bel BD80

bel Electronics History

The bel BD80 was the first sampling delay line available on the market. It was manufactured by bel electronics in Milton Keynes and distributed by us when we were located in Luton, their first product was the BF20 which was an analogue Flanger that could be found in most studios in the UK and many abroad. The bel managing director and designer, Mike Barnard, once told me that analogue delay lines produced the best flanging effect as opposed to digital delay lines.

The BD80 is a delay line with an expandable 2 second delay time,. The delay time could be extended by the addition of extra delay cards to a maximum of 8 seconds, as well as delay the unit can also be used to create flanging & phasing as well as a sampler. Samples can be edited and triggered by an external audio source. We are offering this early version, later ones were grey.

Extract from Home & Studio Recording, July 1984 :

' As the photograph clearly shows, all the standard DDL controls are provided with the addition of a few extras.

Phase switches are fitted which enable the delay and feedback paths to be inverted, enabling the colouration of short delay time effects to be further modified, whilst a 'delay times two' (x2) switch allows the delay time to be doubled at the expense of reduced bandwidth (16kHz on x1 and 8kHz on x2).

The pitch control allows stored sounds to be fine tuned, control of this parameter also being possible by means of an external control voltage applied to the rear panel ¼" jack CV socket, thus making keyboard control of stored sounds feasible.

The delay time is set by means of the standard up/down/fast push buttons and the displayed time also applies to the length of stored sound when used in the sampling mode.

Sampling is achieved by using the 'Sync' button followed by the Start/Stop button which triggers the recording sequence. Depressing the 'Hold' button locks this sound into memory and this may then be triggered at will by further use of the Start/Stop button or by the application of a trigger pulse to the Trigger input jack.

By shortening the delay time, a new sound may be made to replace part of the original 'frozen' sound and by using this editing technique, complex bursts of sound may be built up and subsequently re-triggered.

E&oe.

Here is a You Tube video demonstrating some of the things you can do with the BD80, should you really want to