Fabfilter announce TIMELESS 3 !!!!!!!

[simmo75]

Saturn 2 is a powerhouse compared to its predecessor and I’m just starting to get to grips with Timeless 3. Pretty incredible. Just tried that Large Shimmer Reverb under Special FX. No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

What is it that make it “next level” comparing to Valhalla Tape Delay?

[KenjiDeVries]

What I like about Fabfilter is not teasing a product for long time but just delivering it shortly after the announcement. They once said something along the line of "the product decides when it's done, not the deadline". I just demoed Timeless3 and as usual it runs so stable, great updated mod matrix, well thought and overhauled UI. Soundwise as always nothing to complain, besides the pitch algorithm imo. I really dig the drive, the lofi and the diffuse, but the pitch is too artificial and rough for me.

Besides using it as a delay, I spent an hour just changing sounds of synth or creating reverbs XD Adding own taps allows for some "reverse" like delays. Parallel & series filters getting modulated is awesome. v1 & v2 presets are compatible. Having used v2 all the time, I eventually snapped

[Fleer]

No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

I would say that highly depends on your own sonic preferences.

As always opinions are highly personal

[Fleer]

Saturn 2 is a powerhouse compared to its predecessor and I’m just starting to get to grips with Timeless 3. Pretty incredible. Just tried that Large Shimmer Reverb under Special FX. No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

What is it that makes it “next level” comparing to Valhalla Tape Delay?

Wouldn't know (yet) as I was referring to Valhalla Shimmer.

[simmo75]

Saturn 2 is a powerhouse compared to its predecessor and I’m just starting to get to grips with Timeless 3. Pretty incredible. Just tried that Large Shimmer Reverb under Special FX. No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

What is it that makes it “next level” comparing to Valhalla Tape Delay?

Wouldn't know (yet) as I was referring to Shimmer.

Gotcha!
Thanks, I’m scared to test drive this...

[Ploki]

i bought this just because its fabfilter and it's been the first to work with M1 and it's reliable and i can count on it and invest my time in it knowing it will keep working.
And V2 "Beauty" preset is what i use -all the time- anyway if not anything else

Valhalla Delay to me is uninspiring to work with, i gel much more with FF.

I will get Valhalla Revebers eventually, but interfaces are really killing me, they feel like something whipped up in Max MSP.

[Fleer]

Likewise, I dig Valhalla Room and VintageVerb but never fell for their Delay. FabFilter Timeless 3 is a box of chocolates.

[jens]

No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

I would say that highly depends on your own sonic preferences.

As always opinions are highly personal

Yes, absolutely. And I totally love the Fabfilter UIs and would indeed call them next level.
For me personally it is just the sound that does not really convince me so much
- would I do more modern music I'd probably like it a lot more though...

[bmanic]

I got Saturn 2 at some point when it was discounted (~33€) but tbh I have yet to use it...
With version 3 Timeless still has that boring digital (i.e. unorganic) Fabfilter sound that is a lot of work to get rid of
- e.g. the preset "Beautyful Vintage" chorus is a bad joke - it's like they never used any analog chorus in their entire life...

I think it may perhaps be a great tool if you wouldn't touch anything vintage with a bargepole.

Ouch.. that is some classic jens constructive critique right there alright.

I did spent about an hour on that preset, trying to get it close to an old Eventide H3000 preset that a friend of mine made long time ago. It always worked really nicely on clean guitars when combined with a delay (on the chorus, so you feed the chorus signal into a delay send together with the clean guitar).

But yeah, each to their own.

I do hope FabFilter creates a new preset system though where we could write a short note on how the preset is best used or what it's purpose is.. combined with tags for optimal source sounds etc. That would make it more streamlined.

As for calling Timeless "unorganic", I would have agreed with you on version 2 but not any more with version 3. Now we have proper control over the input vs output drive, which internally affects a lot of the different components. Almost all of the different filter types are non-linear ('clean' being the only exception) and have now more advanced built in oversampling. This means that the feedback path is directly affected by how hard a signal goes into the delay. Then there is the additional 'drive' control which is another saturation algorithm within the feedback path and helps if you want to go past 100% feedback and play with it while it goes on forever. This was not possible in version 2.0 without going into some severe aliasing/digital mess.

Then you have the Lo-Fi knob which is a pretty complex system behind the scenes but presented to the user as a "one-knob" solution. It's a really flexible and characterful knob that does everything from sample rate reduction, subtle pitch instability to bit crushing.. again, it too is affected by the incoming audio level.. thus pretty organic and non-linear in it's behavior.

Personally I think Timeless 3 is pretty deep and capable now of doing almost anything you can imagine. Does it replace your favorite delays? Hell no.. it operates completely differently and especially the Valhalla stuff is too unique to be "replaced" by anything (in my opinion). But is it a solid delay plugin in it's own right? Yes, definitely. It too being unique and not really possible to be duplicated by other plugins.

[aMUSEd]

Can you import V2 presets?

[Fleer]

No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

I would say that highly depends on your own sonic preferences.

As always opinions are highly personal

Yes, absolutely. And I totally love the Fabfilter UIs and would indeed call them next level.
For me personally it is just the sound that does not really convince me so much
- would I do more modern music I'd probably like it a lot more though...

I understand. For me there’s two kinds of FX: the up-to-date 21th Century ones, of which FabFilter is king, and the classics emulations, where I tend to go with Slate or PA and a number of smaller devs like PSP or Valhalla (for vintage verbs).

[bmanic]

Can you import V2 presets?

Yes you can, but I'm not sure if they are 100% compatible. There have apparently been quite significant changes to the internals of Timeless 3.

[giant_panda]

Soundwise as always nothing to complain, besides the pitch algorithm imo. I really dig the drive, the lofi and the diffuse, but the pitch is too artificial and rough for me.

Try small values like 0.010-50 with the full diffuse and high feedback level

[jens]

Saturn 2 is a powerhouse compared to its predecessor and I’m just starting to get to grips with Timeless 3. Pretty incredible. Just tried that Large Shimmer Reverb under Special FX. No need for ValhallaDSP anymore. This is next level.

What is it that makes it “next level” comparing to Valhalla Tape Delay?

Wouldn't know (yet) as I was referring to Valhalla Shimmer.

You can of course easily get similar shimmer verbs from Valhalla Delay too, however Timeless 3 takes the lead here because you have much more control over the ducking... (i.e. you can control its timing, while with Valhalla you can only control its strength) and therefor it sits nicely in the background without ever becoming overbearing - good luck trying to achieve that with Valhalla Delay...(plus with Timeless 3 you also have more control of the taps)

[jens]

Am I actually in the process of talking myself into getting it?