Now boarding...
Josh Scott and his crew over at JHS Pedals have a knack for serving the needs of the modern player. Whether that's with a versatile and expressive modulation like their Artificial Blonde, a reliable and beefy analog distortion like The Hard Drive, or even something simple like their 3 Series pedals, JHS certainly has an ear to the ground on the modern effect pedal landscape. If you've seen a JHS pedal on someone's board, it's there to fulfill a need – and it's a need JHS had certainly considered.
As pedal designers, the team at JHS is clearly not only a group of experienced guitar players, but pedal players too! This becomes evident when you consider their trajectory in their line of pedals as clean, no-frills, effortlessly musical devices ready for performance. When you're playing a JHS pedal, it's likely that someone at JHS has been in your shoes seeking out a solution to a similar tonal conundrum. JHS frequently solves specific yet common problems in the effect pedal world, and with that, we're brought to today's exhibit.
We hope you don't mind a couple more hours, and maybe a layover or two, because today we're talking the JHS Flight Delay.
Taking Flight
Introducing the JHS Flight Delay
With all of JHS's great creations, the Flight Delay is actually a pretty notable and exciting addition among the JHS lineup, marking a pretty big move in the JHS catalog of effects. It's been a little bit since we've seen a dedicated delay pedal from JHS. This makes the Flight Delay a relative trailblazer for JHS's recently released pedals – and a really interesting one at that!
With the Flight Delay, JHS sought to take things back to basics with a delay pedal that aimed to give you everything you need and nothing you don't. This design ethos drove JHS to make the Flight Delay the way they did, and they did in fact deliver on that goal. There's a bit more to the story, but we'll get to that later.
The JHS Flight Delay is a three-mode delay pedal that works to defy the complexity of modern delay units. Where you might find intricacy, menu-diving, and who knows what else in other modern-day delay pedals (though we do love those), it can be nice to stop and smell the flowers on a simple, clean, two-switch pedal. In any case, the Flight Delay clocks in as a very intuitive and easily digestible pedal that balances expressive character with a short distance between you and a great delay tone.
Consider the Flight Delay a pure kind of delay pedal, the kind that made you fall in love with the effect in the first place! Remember? Your first rig? The loving scrape of those crappy frets against your fingers? The wow of hearing your signal magically pop in again? The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance? Okay, maybe not that part of high school.
Let's get into your basic control scheme.
Your Basic Control Scheme
Three Delay Modes
At the heart of the Flight Delay, you'll find a three-way switch that is more or less the thesis statement of the pedal, its essence, in so few words. Onboard the Flight Delay, an analog, a reverse, and a digital delay all drop in on an easily accessible toggle. There's no grander scheme or secret to this switch as it propels the whole effect experience forward. These delay types are straightforward, but let's run them down anyway.
Delay Effect Crash Course Analog: Your classic, vintage, bucket-brigade style delay. Reminiscent of darker, more murky delay tones brought about by late '70s delay devices, this mode works wonderfully for smoother, undulating echoes. Digital: Your iconic '80s pristine repeat, DSP-style delay. For fans of bright, busy, and articulate digital repeats à la your favorite "edgy" guitarists and records, this mode clocks in for alert, blinking repeats to liven up a signal. Reverse: Your favorite, alternative, inverted delay. Those seeking out responsive and head-spinning backwards trails need look no further than the Flight Delay's third mode to get warped and wild.
Across these three modes, you'll find plenty of inspiring sounds to get crafty with, wherever your favorites may lie. These three modes each play with a rich, high-fidelity sound that really gets its message across. When you swap into any of these three modes, you'll be getting an authentic sonic print of its distinctive, classic sound – so play confidently!
Building a Delay
Now with our players introduced, let's get to the meat of this story. In your delay parameters control section, you've got controls for Mix, Repeats, and Time – already a classic lineup. Again, this stuff is relatively simple, but for sake of saying so, let's say so.
Mix controls the blend of delay effect – all the way counterclockwise is completely dry with no delay trails in the signal, blending in more prominently moving clockwise with all the way right landing completely wet.
Repeats controls the amount of feedback or number of repeats in the signal with left of the dial being less and fewer and right of the dial being more and more. Cranking Repeats completely to the right can result in infinite repeats and self-oscillation, if you're looking for it, so watch out if you're looking to keep control (or don't if you're looking to not).
Time controls the length of the delay trail, or space between delay intervals. This parameter is adjustable between fifty milliseconds and one second with left being shorter and right being longer.
Finally, in this section we've got a special JHS addition of a dedicated EQ control. This single knob highlights different frequencies in the delay trails to adjust their tone or color, no matter the delay type. To the left, you'll get a darker and more subdued repeat tone and to the right, one brighter and crisper. Don't forget about this control in the grand scheme of things as it does quite a bit to further customization and build up the delay experience!
Bells & Whistles
While JHS set out to make a simple delay with everything you need and nothing you don't, I think it's about time we can start letting you in on what this pedal can really be about.
