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UX: Line6 prioritizes ease-of-use over a fancy UI. Crank the input gain to recreate the feel of overdriving a tape unit (i.e.
THE WALKING DEAD A NEW FRONTIER PRO
Pro Tip: Dial in a little bit of Saturation and enable the Level option in the I/O setting. It’s a great choice for the main 1/8th or 1/16th note delay on a lead vocal or a lead synth. Uses: This plugin is definitely not CPU friendly, so I use it sparingly. Add a little extra saturation, noise, and tinker with the Formula and Speed options - it’ll be as tasty as that hot chocolate. Nice and warm, right? That is the kind of warmth you get from the J37. Now, imagine you’re sitting by the fire with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate (maybe a splash of bourbon in there too…).
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Don’t let this deter you though - the delay controls are quite simple (on the right side of the plugin), with controls for delay time and ping pong.Ĭharacter: Imagine a cold winter night. UX: The J37 is a tape saturation plugin, so you’ll see a lottttt of bells and whistles that you won’t see on normal delay plugins. Mix that quietly into your track as a tonal atmosphere. Bounce the delay to audio, and apply some sort of modulation to the audio track. Pro Tip: Take your lead sound and set Crystallizer to 100% wet, and find a long and interesting delay setting.
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Create tonal atmospheres or pads from simple sound sources. This delay is an instrument on its own, and the wet signal it produces will become its own important sound in your track. Uses: This isn’t your go-to delay plugin for simple delays or slapbacks. This is an unmistakable sound of the 80s which was used to create deep, lush soundscapes out of simple sounds. This plugin has a quick learning curve, so don’t be intimidated.Ĭharacter: Crystallizer is based on the Reverse Shift algorithm of the Eventide H3000 effects processor.
THE WALKING DEAD A NEW FRONTIER PLUS
This is a relatively simple plugin - 9 knobs and a single switch, plus a Tweak menu for detailed adjustments. UX: Phew, back to the classic Soundtoys layouts. Pro Tip: If you want to get some extra width in the delay without having to pan the left or right channels, go to the color knobs and put one at 11 o’clock and the other at 1 o’clock. Because of the focus on hardware emulation, though, this wouldn’t be my pick for creative sound design with a delay. For any classic or standard delay sound, this is a great pick - vocal delays, slapback delays for synths or other instruments, and ambient delays with long delay times and lots of feedback. Uses: The Repeater is very close to a one-stop-shop plugin. Plus, the on board EQ and pan controls allow you to shape the color and stereo image of the delay before it even leaves the plugin. Aesthetically, it looks like a classic digital delay unit.Ĭharacter: The Repeater Delay has 23 emulations of classic delay machines, covering tons of variety within the tape, analog, and digital worlds. UX: It looks intimidating at first, but with a little practice it’s actually user friendly. Price: $99 (or $15/month as part of the Slate All Access Pass) I’ll give you all the details as we go along. Many of these plugins fall neatly into the categories above, others are a combination of multiple. So let’s get to it! Here are the top 20 delay plugins for music production in 2021. Creative sound designers out there, look out for these below. Beyond - While a lot of delay plugins try to emulate their hardware predecessors, many others are pushing the boundaries of plugin design to create totally new sounds that are only available in plugin form. Computers allowed delay manufacturers to create algorithm-based delays that allowed for both increased ease of use as well as a variety of new timbre options.Īnd. These units opened up a whole new warm, crunchy sound palette that left an unmistakable and irreplaceable footprint on classic rock.ĭigital Delay - Enter the 80s, the era of embarrassing hairstyles and digital delay units. But, it’s nearly impossible to find a fully functioning tape delay unit today (and even more difficult to keep one up and running), so tape delay plugins are a must-have plugin in your library.Īnalog Delay - Tape delays were notoriously difficult to keep in fully functioning shape, so analog delays were introduced in the 1970s as a means to simplify the delay process. The process of printing onto tape can create desirable changes to audio, creating a warm and smooth delayed signal. Tape Delay - These delay plugins are modeled on 20th-century tape delay units, where a dry signal was printed onto a piece of tape, and after a certain length of time, that tape was played back. There are four types of delay plugins I’m going to cover:
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