I'm working on a bucket brigade delay - what do you think so far?

[Amberience]

I'm working on a bucket brigade delay model, trying to model as many realistic features of BBD chips and BBD powered pedals as possible. Thought I'd post my demo video here and see what people thought?




What kind of features do people typically want from a plugin aimed at modelling analog delays (racks and stompboxes) ??

[whassup]

I heard quite a few nice sounding moments in your cool demo video.
Valhalla Delay is my personal yardstick for these sounds (BBD).
Delays are like synths: For me there is no one size fits all.
So my encouragement for you is to make it what you like and then think about it if others might like that approach too.
Two knobs or 200 is a good question.
For my personal liking there are too many knobs on your plugin than I probably would use.
That doesn't say that I prefer plugin with few knobs.
My personal view on this is: As many knobs as needed and as few as possible.
Deelay is another good example for that IMHO.
My 2c

[hey212]

What kind of features do people typically want from a plugin aimed at modelling analog delays (racks and stompboxes) ??

If you can get your hands on a Meraki, make it sound like that.

[foosnark]

That's sounding generally pretty decent!

My ideal software BBD emulation would have:

- Stages setting
- Delay time sets clock speed, well outside the appropriate range for the number of stages, so you can dial in the aliasing, clock whine etc.
- Filter that follows the clock speed but can be offset, to allow some of that clock whine in.
- Maybe some control over the companding / noise level?
- Some nice input drive characteristics
- Ability to do really short delays, not just for chorus/flanging but Karplus-Strong.

Bitcrushing is a weird thing in a BBD since it should be a series of analog capacitors; there is no ADC/DAC involved. And I don't know that it needs peak filters/EQs inside the feedback loop, just a highpass and lowpass.

[Amberience]

That's sounding generally pretty decent!

My ideal software BBD emulation would have:

- Stages setting
- Delay time sets clock speed, well outside the appropriate range for the number of stages, so you can dial in the aliasing, clock whine etc.
- Filter that follows the clock speed but can be offset, to allow some of that clock whine in.
- Maybe some control over the companding / noise level?
- Some nice input drive characteristics
- Ability to do really short delays, not just for chorus/flanging but Karplus-Strong.

Bitcrushing is a weird thing in a BBD since it should be a series of analog capacitors; there is no ADC/DAC involved. And I don't know that it needs peak filters/EQs inside the feedback loop, just a highpass and lowpass.

Funnily enough, I've already added most of that in the newest prototype!

[Ah_Dziz]

Having various controls over the quality of the clock and amplification stages would be best as well as ability to fiddle with and pre/ post filtering. Fully adjustable smoothing of the delay time (for modulation and regular manual adjustment). Really the more control the better. I'd be most interested in something that is more like a fully circuit bent delay personally.

[Amberience]

Having various controls over the quality of the clock and amplification stages would be best as well as ability to fiddle with and pre/ post filtering. Fully adjustable smoothing of the delay time (for modulation and regular manual adjustment). Really the more control the better. I'd be most interested in something that is more like a fully circuit bent delay personally.

Got most of this now too! Circuit bent "modders paradise" approach with a nice simple workflow wrapped around it, is exactly what I had in mind.

[sqigls]

it's sounding ferkin super
what you have there is plenty.
some manageable chaos. plenty of character, but not not lo-fi sounding, for lack of a better explanation.
I'd like to occasionally exploit the whine without so much noise. I don't have a working understanding of the technology so maybe the noise floor is inherent? but i just like the squidgy subtleties and such.

Is this a VST plugin? I'm very interested to know more. Feel free to add me to the beta team!! Nice work! Thanks for sharing.

[Amberience]

it's sounding ferkin super
what you have there is plenty.
some manageable chaos. plenty of character, but not not lo-fi sounding, for lack of a better explanation.
I'd like to occasionally exploit the whine without so much noise. I don't have a working understanding of the technology so maybe the noise floor is inherent? but i just like the squidgy subtleties and such.

Is this a VST plugin? I'm very interested to know more. Feel free to add me to the beta team!! Nice work! Thanks for sharing.

Yep, it will be a VST plugin.

The clock bleed and noise-floor are separately controllable areas. You can have one without the other if you want, but I do like the combination of both of them. Clock bleed imparts harmonics to the signal which can really help to add crufty and nastiness to the overall tone.

I have selectable clipping types for the input, feedback, and output gain stages. You can squidge to the extreme by tweaking the compander parameters too.

[sqigls]

i can't wait

can you foresee a release date or roundabouts?

[Amberience]

i can't wait

can you foresee a release date or roundabouts?

Not yet sorry!

[sqigls]

sounds great anyway
i hope time is on your side.
all the best!

[foosnark]

Fantastic! I look forward to being able to finally say there is a really good BBD emulation in software that is sufficiently gnarly but controllable

There have been some in recent years that sound reasonably like "clean-ish" dark BBD-based delay pedals, but few of them can sound like you're trying to push the BBD too far. (Sinevibes Integer does explore underclocking based on number of stages, but isn't really an emulation per se.)

