The Ernie Ball Expression Series Ambient Delay is one of the two original offerings from the Ernie Ball Expression Series, along with the Expression Overdrive.
It has front-face controls for time and repeats, as well as a nice lil plate echo. You also have the ability to plug in a tap tempo, which is a necessity IMO considering how inaccessible the time knob is.
So, what does the expression control? The mix. That’s it. And you don’t set the max mix, it just is what it is. To me, that’s the major downside of this pedal — unlike the Tremolo, you can’t set which parameters the expression sweep controls.
If I had designed this pedal and could only have one feature controlled by the expression sweep, it would be feedback. That’s what I traditionally use when I use the expression control for the Earthquaker Avalanche Run, which I loved.
But how does it sound? Good! I think it’s a really nice-sounding delay. I just don’t think it gets weird enough to actually be an ambient pedal. If you could really max out the repeats or get the whirling sound of adjusting time while playing, that would make this an extremely fun pedal. I honestly hope they do a V2 and add the controls the tremolo has.
To me, this pedal is a nice delay for folks who want a simple-sounding reverb/delay combo.
I don’t see a ton of use in controlling the mix via the sweep. What it’s definitely nice for is kind of like a manual ducking effect. You can have your heel down when you play notes and sweep the expression in to fill in space between the notes. I think that would make it useful in some ambient cases and Praise & Worship circles.
Guitar is Fender Jazzmaster with Lollar Blademasters.
Amp is Strymon Iridium, Round, B.