Dead Duck Software - opinions?

[jbuonacc]

Just testing the ones that I have, I can get 100% feedback with:
Valhalla FreqEcho
Voxengo Tempo Delay
Cockos Readelay
HY-Delay
Image-Line Delay Bank and Delay 3
Xhip Delay.

i've got FreqEcho and maybe a demo of HY-Delay, but not the others. i'll check them out and get back to you. i don't remember being very impressed with HY-Delay, but i'll have to check again. really though, i think there a lot of crap delays and other fx (as well as synths) that get praised around here by those that don't know any better.

a bit late here to test it myself right now, but even in this video you can see that FreqEcho at 100% keeps "building" on itself, just as it should. not the sort of static repeat thing that this 'monodelay' is doing at 100%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMq2aIuiYcw

Add to that any delay plugin that allows you to self-oscillate or has more than 100% feedback, and you've got a delay that with the right settings will go on forever.

It makes sense not to have that in a hardware delay. That could cause some serious speaker-blowing volume issues. But in the digital sandbox we have now, you can create some seriously fun effects with 100% + delay feedback. So long as you have a limiter somewhere down the line preventing any signal overload.

i'm a bit confused with your wording and this makes me have to ask... have you actually ever used a hardware delay? every hardware delay i've ever used had "100%+" feedback and none of them ever acted in this "same clean constant repeat fashion". most all of them "could cause some serious speaker-blowing volume issues" (but they actually don't, even at extremes) and pretty much every one of them "can create some seriously fun effects with 100% + delay feedback", and i've never considered using a limiter on them.

i haven't tested it in a while, but i remember a similar issue with the HoRNet 'HDD-1' delay. completely "dead" at high feedback settings, nothing like an actual Boss DD-x delay pedal (which he said he had modeled after his own unit). i'd be surprised if he had ever put his hands on one. the closest i've heard to those Boss digital delays in the ancient (2003) freeware Kiesel 'FreeDelay', which behaved almost exactly as those pedals did. another recent disappointment is d16's 'Repeater', which doesn't behave at all like the models that it's supposed to be "emulating". what a joke that thing is.

here's an example of what a "proper" delay should function/sound like, be it hardware or software:

https://soundcloud.com/jbuonacc/et-301-delay

also, if i remember correctly, i think this 'monodelay' only goes down to 50ms? that's not quite ideal either, i'd expect a low-end value of 5-10ms (if not lower) to be "acceptable".

sorry if i sound all snarky, but i've been pretty obsessive about delays for 20+ years now.

delay fx. serious business.

[Russell Grand]

i don't understand how this bundle can have ten pages of unanimous praise and nobody notices something like this?

Maybe because not everyone is quite as anal about a free delay as you obviously seem to be?

[kinwie]

Channel
The limiter can now be bypassed and is now off by default. However, turning the limiter off will not change the plugin latency which remains at 1.5 ms regardless of whether it's in use or not. For latency-free processing use the new Channel2 plugin which is an alternative version of the channel strip without the limiter and its associated latency.

Btw, before this update released, I was guessing that you will make a "dynamic" On/Off button to the Limiter, which will also bypass the latency (and its report to the host) when it's off. Similar to the eaReckon's freebies FR-Comp, Equa etc... (Sorry for mentioning other products again)

The option with the Channel2 is okay, but It is just not pretty solution. But hey, it just my opinion and I've easily just delete it from my plugins folder

And the 1.4.1 - 1.4.2 update don't run on Win XP anymore?
p.s. Channel2 has a duplicate parameter name : Input

[swatwork]

a bit late here to test it myself right now, but even in this video you can see that FreqEcho at 100% keeps "building" on itself, just as it should. not the sort of static repeat thing that this 'monodelay' is doing at 100%.

I don't know what's going on in that video but there's no way those 'echoes' are at 261 ms, more like half a second or more. He even goes down to lower than that and the repeats still seem to be spread out at much longer intervals so I'm not sure it's a good comparison for MonoDelay.

As others have noted, MonoDelay allows 100% feedback - it's not capped at 99% or something to stop runaway feedback as perhaps other delays do. Instead I let the user do what they want and any feedback is prevented from getting out of hand by a built-in hard-limiter which is set to clip at 3 dB.

also, if i remember correctly, i think this 'monodelay' only goes down to 50ms? that's not quite ideal either, i'd expect a low-end value of 5-10ms (if not lower) to be "acceptable".

Yeah, I'm surprised by this, I though it went lower. I think I originally had it at 1 ms so I don't know why it ended up at 50. I'll look into it for the next update.

Thanks for the feedback! (sorry, couldn't resist).

[sinkmusic]

here's an example of what a "proper" delay should function/sound like, be it hardware or software:

ArcDev is wonderful, but bear in mind that it is an emulation of a BBD delay, with expected self resonance and LPF on the repeats.
Not all delays are created equals, and for instance even the early digital delays had a rather clean repeat. Most Lexicon delays i have used repeat in a "transparent way".
Only the BBD and tape delays have such a frequency response and self resonant behaviour.

