VallhallaDelay 1.5.2 beta with BBDuck, Clarity and DuckTape

[david.beholder]

https://twitter.com/valhalladsp/status/ ... 8058079232

Heads up to all ValhallaDelay owners: the 1.5.2 beta links are now in your http://valhalladsp.com user accounts.

3 new delay modes (BBDuck, Clarity, DuckTape)!
Ducking!
Catalina-ready installer! (ok, not nearly as exciting as the first two things, but it HAS TO BE DONE)

[medienhexer]

It is awesome. The ducking is really great and one of the new modes with Diffusion at 100 sounds a lot like the eventide black hole to my ears.

[perpetual3]

Clarity mode. So good.

[dionenoid]

Great update

Ducking, some diffusion, yummy

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

For those not on Gearslutz, where Sean has been more active, here's some info that may be helpful that he's been posting over there.

Hey all,

I've just uploaded the 1.5.2 beta versions to the user accounts of all ValhallaDelay owners.

The 1.5.2 update introduces 3 new delay Modes:
BBDuck: A brighter BBD model, with brightness that tracks the delay time (shorter delays are brighter, while longer delays are darker). Based on our analysis of the Ibanez AD-150 and Roland DC-10.
Clarity: A clean "digital" delay, with a program dependent limiter, so you can SLAM the drive gain without getting distortion. Bandwidth determined by the Age control. Deep and wild modulation waveforms, selected by the Era control.
DuckTape: A tape delay with built-in companding noise reduction. Similar to the existing Tape mode, but brighter, and virtually noise free.

All of the new modes have ducking! This is a 1-knob ducking control. We did a lot of work and research to develop a ducking method that didn't require threshold/attack/release controls. Just turn up the ducking knob, to introduce feedback and output ducking that "just works."

The new installer is also notarized and stapled for Catalina. Which is totally boring, but you'll need it if you are going to run Catalina. Apple is releasing some cool new machines in the next few months, which will only run Catalina or newer macOSes, so we're working on getting all of our plugins & installers ready for Catalina.

Thanks for checking this out! If you run into any issues, send us a note through our Support form (https://valhalladsp.com/support-request/) and we'll look into it. We're hoping to "officially" release this next week.

And after I asked for more details about the modulation in Clarity mode...

Sure! Here's how Era changes the modulation for Clarity:

ERA: Past - sine wave modulation
ERA: Present - triangle wave modulation. Which, in this application, sounds like SQUARE wave modulation. So call it whatever you want. It does that "pitch up/pitch down" thing, with no transition in between the two.
ERA: Future - random modulation. This sounds more subtle than the sine and triangle modulation, as sine and triangle consistently go between the minimum and maximum delay excursion values, while the random modulation kinda wanders around between those, and only rarely reaches the minimum or maximum values.

In many of the ValhallaDelay modes, the modulation waveform is filtered by a lowpass filter with a very low cutoff. This smooths out the waveform, and also causes the modulation depth to naturally increase with increased modulation rate. Well, this isn't going on in Clarity. The modulation in Clarity is inspired by 80s digital processors like the PCM-42, where you can get EXTREME amounts of pitch change with high amounts of modulation depth. So be forewarned: Heyre Be Dragons!

One of the fun "Easter eggs" in the Clarity mode is what the modulation does in the Quad mode:

ERA: Past - 8-phase sine modulation
ERA: Present - 4 triangle modulators (1 per "tap"), each running at slightly different rates, with modulation inverted between left and right channels.
ERA: Futuret - 4 random modulators (1 per "tap"), each running at slightly different rates, with modulation inverted between left and right channels.

This allows for the Clarity Quad mode to get some really cool multitap choruses, pseudo-SST reverbs, and all sorts of big and lush modulation effects.

And a post from a few days before the release that includes information on the BBD's and a new preset:

The short answer is that ValhallaDelay has BBD models that are considerably more advanced than the delay models used in Space Modulator or ÜberMod. The BBD modes in ValhallaDelay have companding, antialiasing filters, and much more advanced saturation options than the older Valhalla plugins.

