electronic-inspired synth-like tones.
The delay pedal in your board is just as good as the tone you feed it in, yet a good pedal can make or break the tone you so much struggled to achieve – this is why having a scroll through my list of best delay pedals with an oscillation switch can help you make the right unit choice.
Our Top Picks
- Again Again Delay – This affordable pedal is a straightforward unit with two main delay settings, a short and long delay time. It’s a good choice for intermediate players who want to get a good slapback and a longer time for solos.
- Digitech Rubberneck Analog Delay – The Rubberneck is a quality pedal fit for all boards, whether you’re a weekend blues jammer or in an arena. It has a great tone, simple commands, and doesn’t take up much space – all you need for any situation.
- Ibanez ES3 Echo Shifter – The ES3 is my favorite analog vintage-sounding delay out of all on the list. It’s a slightly harder-to-find unit today, but worth the search with the warm delay tone and the fader-like delay time control.
- Aural Dream Breath Delay Guitar Effect Pedal – The Aural Dream Breath delay is a very cheap pedal which I don’t recommend as a main delay for your board but as a separate unit just for its psychedelic oscillation fx. It’s a low-risk, high-reward alternative you will either love or hate.
- Chase Bliss Tonal Recall – This feature-packed pedal is a workhorse worthy of closing the list. It’s the most expensive piece of gear out of the five but for all the good reasons—great tone, versatile, and easy-to-grasp interface.
Contents
Why Choose a Delay Pedal with an Oscillation Switch?
There are two ways to use effects. You either smoothly add an effect to what you’re playing that adds width and power, or you make the effect part of the arrangement and adapt your playing to that.
An oscillation effect fits more the second category than the first; depending on how much you mix it, you can get all sorts of sounds.
- Oscillation is an exciting sound to add to your arsenal. If used right, you can get the nail on Radiohead-ish effects and even get into the world of synthesizers.
- Make solos stand out by adding the waveforms the oscillator generates.
- Help the guitar cover more ground in a one-guitar-player band
- It’s a great composition tool for all genres, not only modern ones but even classics like Jimmi Page’s Led Zeppelin riffs and licks.
The only thing you should be careful about while using an oscillator effect is the volume of the feedback. An oscillation technically produces sound waves of different shapes and keeps doing so until you stop it – different from a synth, where you just raise your hand from the keys, guitars are wilder, and things might go wrong.
The footswitch lets you turn off the effects in case the oscillator makes the feedback too loud after some time. The delay trails then help create a smooth transition to your dry sound.
PRO TIP: Don’t consider the guitar a ‘guitar’ when using heavy effects like oscillation. Think of the guitars as synthesizers or like a separate effect unit, and avoid the usual vibrato, bends, and slides you usually do with a standard guitar tone.
Self-Oscillating a Delay Pedal
You can get an oscillation effect if you manually play with the feedback setting on your delay while playing. It is only convenient, though, if you want to make a statement with the effect, as you need at least one free hand and bend down while doing this trick.
Sweetwater has an excellent guitar on self-oscillating a delay pedal but beware that it only works analog delay, as the feedback overload the circuit; digital delays have a similar effect but don’t truly self-oscillate
That’s why a delay pedal with oscillation is handy; besides the foot switch, you can use the effect more moderately.
Delay Pedals with an Oscillation Switch
1. Again Again Delay
This affordable pedal is a straightforward unit with two main delay settings, a short and long delay time. It’s a good choice for intermediate players who want to get a good slapback and a longer time for solos.
The on/off oscillation switch is what makes this pedal a good choice for experimenting. Still, on the other hand, the lack of versatility in the delay settings makes it unsuitable for advanced players.
2. Digitech Rubberneck Analog Delay
The Rubberneck is a quality pedal fit for all boards, whether you’re a weekend blues jammer or in an arena. It has a great tone, simple commands, and doesn’t take up much space – all you need for any situation.
The oscillation switch here is named “Rubberneck.” It works slightly differently than a standard oscillator on the technical side, but sound-wise is excellent and, most importantly, has a built-in volume control that doesn’t let the effect go wild.
It’s not exactly a premium pedal, standing just at the edge of where convenience meets high quality.
3. Ibanez ES3 Echo Shifter
The ES3 is my favorite analog vintage-sounding delay out of all on the list. It’s a slightly harder-to-find unit today, but worth the search with the warm delay tone and the fader-like delay time control.
It ticks all the boxes for a go-to delay pedal for me on a session for all lead and rhythm work. The Oscillation switch is as intuitive and easy as it gets; step on the right pedal and hold it for the effect to kick in.
On another note, Ibanez pedals might be one of the only stomp boxes to match Boss for sturdiness. I have some units of both brands I inherited from my 74 years old uncle, and they still work perfectly!
4. Aural Dream Breath Delay Guitar Effect Pedal
The Aural Dream Breath delay is a very cheap pedal which I don’t recommend as a main delay for your board but as a separate unit just for its psychedelic oscillation fx. It’s a low-risk, high-reward alternative you will either love or hate.
The good thing about effects like oscillation for guitar is that it’s so sporadic that even a non-expensive unit will help you make a statement with the tone.
5. Chase Bliss Tonal Recall
This feature-packed pedal is a workhorse worthy of closing the list. It’s the most expensive piece of gear out of the five but for all the good reasons—great tone, versatile, and easy-to-grasp interface.
Holding down the tap tempo switch gives a runaway oscillation effect which you can make even wilder if you connect an external controller. It can also be connected with MIDI to your DAW and used for recording.
The only thing I would have added to all these pedals is a BPM display – a feature that deserves its list of best delay pedals.
As an ending word, I’d recommend being wary of overusing oscillation. As cool as it sounds from the player’s side, it might not sound great from the listener’s end if used too much.