[jbuonacc]

... I don't know what's going on in that video but there's no way those 'echoes' are at 261 ms, more like half a second or more. He even goes down to lower than that and the repeats still seem to be spread out at much longer intervals so I'm not sure it's a good comparison for MonoDelay.

not sure, i just skipped through to the parts where i could see that he had the feedback set at 100%, which was the point i was trying to make. listen to what it's doing then.

Instead I let the user do what they want and any feedback is prevented from getting out of hand by a built-in hard-limiter which is set to clip at 3 dB.

preventing the feedback from getting out of hand is NOT letting the user do what they want to do. did you check that ET-301 clip? every delay should be able to do that.

i'll check the minimum delay time right now, just to be sure.

[jbuonacc]

ArcDev is wonderful, but bear in mind that it is an emulation of a BBD delay, with expected self resonance and LPF on the repeats. Not all delays are created equal...

right, which is why i mentioned the Kiesel 'FreeDelay' and the way it properly emulates an early digital delay at high feedback. not as much "character" as a BBD emulation, but far different from what the 'HDD-1' or 'monodelay' are doing.

[jbuonacc]

yep, both the stereo and mono delays only go down to 50ms. playing with them a bit more, i can tell that they're trying to get a little wild at 100%, but that limiter is holding it back. sounds a bit ugly either way, not sure what's causing that. the hi/lo pass filters on it are pretty cool though, i think this could be a good delay. any way to get it to not totally cut itself off when tweaking the delay time? that's not good.

loaded up 'FreqEcho', that thing is awesome. 'FreeDelay' as well, as old as it is, nails the sound of my old Boss RDD-10. speaking of HoRNet, i realized that i had a demo of his 'DeeLay', and i've got to say that it's a definite improvement over what i remember of his 'HDD-1'. good job on that one, nice to see.

[swatwork]

yep, both the stereo and mono delays only go down to 50ms. playing with them a bit more, i can tell that they're trying to get a little wild at 100%, but that limiter is holding it back. sounds a bit ugly either way, not sure what's causing that.

I'm not sure what you're expecting from the feedback on these effects. I've said right from the start that these are 'digital' effects; there's no analog modelling or attempts to recreate the behaviour of electronic devices, just pure maths. So if the feedback is allowed to runaway the numbers will just get bigger and bigger until something breaks. Pure mathematical feedback is not pretty, hence the limiter.

I think you right, the minimum delay time is too high. It could probably go down to 10 ms but I don't think there's much value in going lower. Anything less would be barely noticeable at low feedback settings and nothing more than howling at high settings. I think there are some nice 'clangy' sounds to be had between 10 and 50 ms so I'll lower the limit for the next release.

[bojanboyss]

one quick observation on the 'monodelay' (at least)... with high feedback settings it just repeats and repeats and repeats. it doesn't "regenerate" or feed back on itself, nor does it "fade/die out" like most any other delay effect. more like a "note repeat" effect, which could be useful in some cases, but isn't "normal" behavior for a delay.

i don't understand how this bundle can have ten pages of unanimous praise and nobody notices something like this? very comprehensive fx collection for free though, and i dig the GUIs. frequency of maintenance and additions is very impressive.

I noticed that too. And I love that! Every other delay with feedback at 100% very soon gets uncontrolled, too much in volume, not that useful. This way it turns into a looper. Quite rare in digital world, was always looking for this. Please dont change!
I still keep old versions of both delays just in case that changes.

Thanks swatwork for awesome VSTs. Only complain is that there is no change-log or news notification except in this forum topic but by watching this topic (for changelog) and adding products to favorites (on kvr product pages) I manage to get notified of new versions

[swatwork]

And the 1.4.1 - 1.4.2 update don't run on Win XP anymore?
p.s. Channel2 has a duplicate parameter name : Input

I didn't realise at the time but the functions I used to read the registry are only supported on Vista and later so that's probably why XP no longer works. I'll see if I can find an XP-compatible alternative.

Thanks for reporting the duplicate parameter.

[swatwork]

I noticed that too. And I love that! Every other delay with feedback at 100% very soon gets uncontrolled, too much in volume, not that useful. This way it turns into a looper. Quite rare in digital world, was always looking for this. Please dont change!

Don't worry, I implemented 100% feedback for exactly this kind of endless repetition effect so I'm not going to change it.

[bojanboyss]

Thanks

[slipstick]

I'm always fascinated by these "your XXXX doesn't behave exactly like another one that I've seen" comments. That's fine by me, differences are good.

If you don't like how one of these excellent (purely IMO, of course) effects behaves then just don't use it. Use something that you like better. It's not like you've wasted a great deal of money on it. There are one or two of the DD effects that I can't find a use for. That's usually because I already have something else that I'm used to working with and that does the job as well. That's not something to complain about.

Steve

[No_Use]

I noticed that too. And I love that! Every other delay with feedback at 100% very soon gets uncontrolled, too much in volume, not that useful.

As I make Dub music I disagree with this, sorry.

It's a common Dub technique to let delay repeats first fade out then bring them back up by putting feedback to 100% ( > 100% actually), I call this "build up delay".
I do this quite regularly in my productions, so a delay that doesn't do build ups is rather useless to me.

(of course I can see the usefulness as it is currently also, as said, as a kind of looper.)