The BBDuck and Clarity modes that are in the upcoming ValhallaDelay update have some really nice multi-voice modulation options available when using the Quad delay style:

BBDuck: the Quad style uses an 8-phase sine modulator, arranged so that the L/R tap pairs (Tap 1/2/3/4) have modulation 180 degrees out of phase. The modulation is smoothed, so the modulation depth is lowed as the modulation frequency increases. I've been using this to get some pseudo rotary speaker effects (you'll have to wait a bit to try this preset, but putting it here for reference):

<ValhallaDelay pluginVersion="1.5.1" presetName="BBDUCK-Rotary" Mix="0.5" DelayStyle="0.97699999809265136719" DelayLSync="0.25" DelayLNote="0.20000000298023223877" DelayL_Ms="0" DelayRSync="0.25" DelayRNote="0.20000000298023223877" DelayR_Ms="0" DelaySpread="0.5" DelaySpacing="0.5" DelayRatio="0.61414140462875366211" RepeatSwell="1" TapA="1" TapB="1" TapC="1" TapD="1" Feedback="0" Width="1" DriveIn="0.50099998712539672852" Age="0" Diffusion="0" DiffSize="1" LowCut="0" HighCut="1" ModRate="0.46799999475479125977" ModDepth="0.40000000596046447754" Wow="0.5" Flutter="0.5" FreqShift="0.5" FreqDetune="0.57999998331069946289" PitchShift="0.5" PitchDetune="0.5" Mode="0.3333333432674407959" Era="1" Ducking="0" Reserved2="0" Reserved3="0" Reserved4="0"/>

Clarity: the Quad style has multi-phase modulation, that varies according to how Era is set.
Past: 8-phase sine oscillator, as described above.
Present: 4 triangle LFOs, with the right voice in each L/R pair (Tap 1/2/3/4) being modulated 180 degrees out of phase from the left voice. Each triangle LFO is at a different frequency. This gives you something similar to the 8Tap mode in ValhallaÜberMod, but with a different staggering of modulation frequencies, and the ability to have all taps feeding into the inputs for SST-esque feedback effects. This is GREAT for huge chorus sounds.
Future: 8 random LFOs. Great for random flanging, and more subtle / natural modulation effects.

The Clarity LFOs do NOT smooth out their modulation depths, so you can get really extreme pitch bending effects. Clarity is inspired by some old school rackmount digital delays, that allowed for really crazy and deep modulation with the built-in LFOs.

I've been A/Bing some of the modulation presets I'm working on for the ValhallaDelay update with SpaceModulator and ÜberMod, and...well, not to speak ill of my older plugins, but there is a liveliness and presence in the ValhallaDelay versions that the older plugins don't have. I think that the saturation models (in BBDuck) and the program dependent limiter (in Clarity) have a lot to do with this liveliness.

[Captain]

Great news! Although adding new ”modes” with ducking (plus other changes) is a little more convoluted than just adding a global ducking feature, but I understand this comes from the need to keep the interface & number of parameters intact. Anyway, excited to try all the new stuff!

ERA: Past - sine wave modulation
ERA: Present - triangle wave modulation. Which, in this application, sounds like SQUARE wave modulation. So call it whatever you want. It does that "pitch up/pitch down" thing, with no transition in between the two.

Ha, I just recently understood exactly why this happens - sine wave modulation sounds like a sine wave, but triangle sounds like a square. It’s basic math really, but it’s still a great feeling when different things come together in your head giving you some new insight.

[david.beholder]

I like BBD with ducking it allows what I like: clean signal vs dirty echo.
I was doing it before with ableton plugins.

[RobGee]

I’ll have to check out these new modes

[vitocorleone123]

Absolutely 100% one of the best plugins of the year. Maybe the best new plugin. This just adds to that halo.

And it's only $50. AMAZING.

[foosnark]

All three of the new modes are excellent.

[c_voltage]

It seems found a little issue, for example: by defaul the Delay (time) knob have 300.0ms value.
If we enter manually value for example 300.2ms, and try double click on it, it will not back again to default 300.0 state. And this will works only if we enter 300.5 and more hehe.
Well not critical ofcourse, but just as is.