Pamparo in Toronto

So I was checking out Chris Tomlin’s album “And If Our God Is For Us” via iTunes when I noticed that the description/review of the album doesn’t seem to make sense. So I checked the “Deluxe” version … lo and behold, the description/review is also wrong!

And If Our God Is For Us

And If Our God Is For Us Deluxe

All I can say is … FAIL!

I love the simplicity of this song, yet, very powerful as it speaks of the truth. This Good Friday, let us not forget what Jesus had done for all in the cross of Calvary. To God be the glory!

Beautiful Saviour
By Darrell Evans

Your nail-scarred hands are beautiful.
Your nail-scarred feet are beautiful.
And by Your wounds, my wounds are healed.
Your crown of thorns is beautiful.
Your cross of scorn is beautiful.
For by Your wounds, our wounds are healed.

Beautiful Savior. Jesus, we believe.
Despised and rejected. Jesus, we receive You.

Scourged for our atonement. You endured it all.
For the glory of the Father.
We were among the ones You saw?

The GOOD (in fact, the very good)!

• Very close, although not the same, to the sound of MLN1/2, especially the first 2 repeats. However, the difference is how the repeats degrade. As per Diamond, the filter bandwidth has been increased so that it does not go into oscillation especially for lots of feedback
• The repeats does not, in any way, interfere with the dry signal. In fact, I notice that it naturally ducks (keep the repeated signal at a lower level) when the dry signal is still active.
• Smaller footprint compared to it’s predecessors, both MLN1/2 are huge! Although this came with a cost of not having any expression pedal input for neither Feedback nor Mix
• Standard 9v center-negative power requirement. One of the few gripes I have about the MLN1 (and 2) is the power it requires to operate it. Not only you need 18V, it is also using a positive-center, instead of the commonly-used negative-center power supply. I guess this is a necessary evil for making them work the way they should. So having it changed to the regular power makes it all the better in my books
• The tap-tempo has dual-function. Either you can set it to “DBL” where it cuts the delay time in half to make it faster or to turn Modulation ON/OFF. I currently have mine set to Modulation ON/OFF. But I can see myself setting this to the DBL for some nice slap-back delay settings. Nice feature!

The BAD (of course, IMHO)

• Internal DIP switches for spillover/kill-dry. I don’t have an amp with a parallel effects loop so kill-dry dip-switch is not a big deal to me. But why, oh why, do I have to open up the pedal to change the settings for spillover! Not only that, to change the setting, I have to flip 4 different DIP switches (2: DOWN, 3-5: UP). With Diamond’s track record of making great pedals, I would have thought that they can make this easier.
• The first 124 units did not ship with the Modulation ON/OFF functionality. Mine has to be sent to Diamond to flash the code. Although I didn’t have to do anything since I found out before the unit (mine is SN#0070) was shipped. It would still be a bummer for those people who have already purchased/received theirs and wanted the Modulation ON/OFF feature.
• Somewhat pricey … unfortunately, this is true. There are a lot of other options right now, it just depends on what you are willing to sacrifice. Would you pick tone/sound for functionality?

and The UGLY

• Changing the tempo, no matter what the setting is, will mute whatever is currently repeating while filling up the buffer for the new tempo. Well, at least, the dry signal is left untouched. I am hoping that they will offer an update to the firmware so that this will be alleviated. What a glaring design flaw on an otherwise fantastic delay!

Diamond Memory Lane Jr

Now to the verdict … definitely a keeper especially if you have owned & loved either an ML1 or ML2. It is not meant to replace either, but more so, to be a companion (READ: spend more cash). Fortunately for me, it sounds good and can definitely replace my ML1 on my board … wait, it actually did

***** UPDATE *****
Unfortunately the issue with changing tap-tempo is a hardware constraint … see picture below

MLJr limitation

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“back burner – a state of inaction or suspension; a position of relatively little importance” – New Oxford American Dictionary

I’ve often times put God in the back burner, so to speak. I find myself placing a lot of other things in front of God. Let’s see here … work, TV, guitar, browsing the net and yes, I would even use my family as an excuse for not being able to spend time praying and meditating on the Word of God. Don’t get me wrong, some things are important than others. But let’s be honest, is there any thing in this world worth more than God?

I thought so, too …

Here’s a short poem I wrote which is inspired by recent events …

I am so weak, I succumb to my greed
Things I don’t need, yet I cannot resist
Metallic gray, “make that two, please”, I say
Incoming now, they will get here somehow!

And what shaped the inspiration …

Empress Parametric EQ

And to double the fun!

Diamond Memory Lane Jr

Kudos to these 2 Canadian companies for making great pedals and inspiring me to spend my hard-earned money on their products instead of something more meaningful like [insert something meaningful here] …