11 Gauge
Doctor of Teleocity
I think when folks found out that the Satchurator was a tweaked DS-1 that the stigma attached to that presented some issues. Add that the Satchurator is not true bypass but looks like it is, and uses SMT construction, so it can't be as easily tweaked as a $40 (new) DS-1, so that just probably took things from bad to worse...
And DS-1 mods are probably the most common thing on the web, and lots of folks aren't afraid to do the DIY thing themselves with such a cheap pedal, especially used. Everyone seems to have one laying around that gets no use, so what's there to lose? What would you get if you tried to sell it?
The Ice 9 was clear as to not hide what it's based off, but the momentum against the Vox pedals was probably already there.
And MXR makes that distortion pedal that is essentially a DS-1 with the Keeley mod built into it, and for less than the Satchurator.
What is interesting is that I can find no info on the Time Machine - that is how tepid the response has been! But going by the controls, it really looks to be fashioned after the old Boss DD-series. It obviously doesn't use the ancient processor chip from the 80's - I have no doubt that there's a PT2399 in this pedal, and there's obviously a microprocessor to handle the tap temp stuff. And some analog filtering to make the repeats sound "non-digital" for that particular setting. So it looks like a decent PT2399-based digital delay with a "vintage" mode and tap tempo.
IMO, all PT2399-based delays are more similar than they are different, because they all use the same delay processor. So it really comes down to features - is there tap tempo? How nice are the regen's? How does it sound at higher delay settings? Is there modulation? Does it try to emulate tape delay or some other sort of "yesteryear delay/echo" effect, like the solid state Echoplex or something? Is there stereo capability? Reverse delay? Ducking delay? Etc...
The PT2399 can do as much or as little as the pedal manufacturer cares to design in, and it can even be augmented with analog stuff to make it a sort of hybrid of sorts (tape "warble" can be done with circuitry that is similar to tremolo or chorus, for instance).
So the bottom line IMO is if it has the features that someone will use, and the price is okay given that.
And I think that a buffered digital delay is probably a good idea, as it's not the kind of effect that you'd typically want any switch pops with. It also makes it easy to have "delay trails" when the thing is turned off.
IOW, IMO any delay really needs to be subjectively evaluated to find out if it's good or not. The "reputation" of the company that made it is mostly irrelevant, especially if the price is okay. I'd even extend this to analog delays.
After all, unless it's something made by Strymon or similar, almost all of these delays are based on something existing. In the case of the PT2399 chip, all of the functions are in the chip - the manufacturer is just kind of shaping the capabilities. I guess the same could be argued for the old analog stuff too, just obviously more limited in what you can do to augment those old chips.
