[silly question] irregular delay

[xoxos]

a request someone made a while back floated to the top last night... a delay effect where time, panning et c. of each echo could be controlled separately, so essentially a stereo multitap.

looking in the database, the only free or cheap option with more than four taps seems to be roku, which is a free 6-tap delay with panning and filtering. there are a few commercial options, like image line's delay bank, they're ~$50 and up. am i missing anything in the free/cheap range?

the "silly question" comes in as "should i make one?" i'd oc add it to my existing effects pack and likely kick the price up a few dollars after the first week.

my thought is that an array of 8 or 16 sample accuracy (therefore no interpolation and integer pointer math only) stereo delays would be cheap to implement.. until filtering comes into play separate amp and pan for each tap, and one tap selectable to be routed back to the beginning (not necessarily the last).

as well as patterning applications, the idea of slightly unsynced delays struck me as fresh ground.

thoughts/requests?

[aMUSEd]

I would love an irregular delay - ideally something that could surprise me

[xoxos]

i'm a big fan of software doing exactly what you tell it to.. i've finally got fft to play with but this seems a simpler idea.

[kx.001]

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2994.html

[xoxos]

the only functions i'd alter in comparison is a selection of tap for feedback (which could be done uy using two delays in series) and arrangement of interface.. maybe not so significant later in the day

[spirit]

I've been after a really good random delay time plugin. I liked your Discipline3, but it isn't smooth enough - the jumps are a bit harsh and produce clicks sometimes (not CPU related). I recently bought Fabfilter's Timeless2 and that's very good, but not random. On impulse I bought Nusofting's delay thingy on a whim ($15 sale) and will see how that goes.

But I really just want an improved Displine3

[xoxos]

you like that? now that i am using code it would be easier to develop the concept. there's a lot of ways 'randomised delay' could grow.. since it's ~like macro granular synthesis. throw some concepts at me if you want.. really long smoothing? buffers could be filled without being the last 4 1/4 notes et c..

[spirit]

I make really long form slow ambient. It suits long delay times, but the delay times get very predictable and boring very fast. Modulating the delay time with an LFO gives a very silly bouncing ball effect which doesn't suit the style at all. Other modulation I've tried can give a sort of sliding effect which is also no good.

I'm not too good with the technicalities, but here's the thought:

My perfect delay would let me define a number of delay times that would be randomly triggered. Each piece of audio affected by a time would continue with that time and feedback amount to its natural end. Usually another time would be activated and affect the next bit of audio before the first had finished - but the first keeps going; and the second, and third etc.

Perhaps there would also be a randomized value for the amount of feedback on each delay time. Also the opportunity for one line to feed into the next one - but this value too could be randomized.

I'm imagining this working best with distinct separate sounds - plucked strings, soft bells, single words etc

Finally, the delay times could either be from a rhythmically linked bpm-synced group so they naturally develop their own complex and evolving patterns in sync, or they could be completely random but within defined limits. That way you could choose between extremely long, interlocking delay patterns, or short bubbly chaotic ones.

A deluxe version might even allow the choice to have defined pitch-shifted delay as well, perhaps grouped into selected keys. That way a bpm-synced randomized pattern - with randomized pitch to key - would sometimes create chords and riffs.

But above all it would have to be 100% smooth so there was no sense of the original audio itself being stretched or morphed.

ahhhhh

[xoxos]

discipline3 (and some parallels.. metal mickey??) work the other way.. eg. having 5 different length delay taps on the signal and crossfading between them at the output. you're describing putting the selection at the input to the delay taps.

i also think this would sound quite nice, especially with slow modulation of feedback, eg. some taps would have a bit of dub feedback colouration then cut back.

have you tried using a modular environment? (i haven't tried eXT2's mod. environ yet,) i used eXT1.4 to do things like this.. it took some intermediary effects plugs i pieced together in synthedit that had two outputs and would fade the signal between them. chains of signal splitters could be created leading to several delays, reverbs, granular effects.

so eg. to accomplish the delay scenario, a path randomiser could be applied to a few delay instances, with MIDI lfo plugs targeting the regen params.

actually (here's me having only recently woken up) this has a drawback bcs afaict multiple outputs only seemed to function as mono (despite the 'stereo pair' compile option..) which leads to a mess bcs a bunch of extra vst are then required to pan and recombine signals into stereo..

otherwise, this would do better bcs a dedicated effect would wear itself out after a couple of applications (albeit with ambient, those applications may be 80 minutes in length..) having to code an intelligently selecting randomised pitch shifter would be a lot of work to achieve the same end.

i'll have a mess with the multiple outs thingy and see if i can get it to pair correctly. if not.. 8 stereo delays, resonant filter on each.. wouldn't take too long to code. i could throw a few ck pitchshifter modules in and taps could be assigned to them.. if you don't mind a crap gui i've only coded the crudest pitch shifting algo.

then again, maybe waiting would be best i've built an fft but haven't "done" anything with it yet..

[osiris]

I have something like this and it's great. It's called Disarray Delay. Unfortunately it's an pluggo plugin and I don't think you can load the necessary software anymore.
This has separate BPM's for each channel, plus separate feedback, distortion and bit crushing. I'm sure it has more, but it's on the other 'puter.
It's capable of some crazy things and I love it. There's also a panic button because it can get out of hand.

[osiris]

http://www.alloyelectric.com/main/software/

What do you know? I found it along with the Pluggo runtime needed to use it.

Enjoy!

[xoxos]

curses! this was the plugin that would have brought me into the public eye!

a delay plugin! it's so simple.. why didn't i think of it? everyone uses delays, so everyone will use xoxos vst plugins, and i will own all of the banks in all of the world. talking about finding things, there's one part of you that isis will never find. hmph.

[osiris]

I hate to steal your thunder x. I am positive this plugin would have pulled you from obscurity Actually it would be a good idea to do an emu(is that a dirty word @ here) of this thing.
And, for nostalgia's sake = ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US

[spirit]

I can't see the similarity at all. Dirty randomness is completely different to smooth beautiful "defined" randomness.

And in hindsight I don;t think the pitch-shifters are all that important. Even a simple octave up/down would be more than enough.

[xoxos]

if you do use eXT it looks like stereo outs are enabled, only four seem to be allowed (which is the vst sdk spec if i recall).

i think i'll give this a go in the next couple of days if you have anything you'd like to mention