Valhalla Delay Digital or Soundtoys PrimalTap

[audiouser720]

Primaltap is on sale atm.

I’ve got the BIM and i can conclude that you are never - as of now never - going to have that sound with plugins. That said Vdelay in digital mode got me as close as I can get to the BIM in terms of settings, so lfo, ping pong, input drive which is very cool, but the overall sound is still somewhat, dunno, 2D? To be fair so many manufacturers’ plugins have got that same-ish sound you just can’t escape. You don’t get that with hardware. It might be the converters, something else, I don’t know. Fanboyism is toxic on these forums. I’ve realised that whenever there is a passionate post about a particular plugin manufacturer across all the forums, it’s actually always the same users. Confirmation bias? Most of the times they even say that they don’t have the hardware.. so they don’t know what they are talking about.

Primaltap has a more distinctive sound to it. I think it’s a tad closer to a hardware digital delay, but it doesn’t do many things the BIM does.

Vdelay if you want to match the lfo settings, ping pong, input drive as close as possible to the BIM. Vdelay is so much nicer to stare at…
Primaltap if you wanna be closer to that overall hardware sound but it’s a completely different delay to the BIM. BIM is more like a Lexicon PCM42, Primaltap is Lexicon Prime Time, different implementation.

None of these plugins are perfect.

EDIT: But they are both amazing for what they are. I gave up on looking for emulations as it’s never going to be achieved 100%. Use a plugin for what it is, not because you want it sound like hardware. For that, get the hardware.

[kevvvvv]

Comeback Kid from Babyaudio is my go to after Valhalla.
https://babyaud.io/comeback-kid-delay-plugin
It has so many tricks up its sleeve, and so many interesting ways to do them.
It's taken me places I'd never have found on all the high spec technical or fake vintage looking delays, mostly because most delays work the same way with their endless same same questions like "how many lines do you want? how much modulation do you want? how many ms delay length do you want? etc etc
Comeback Kid gets me exploring new sounds that are immediately useable.

Here's Joshua Caspar talking about it.


On the subject of delay here's a review of Valhalla by White Sea. He's the "is it snake oil?" guy. His reactions are interesting.

[kevvvvv]

If you're new to BabyAudio, and are curious, here's White Sea reviewing lots of their stuff.

He's entertaining if you like watching plug in demos and reviews, like I do

[kritikon]

If you really want either/or I'll go with the Valhalla camp. Only because it does so much more. VDelay really does cover a huge amount of ground and capable of all the standard stuff but a whole range of weirdness too. It's strength for me is its diffusion and ability to go into reverb territory, but the pitch and frequency shifting can be beautiful too. But it doesn't do everything. Primal tap has some unique character but it's not as wide-ranging. I think Primal Tap wins in terms of grungy delays, if that's your thing. You can make VDelay sound like old BBD units but Primal Tap sure does have that instant character.

TBH at the sale price, I'd maybe even get both, because as mentioned already - no one delay does everything. One of the things VDelay doesn't do well is multitap. It has a 4-tap mode, but very little in terms of individual tap control, but then Primal Tap doesn't either - that's not what it's about at all. Both are down to character and which you prefer, but definitely in terms of value per function etc, Valhalla wins hands-down. I'd never want Primal Tap as my only delay, but I could live with VDelay as my only one.

[kevvvvv]

kritikon

TBH at the sale price, I'd maybe even get both, because as mentioned already - no one delay does everything.

Couldn't agree more.

Everyone needs Valhalla Delay as it has everything.

A second delay plug should have a different GUI approach, ie, non technical, dial-in flavours, encourage to experiment, try out new concepts and approaches.

I feel this is important as Valhalla-and-technicalities puts me off sometimes, as it gets me overthinking about numbers like 250ms or 500ms tail, or 64th or 32nd predelay.

Maybe I shouldn't think this way, but sometimes I just do. The GUI makes me