For some behind-the-scenes context, while tinkering with the Flight Delay, we did in fact see JHS's vision for a streamlined and straightforward delay with everything you need and nothing you don't come to light. While we found that the Flight Delay did what it said on the tin, we can't help but mention how the pedal actually does go quite above and beyond on its own mission statement. This pedal is in fact everything you need and nothing you don't, but who doesn't need a little razzle dazzle from time to time?
Let's talk about some of the additional features on the Flight Delay.
Modulation Effects
Onboard the Flight Delay, you'll be met with another three-way toggle controlling its built-in modulation effect section. This modulation section hearkens back to some of Josh Scott's favorite "Memory"-style, modulation-enabled delay pedals and therefore, inspires similar voicings. In this section, a three-way switch swaps between chorus and vibrato modulation effects, with its third option being disengaged. This opens up the field for new, exciting effect mixes with the delay and effectively makes this pedal a multi-dimensional beast, but let's not dwell on it. Instead, let's get into these effects.
With the Flight Delay, you get classic chorus and vibrato effects at the ready. An intuitive section for modulation rate and depth punches in at this juncture to control the speed and level of whichever modulation effect you choose, so punching in a wavy chorus or wobbly vibrato is a breeze.
What's great about all of this is the self-contained nature of this modulation, where your chorus or vibrato specifically affects the delay repeats trailing out. Figure this into an equation of where you want place your other time-based effects like delay and modulation in your chain and you might find yourself skipping an additional modulation pedal altogether!
Modulation Nation
Delay and Modulation Combos
Through the modulation section of the Flight Delay, some real, wild effect mixing comes to form. Just say the phrase "reverse vibrato delay" out loud and the ideas write themselves.
Glimmering, Shimmering Click into a speedy digital delay and throw over to the chorus effect with a fast modulation rate and shallow depth and hear a shimmering tidepool of pristine digital repeats flow from your amp.
Livin' Underwater (Is Something Wild)Roll back the EQ on a steady analog delay with a slow rolling vibrato and hear some unbelievably smooth underwater undulations spread across your signal – trust us, these kinds of delays are where you'll be glad you didn't forget about the EQ!
The Butterfly EffectSwap onto a busy reverse delay with a narrow, fluttering vibrato and hear an army of small, inverted butterfly-like repeats swarm your signal to really go sideways and backwards with your sound. Crank up on the Repeats control to go wild into noisy, infinite oscillation if you're really feeling bold!
All of this customization really brings to light the Flight Delay as not only a simple and effective delay pedal, but also as an incredibly expressive one that can swing with the best of them. The multi-mode design and additional onboard effects do quite a bit to not add complication, but depth and dimension to the pedal. Despite what this pedal may look like, it isn't (or doesn't have to be) so minimal as the minimalist aesthetic might have you believe. Looks aren't everything, after all!
"The JHS Pedals Flight Delay was made with one goal in mind: to be everything you need in a delay and nothing you don’t. In a world full of complex effects pedals, we worked hard to bring you the opposite - a beautifully simple stompbox that combines the most essential delay types with the features that matter." - JHS Pedals
Further Functions & Connectivity
We're beginning our descent, so to start closing the book on this pedal, let's get into some of the smaller and extended features of its design.
The Flight Delay comes designed with a three-way subdivision toggle that can vary up delay trails even further. Click between quarter, eighth, and dotted eighth note intervals to introduce some rhythmic variety in your compositions.
Alongside the essential effect interface of the Flight Delay, the pedal drops in a couple other control features for close playing and customization. The right footswitch on the Flight Delay acts as an onboard tap tempo function that can be used to control delay times remotely. This experience expands through the pedal's expression control jack on its top side. Plugging in a mono TS cable into this jack can enable the Flight Delay's compatibility with external tap switches or clocking devices for added control function. This function goes further as a stereo TRS cable can be used to connect the Flight Delay to an expression pedal for smoother ramping between delay times.
To bring it all home, the Flight Delay operates with standard nine Volt DC center negative power supplies, so it's ready to join the board straight out the box. What more could you ask for?
JHS Pedals Flight Delay Final Thoughts
JHS always seems to have an answer for universal effect pedal quandaries. Whether you're looking for high-quality drives, modulations, or, in this case, delays, they always seem to have you covered with straightforward answers to big questions. The Flight Delay is no different.
In a world of effect pedals that seem to grow exponentially more complex, it's nice to come back down to Earth on a clean and streamlined unit. When you're looking for a reliable delay pedal as your first or fiftieth, the Flight Delay makes an excellent case. It does quite a bit of heavy lifting when it comes to a board while accomplishing a variety of musical tasks – and then some! If you're searching for a standby digital delay for steady, '80s-style repeats or an off-the-wall modulated reverse delay for experimenting, the Flight Delay has you covered at all stages. Everything you need, nothing you don't – whatever that might mean to you!
Grab this JHS creation and, for the first time, see a Flight Delay and feel glad.
