The Seymour Duncan SFX-10 Deja Vu Tap Delay is a delay pedal whose defining feature is a D/A blend knob that moves seamlessly from a crisp, snappy digital sound to a warm, true-analog echo, letting a player set the character of the repeats anywhere between the two1. It sits among Seymour Duncan's line of delays, later joined by pedals like the Vapor Trail Deluxe and the Andromeda.
Controls
The Deja Vu carries the standard delay controls: a wet/dry knob, feedback and delay time1. Beyond those, two controls set it apart:
- D/A blend knob: moves seamlessly from a crisp snappy digital sound to warm true-analog echo1
- Modulation dial: unlabeled, it moves between a few preset flanging and vibrato style effects, similar in spirit to the Electro Harmonix Memory Man1
- Ratio knob: sets the tap tempo subdivision, such as half note or quarter note1
Tap tempo and bypass
A dedicated tap tempo footswitch works with the ratio knob to set subdivisions, which Delicious Audio's reviewers, Paolo De Gregorio and Ezra Tenenbaum, said "makes it unbelievably easy to adapt co"1 to tempo changes on the fly.
For bypass, the pedal offers a toggle between a true bypass mode and a trailing repeats mode. The trailing setting lets you kill the delay effect while letting the echoes trail off naturally, a choice players usually face on stage when a song ends mid-echo1.
Feedback insert jack
The Deja Vu includes a feedback insert jack that lets you apply a separate effects chain to the wet signal, giving what the review called "endless possibilities for c"1reative shaping of the repeats alone. In practice, that means the echoes can be processed differently from your dry guitar, a feature more often found on rack units than on pedals of this era.
What reviewers said
Delicious Audio's review placed the pedal's value squarely on stage use: "the Deja Vu's strength lies in its flexibility and precision when dialing customized sounds into a live environment"1. Their overall verdict was strong: "For those who need precision delay, but don't want to depend on using midi or backing tracks, the Deja Vu is indispensab"1le, adding that it holds its own against most high-end delays with enough tweak-ability to shine in any style of music1.
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Questions
Does the Seymour Duncan Deja Vu have tap tempo?
Yes. The Deja Vu has a dedicated tap tempo footswitch, and alongside it a ratio knob that sets the subdivision the repeats land on, such as half note or quarter note. Delicious Audio's reviewers found this made it, in their words, unbelievably easy to adapt to a changing tempo on stage.
Is the Deja Vu true bypass?
The pedal offers a toggle between a true bypass mode and a trailing repeats mode. In the true bypass setting the effect is killed outright, while the trailing repeats setting lets the echoes fade out naturally after you disengage the effect.
What does the feedback insert jack do on the Deja Vu?
The feedback insert jack lets you apply a separate effects chain to the wet signal only, meaning just the repeats. That opens up possibilities for shaping the echoes independently of your dry guitar sound, for example filtering or modulating the repeats alone.
What does the D/A blend knob do?
The D/A blend knob moves seamlessly between two echo characters: a crisp, snappy digital sound at one end and a warm, true-analog echo at the other. It lets you dial in the repeat character anywhere between those two extremes.
Sources (1)
- Seymour Duncan Deja-Vu Delay Pedal, Delicious Audio, 2012-01-17
