Freeze Patches for DD-500
I saw a YouTube video providing the basic idea for using the DD-500 Hold function and the Tera Echo delay to produce a simulacrum of the Electro-Harmonics “Freeze” pedal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmeJ1872U80&t=198s. After a few hours learning how to menu dive the DD-500 and figuring out how I wanted to implement that function for everyday use, here’s what I came up with.
The key to making this routinely usable was buying an external footswitch (I used a Boss FS-5U) and assigning the Freeze function to that pedal. Trying to use the TAP/CTL pedal doesn’t really work if you ever use the looper or want to do Tap Tempo. The other key is you have to use Simultaneous A+B mode with one of the patches (I use B) being Tera Echo even when the Freeze effect is not activated. Fortunately, I like Tera Echo so I keep it in B and just put any additional delay I want in the A patch.
I wanted two modes of Freeze function, one momentary and one latching. So I created two banks (97 and 98) in my case. The 97A and 98A patches are identical, they are my favorite RE-201 Tape delay with tap tempo enabled. Then I placed a patch named FreezeLatch in 97B and an almost identical patch named FreezeMoment in 98B. Each of these have the Control and Assign settings to disable Tap Tempo from that Tera Echo path and assign either Hold/Momentary or Hold/Toggle to the external CTL1/2 connection for the footswitch.
Here’s the 97A and 98A (identical) patches for my everyday most often used delay effect. It has tap tempo enabled with the TAP/CTL switch and uses the RE-201 emulation with pretty standard settings. Shown below are the PATCH and CONTROL screens, there is no ASSIGN for the A patches.
The B patches in each bank are the same except for the Moment versus Toggle settings mentioned above. Below are the PATCH, CONTROL and ASSIGN screenshots for 97B which is the latching version.
Finally, here are the three screens for 98B which is the non-latching Freeze effect.
The way it all works is, once these two banks of patches are in place (and again, 98A is just a copy of 97A) and the external footswitch is plugged in I can select with Bank 97 or Bank 98 for latching or non-latching freeze. The three switches on the DD-500 box work as normal. I keep the B delay going all the time and when the external switch is pressed the reverby-sounding delay trail is raised in volume and frozen.
I can turn the A side delay on or off, use the Tap Tempo, even change to a different style of delay. It operates independently of the B side. I can also use the Looper and Freeze/un-Freeze however I like while looping, although it does once again require having the B-side Tera Echo patch running before entering Looper mode.