Keeley Delay Workstation

The Keeley Delay Workstation is a delay and reverb pedal in one enclosure, made by Keeley Electronics. Pedal of the Day described it as "a powerful, dual DSP processor delay-and-reverb-in-one machine," packing two pedals' worth of effects into a pedalboard-friendly box¹. On That Pedal Show, the hosts called it "a delay in a reverb in one pedal" and said it is as close to a multi-effects unit as they like to get².

The pedal belongs to Keeley's 2016 Workstation range, announced alongside the Tone Workstation and Mod Workstation³. Robert Keeley, the maker's founder and Chief Engineer, introduced the range himself³², and That Pedal Show credited the Delay Workstation to him directly².

What it does: delay and reverb in one pedal

The Delay Workstation puts a delay engine and a reverb engine in a single box, each with its own set of modes. Pedal of the Day described it as "packing 2 pedals and about a million different tones into a pedalboard-friendly enclosure"¹. For a player, that means one footprint on the board covers both ambient time-based effects instead of two separate pedals.

The two sections work together rather than as isolated halves. On That Pedal Show, Dan Steinhardt and Mick Taylor described the eight delays as "combinable with reverbs in a whole bunch of useful ways," so a patch can pair, for example, a tape-style delay with a hall reverb in one pass².

The delay and reverb modes

Each side of the pedal offers eight modes, all handled by the dual DSP processor¹.

That Pedal Show walked through the delay bank in order: slap back, contain delay, multi, analog delay, digital delay, and the rest of the eight types². The spread covers the familiar territory, from short slapback for country and rockabilly leads through tape and multihead emulations to more specialized types like ducking delay, which pulls the repeats back while you play, and pitch delay, which shifts the repeats.

The reverb side is controlled by Blend, Decay, Predelay and Morph knobs, with each one controlling different variables of each parameter depending on the mode you are in¹. The delay side works similarly: on That Pedal Show, the hosts explained that a second knob does different things depending on the mode, "anything from tone to reverb decay"². That morphing control is what lets one knob set cover sixteen different effect types without a menu screen.

Stereo, expression and tap tempo

The Delay Workstation carries the connection options an ambient or stereo-rig player looks for¹:

• Stereo output jacks, which Pedal of the Day described as being "for the creation of walls and layers of delayed and reverberated" effects¹
• Tap tempo input, to set the delay time with an external switch¹
• Expression input, where an optional expression pedal controls the decay of the reverb¹

The tap tempo input matters for live use: rather than bending down to dial in a delay time, you tap the rhythm on an external switch and the repeats lock to it. The expression jack sweeping reverb decay lets you swell the ambience up and down with your foot while playing, a common move for ambient parts¹.

Where it came from and what reviewers said

Keeley Electronics announced the Delay Workstation as part of its 2016 Workstation range, which also included the Tone Workstation and Mod Workstation³. Robert Keeley introduced the range on the maker's own site⁴, and That Pedal Show later described the pedal as "the delay workstation by mr. Robert Keeley"².

Pedal of the Day's reviewer came away impressed with the maker's output generally, writing that "it's pretty hard not to be impressed by the sheer volume of pedals that come pouring out of the Edmond, OK offices of Keeley Electronics," and calling this pedal a prime example of that innovation and quality¹.

On That Pedal Show, the verdict was aimed at a particular kind of player²:

The full verdict continued that it suits minimalists "who nevertheless want a bit of versatility," which matches what the pedal offers: one box, sixteen modes, but no deep editing or preset storage beyond what the knobs give you².

That Pedal Show demoed the pedal in a full episode covering its delay and reverb banks, how the modes combine, and how the second knob changes function from mode to mode²:

Click to load

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

Questions