Tempo Delay

Usually I'm a fan of Voxengo plugins, it is a great developer, but Tempo Delay does not really convince me. Also it can even be dangerous to damage your ears or hardware (more to that in a second).

But let's start at the beginning.

The basic idea of this delay is equally interesting as also kind of strange. "Tempo Delay", as the name suggest, is focusing on tempo (bpm) as rather note or millisecond values like in traditional delays.

I like if something is going its own path straight against the main stream, but the implementation here is what gives me pain.

1. Setting up the delay times both, the initial delay by "Delay" and the succeding repetitions "Rep Period", requires too many time and brain cells in my opinion. "100%" equals 1/4 at set "4/4" beat.

"25%" = (1/4 * 0,25) = 1/16
"50%" = (1/4 * 0,5) = 1/8
"200%" = (1/4 * 2) = 1/2
"300%" = (1/4 * 3) = 3/4

Now maybe it is just me with being used to traditional delays, but just setting in a "1/8" for a pre-delay and "1/4" for the actual delay works way faster and more uncomplicated.

But what really gives me trouble is the "Feedback" parameter in conjunction with a missing "Clear" button, to clear out the cache.

2. The "Feedback" parameter is set -12 by default. Exceeding the value of around -6 gives you an upward feedback loop, that is, a feedback whose volume increases by every repetition.

As you might can think, this leads to trouble.

Resulting in an extremely clipped signal which, since you have no killswitch, remains persistent as long as you let the plugin in chain. Using the "bypass" button in the topline of every Voxengo plugin does not stop that, only a bypass of the Host gives quick help here.

Indeed, some people might want an upward feedback for sound experiments, but in this ccase the plugin needs a limiter and/or said clear functionality to stop the madness. This, unfortunately, is not provided here.

As a fan of using dail in long Feedbacks, this makes this plugin a pain in the a$$ or better ears for me.

Other negative things:

3. The "Gain" parameters can not be rolled down completely. The Gain for the delays themselves is only reducable by -24, the general "Wet Gain" by -40, and "Dry Gain" by -12 only. What if I want to completely silence a specific signal?

4. Delays only up to a maximum of a 3/4th note. You can't create delays longer than that.

I like the Filter and Tremolo sections as well as the panning dials for each stereo channel but that doesn't really equalize the aforementioned disadvantages of this plugin in my opinion.

You can give it a try nonetheless since it is free, if you are interested in something new, but I recommend using different delays just for the sake of faster achievements and better functionality.