Valhalla Delay released

[foosnark]

For all the ranting about noise: there are times when it feels perfectly appropriate (and maybe even a little tamer than I might like) and very much under the control/influence of Age, Era, Drive, EQ etc. -- quite as I would expect from analog or early digital gear.

And there are times when it seems kind of out of control. I suspect the latter is the bug that's going to be fixed.

[rasmusklump]

So everyone using analog gear should get rid of it now according to your theory?

....ehm... we tried for ages to reduce/eleminate noise with from analog equipment. Now we programm it back into digital ?...

[jens]

I think it's nearly a flawless design in the balance of depth and simplicity, how the one feature I do think is missing is a ducking control, while I could use a send, I often put delays as inserts because I don't like 2 things having the same delay time.

Honest question: How would you use a send to achieve delay ducking?

When it's on a send, you can add all kinds of effects before it and after it which you then can of course also sidechain.

[Caine123]

Noise should be always able to disable!
Small option. Big impact. Less rant. Especially in plugins which want to be more than a authentic analogue vst.

[metalifuxx]

I wish there was another reverse mode that had modulation control instead of pitch shifting. Just a minor wish.

Just disable the pitch shifting (set to 0) and then adjust fine tune cents for subtle or extreme modulation. I got the best musically usable reverse backward tape delay guitar pad sounds out of this thing last night. Adjust the drive to blend it more or less.

[jens]

For all the ranting about noise: there are times when it feels perfectly appropriate (and maybe even a little tamer than I might like) and very much under the control/influence of Age, Era, Drive, EQ etc. -- quite as I would expect from analog or early digital gear.

And there are times when it seems kind of out of control. I suspect the latter is the bug that's going to be fixed.

I think the main problem is that decreasing age increasingly lowcuts the noise instead of reducing its gain...

[rewrite history]

So everyone using analog gear should get rid of it now according to your theory?

....ehm... we tried for ages to reduce/eleminate noise with from analog equipment. Now we programm it back into digital ?...

Buy one with the intentions of being a clinically clean digital delay?

There are plenty to choose from already...

[jbone1313]

I think it's nearly a flawless design in the balance of depth and simplicity, how the one feature I do think is missing is a ducking control, while I could use a send, I often put delays as inserts because I don't like 2 things having the same delay time.

Honest question: How would you use a send to achieve delay ducking?

When it's on a send, you can add all kinds of effects before it and after it which you then can of course also sidechain.

Ah - right - side-chaining. Makes sense; thanks. In Ableton, I think you could do it somewhat inline by creating another chain in your audio effects rack, setting the chain selector to cross fade between the two chains (a common trick in Ableton to create wet-dry effects when they lack a dedicated knob), setting the delay to 100%, and then adding whatever devices you're going to use for side-chaining right before the delay effect.

[jens]

That's basically a send then...

[Butwug]

Besides I agree with those who say a ducking function is totally missing.

That would be a nice add, but one thing I love about Bitwig its side band device. It’s very easy to set a ducking delay on anything. I’d be more interested in a noise control, but it won’t dissuade me from getting it.

I would have been on the same boat to buy it, but finally grew bold enough to tackle Delay-4 on Bitwig, for half an hour. That thing is wicked. Havent mastered it yet but it looks quite capable. Valhalla delay is easier to use tho.

Must....stay....busy...or else Ima log in to Valhalla and buy

[jbone1313]

That's basically a send then...

Indeed, but OP said:

I often put delays as inserts because I don't like 2 things having the same delay time.

So, if he wants to use it as an insert, and if he's using Abes, then yeah.

[elxsound]

I don’t believe Valhalla Delay was meant to be noiseless.

From all the posts he made over the years about his findings on delays, especially BBD, his posts are full of info about how noisy they were and nailing that down.

I get that many people have in their own mind of what they want in a delay, but it doesn’t mean that this is it.

As you can see just based on the feature-set, he didn’t set out to include the most features, or most different types of delay, or the most customizable, most modulation sources, finest control of taps...

He simply created what he liked about delays, and made a kickass product.

Even leading up to this, its also clear that many if not all of us have other delay plugins... which means you probably already have delay plugins that are clean delays.

So now you have choices of what to use and when.

Also... gates are lovely for controlling unwanted noise.

[Tappistry]

NO noise in next update, pls!!!

Turn down age knob

Not everybody wants a noise free plugin .
I love a bit of noise

I agree, but I want it like an option, like how IK’s Tape Delay works.

But, frankly I have plenty of plugins already that give me a noiseless tape delay effect already (including the IK plugin), and that aspect of Valhalla Delay will in no way effect my purchase of this plugins. I listed to the demos last night and I’m already sold.

I’d love to hear someone do a shoot out with the best tape delay emulation hardware, actual tape delays and software delays. I’ve got the Strymon Volante on my G.A.S. list. I’ll probably still buy that just because my plan for it is to have a knobby delay after my pre-ordered MircoFreak.

Ditto on the Volante.

All the great amp sim plugins these days combined with the caliber of delay and modulation effects available now make it tempting to try and utilize a laptop setup for live performance with guitar.

[metalifuxx]

Never used a real bucket brigade delay so I've got nothing to compare to, but is it normal for one to self-oscillate/repeat forever at such low feedback levels? Even at 20% it continues very quietly as does the noise.

I have 4 different analog delay pedals (orginal Boss DM-3, DOD Rubberneck, Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail, and TC Electronic EchoBrain, and a couple digital analog pedal models in TC Nova Repeater and Zoom MB60) and they all sound and react entirely different. Not all analog delays use the same BBD chips, especially newer budget chips and depends how the designer/engineer has the filtering and compander/expander setup in the path, which can give you more or less clock noise which can sound like lofi crunchy 8bit ring mod sound and hiss, and also effect where on the feedback knob it will self oscillate if it even does. And they each have different attack envelopes and diffusion. The newer BBD circuits can sound super clean with hardly any noise on long delay times. Older original BBD circuits like in the Boss DM-3 will have more noise and distortion ring mod-ish crunch with longer delay times, even regardless of feedback level and also natural modulation that is inherent with longer delay times and is very dark and can sound more often like a diffuse washy reverb with a little echo. Lookup an analog delay pedal shootout on youtube and it might give ya an idea. One thing is for sure, the Boss DM-3 is my desert island pedal that will remain on my guitar pedal board, cuz it has such a unique musical character that sits well in a live mix with just about any setting. Oh yeah and they can do those trippy pitch wandering spaceship noises with high feedback and twiddling the delay time. Has any one done that trick with Valhalla Delay yet?

[rewrite history]

All this talk about noise might turn out to be a great for the developer. Since Valhalla is already known for having multiple reverbs, each with their own character, maybe this is an opportunity to take all the feature requests given and create another flavor of a clean digital delay.

That way you can keep the original intent of this delay intact, while delivering all the feature requests in a clinically sterile digital delay...