What is the difference between Analog Delay and Digital Delay?

An Analog and Digital Delay do the same things; however, they do it in different ways. What is delayed is sound and the noise it makes and makes a vibration or echo effect. The guitar pedal is the main ingredient to understand the difference between analog and digital delay pedal. The analog pedal uses a bucket brigade device or a BBD.

It sends a signal through a few capacitors, and with each cycle, the sound becomes separated; however, with analog, the delay time is somewhat shorter. The Digital delay pedal uses a digital signal processing DSP chip to make the echo sound. Because it is digital, there is better control of how the sound is generated. Digital gives the guitarist better control, but the sound is not as pleasant.

Delay Pedals are known for the echo sensation they give when producing sound. Analog Delays came into being as a result of an improvement in the shortcoming of being too big to carry around for different gigs. Analog delay surfaced around mid-70s, it uses a bucket brigade device that acts as a sound carrier through capacitor chips that are determinants of the time it will take the guitar to pass the sound signal through the chain. It produces a natural sound which one major reason why guitarists prefer it and as a major limitation of not being flexible enough to control. In contrast, digital delays use digital signal processing chips that help them create echo effects.

This is achieved through a rather complicated process; the chips first change the signal into series of numbers through an analog to digital converter, and, in order to come out of the speaker correctly, it must be converted back from analog with a digital to analog converter. Came into the market in the 1980s, its ability to use different sets of preset and adjusted speed and time makes it very reliable and easy; it is also cheaper compared to Analog Delays.