Seymour Duncan Introduces a Deluxe Variant of Its Vapor Trail

June 19, 2021 · 7 sources

Seymour Duncan announced the Vapor Trail Deluxe, an expanded version of its Vapor Trail analog delay pedal, released in June 2021¹. The new pedal keeps an all-analog signal path built on Bucket Brigade chips, the classic delay technology also at the heart of the original, but adds digital control over it². Seymour Duncan says the Deluxe uses four of the largest, most powerful Bucket Brigade chips in production, which extends the delay time to up to 1.2 seconds, double the 600ms maximum of the original Vapor Trail²³.

The pedal grew out of what Guitar Player reported as Seymour Duncan engineer Wayne Rothermich's painstaking research and development⁷. Its feature set, as announced:

• Up to 1.2 seconds of analog delay time²
• Four specialty delay modes: Micro Delay, Pitch Sequence, Pitch Bender and Runaway²
• Onboard tap tempo with selectable rhythmic subdivisions²
• Three storable preset locations²
• Expression pedal control²
• Delay trails on and off options²
• Modulation with rate and depth controls, ranging from what the maker describes as a subtle shimmer to rotary speaker-like warble²⁶

Controls and connections

The Deluxe shipped in a dual-footswitch enclosure, with a Bypass footswitch and a Tap/Hold footswitch³.

In Runaway mode, holding the tap tempo footswitch produces ever-rising feedback that reverts to the Repeats setting when released³.

Connections include a standard input, a standard output, a Wet/Insert TRS socket that can serve as a wet-only output for stereo operation, and an expression pedal input⁵³.

How it differs from the original Vapor Trail

What reviewers said

Guitar World listed the launch price at $229⁵. MusicRadar's review found it easy to use with what it called great BBD sounds, citing the 1,200ms maximum delay time, expression pedal input, tap tempo, effects on repeats and presets as reasons to buy, while noting it is not cheap and that the Pitch Sequence mode can be a fiddle³.