I love delay pedals. I currently have five delay pedals on the pedal board for my band Moonwatch, and I usually use multiple delay pedals simultaneously.

I’ve dreamed of being able to synchronize the tempo of my Boss RE-20 Space Echo, DOD Rubberneck and Electro-Harmonix Canyon delay pedals, but sadly the Boss RE-20 doesn’t have a tap tempo connector. I tried the newer Boss RE-202, because it does have a tap tempo connector, I just prefer the sound and general simplicity of the RE-20.

And then I found posts on Reddit from people who had added a tap tempo connector themselves! They just didn’t explain exactly how they did this. But last week, and with the help of a friend, I figured out how to do this, and I have now modified both of my Boss RE-20 pedals!

I plan to use a Disaster Area micro.clock, but any other tap tempo pedal that supports ‘normally open’ operation should work.

This modification will even allow an RE-20 to act as a tap tempo pedal master for another delay pedal that supports ‘normally open’ tap tempo. By tapping a tempo on your RE-20 you can set the tempo for the RE-20 and another delay pedal, so if you just want to sync two pedals, all you need is a simple patch cable.

You’ll also be able to still change the tempo using the RE-20’s built-in tap tempo pedal. This mod is a total win!

If you’re interested in this mod, you can find my instructions on GitHub.