And then all that remains is a killer PT2399 emulation...

[Amberience]

Fantastic! I look forward to being able to finally say there is a really good BBD emulation in software that is sufficiently gnarly but controllable

There have been some in recent years that sound reasonably like "clean-ish" dark BBD-based delay pedals, but few of them can sound like you're trying to push the BBD too far. (Sinevibes Integer does explore underclocking based on number of stages, but isn't really an emulation per se.)

And then all that remains is a killer PT2399 emulation...

I have built up a bunch of chip profiles like these:

* 0 == CT::MN3005 — Panasonic 4096-stage, 15 V; long classic analog delay, warm repeats, good headroom.
* 1 == CT::MN3205 — Panasonic 4096-stage, 5 V; classic 9 V delay voice, darker/grittier at long times.
* 2 == CT::MN3007 — Panasonic 1024-stage, 15 V; chorus/flanger staple, clean low-noise short line.
* 3 == CT::MN3207 — Panasonic 1024-stage, 5 V; ubiquitous 9 V chorus/flanger BBD, more sag feel.
* 4 == CT::SAD1024 — Reticon dual-512, ~15 V; flanger/early MM bite, short by itself (stack for more).
* 5 == CT::R5106 — Toshiba ~1024-stage, ~12 V; modulation/synth-leaning short-to-medium line.
* 6 == CT::MN3004 — Panasonic 512-stage, 15 V; bright short delay/ADT/chorus duties.
* 7 == CT::MN3008 — Panasonic 2048-stage, 15 V; DMM-style building block for longer delays.
* 8 == CT::MN3010 — Panasonic dual-512, 15 V; flexible dual short lines for stereo/multi-path tricks.
* 9 == CT::MN3011 — Panasonic 3328-stage tapped, 15 V; multi-tap ambience/widening (STD-1 vibe).
* 10 == CT::MN3204 — Panasonic 512-stage, 5 V; short modulation/ADT at 9 V.
* 11 == CT::MN3206 — Panasonic 2048-stage, 5 V; mid-length 9 V delays/modulation, compact builds.
* 12 == CT::SAD4096 — Reticon 4096-stage, ~15 V; long Reticon flavor, a touch grittier than Panasonic.
* 13 == CT::SAD512 — Reticon 512-stage, ~15 V; crisp short-line for modulation/ADT.
* 14 == CT::TDA1022 — Philips 512-stage, 10–18 V; vintage European chorus/short-delay favorite.
* 15 == CT::V3207 — Coolaudio MN3207 clone, 1024-stage, 5 V; modern chorus/flanger staple.
* 16 == CT::V3205 — Coolaudio MN3205 clone, 4096-stage, 5 V; modern dark 9 V delays (e.g., Carbon Copy).
* 17 == CT::BL3207 — Belling MN3207 clone, 1024-stage, 5 V; budget/DIY chorus/flanger option.
* 18 == CT::XVIVE3005 — Xvive MN3005 reissue, 4096-stage, 15 V; modern supply for classic long-delay tone.

You can customize them fully though. So you can pretty much invent your own chip. The reason for the LP/HP/Peak1/Peak2 filters in the feedback path is that it is actually really awesome being able to shape the circulatory nature of the delay. Personally I like to cut around 100hz and boost around 1kHz by 1dB, so that the oscillations turn quite squeally and interesting. Kind of like a Boss DM2 at short delay times, but you can get that effect at long delay times too if you want.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Hey Drew, nice to see you working on plugins! BBD's are my favorite delay type. First thing I do with any new BBD plugin is listen to the delays get crunchy, and play with the runaway feedback.

Second thing I do is try to see if it does chorus/flange. I'm always disappointed when they can't. If you're going full-on circuit-bent BBD delay, I'd suggest not forgetting about chorus/flange/vibrato and building some features to take those to the next level.

1. The ability to convincingly get delay times down to chorus/flanger territory. Sounds like you've got that at least partially covered if you're allowing for adjusting the number of stages but maybe also having a few different clock speed settings if that's not in there.

2. Addition of an LFO with different shapes (Triangle, Sine, Square). I'm assuming it's usually the clock speed being modulated and not the delay time. But maybe options in a plugin for different Modulation targets.

3. The ability to adjust the gain going into the BBD. Set cleaner for chorus/flange, hit harder for delays for example.

4. Bypassable compander and/or controls over the companding.

5. Multiple delay lines with different phases and the ability to pan.

6. Crossfeed routing capabilities (5 and 6 should allow for the dimension thing).

7. Presets for DM-2, various Memory Man versions (including modern ones), CE-2, BF-2, DOD FX65, VB-2, Boss Dimension, Small Clone, Mistress, etc..

Is that overkill? Oh yeah, absolutely. Would it be great? Amazing.