mdaDubDelay - Dub madness from the VST Stone Age!

I do not know when this VST effect saw the light of the world. It must have been long before the time when I even thought about to produce music digitally. And it even gathered dust in my collection for quite a long time without ever being used. This was, because there were enough shiny plugins with a well-designed user interface, which had, in my opinion, everything I needed for my Dub adventures. It was just some time ago, when I realized that this plugin has some good, already "well wired" features, is very resource-saving and simply great fun to work with.

mdaDubDelay brings no own GUI, which is why only the look in FL Studio is shown above. This plugin uses the VST GUI representation of the respective host application. As briefly mentioned above, I have neglected this baby because (Image Line and the fans of the FL GUI may forgive me) the representation of native VSTs in FL Studio simply is not appealing. Yes, even I am sometimes guided by the appearance of something ;). The developers at Smartelectronix probably did not want to waste much time on superficialities.

Under the hood, the mdaDubDelay has a lot to offer. As the name suggests, everything is centered around the delay effect. Anyone expecting an all-in-one Dubmachine is wrong here. Allow me to describe the controls one after the other:

• Delay - Sets the time interval between the repetitions. Since the effect is based on old tape-based effects, herewith also the pitch of repetitions is determined.
• Feedback - In the positive range, as for any delay effect, this determines the length of the effect. The negative range allows the so-called Delay Feedback saturation.
• FbTone - Determines using a simple filter, the sound frequency of the repetitions.
• LFODepth - Sets the oscillation amplitude of the modulation.
• LFORate - Sets the oscillation frequency of the modulation.
• Output - Allows a decrease or increase of the signal at the output

Here I would like to say that I, as someone who likes to automate effects, do not use the LFO functionality for modulation. Somehow the mdaDubdelay unfortunately cannot be synchronized to the VST host. When using the LFO functions, this causes the effect to sound different, each time the song is played. What is perhaps even desirable for live dubbers, drives you rather insane when automating. My solution to this is, to automate the "Delay" knob, which actually produces the same effect. If you want get the same effect of the built-in LFOs without synchronization problems, just automate the "Delay" knob using a corresponding sine function.

Another thing to note (at least for less experienced people in using extreme effects ) is as follows: The use of certain, especially extreme settings can very quickly cause very loud or extremely low- or high-frequency sounds. A limiter and the well known equalizer precautions should not be forgotten here. TIP: If certain automation causes very loud signals, this can be easily solved by automating the "Output" knob... and that before the signal crashes rampantly into the limiter ;)

As always, I close this posting with the stability and resource use: For a dinosaur amongst the VSTs such as this, I do not really need to say anything about the use of resources. What ran smoothly on a Pentium of the first generations and with minimal RAM, runs more smoothly on today's equipment. Also crashes or freezes of the DAW never occurred. I can not say anything about the use of multiple instances, because I never had more than one instance per song project in use.

The mda DubDelay comes together with many small useful VSTs in the free Smartelectronix VST Bundle. It can be downloaded (for Windows and MacOS) HERE.

Have fun !

My favorite Delay - Kjaerhus Classic Delay

Because of todays of good weather, I want to do a a bit shorter feature today. So I want to feature once again a very simple but wonderful VST effect plugin: The Kjaerhus Classic Delay, by the Kjaerhus company which passed away much too early. I personally use this delay in most of my productions, and you will, if you know my music, surely recognize the sound immediately. With few exceptions, I actualy use no other delay effect. This is because of a bit of lazyness and on the other hand it is because of the quality and the sound of this plugin. The Classic Delay is quite easy to use, because, as with all products of the Kjaerhus Classic series, ease of use is a key feature. You really don't have to fiddle around a lot to achieve superior results. However, this delay comes with some surprising functionalities, which are usually only found in commercial products.

From left to right one finds the following:

1. an input level control, which determines the panorama of the input signal. TIP: This is especially important for the Ping-pong mode described under 7.
2. an often-overlooked little button by which you can convert the input signal into a mono signal. Sometimes this is quite a useful thing.
3. a switch for delay simulation types. The are three choices:  tape, analog and digital delay.
4. two numeric fields, which you can change by clicking them with the left mouse button, holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse up and down. The values set here apply only if the sync button described below is set to ON. In this case, the tempo of the VST is synchronized with the host application. The upper field specifies how many beats a cycle of the delay covers. The second field now indicates how many "echoes" are to occur within the period set in the upper field. I want to be honest and say that these very precise and easy to set up parameters are, in combination with the superb sound of that plugin, the cause for making it my favorite delay VST. Below those fields, there is a small button that determines whether the settings made in those fields are determining the effect and the tempo of the VST is synchronized to the VST host application, or whether the tempo of the effect is asynchronously to the host application. In the latter case, everything is determined by the Time(s) control, described under 5.
5. a Time (s) controller, which only works if the sync button, described under 4. is set to off. Then the tempo of the VST is not synchronized with the host applications tempo and the the settings  of the fields described under 4. are absolutely obsolete. The purpose of the Time (s) controller is to set how long a Delaycycle is. If the controller is set to the lowest level, every 0.05 seconds, an echo is generated, which is too fast to hear it at all. It only leads to an amplification of sound. At the highest setting of the controller every 5 seconds an echo is generated. TIP: If you need accurate echoes, make sure the sync button is on and leave the time(s) control alone ;)
6. a feedback controller that indicates how long the delay will be heared. Sorry, I'm not an expert in electronics. Therefore, I can not tell you much about how it all theoretically runs. One thing is clear: At the lowest setting, the effect stops somewhat immediately. At the highest setting, the sound echoes almost forever and will overlap. NOTE: Sometimes very loud signals are generated by setting this control to the highest value. Danger of clipping!
7. a ping-pong button which sets the pingpong mode on and off.
8. a control to set the sampling quality of the effect. If your computer is not too antique, you should set this to "HI", because the Kjaerhus Classic Delay is really programmed to be not too CPU load intensive.
9. a low cut knob that allows you block out low portions of the sound from the effect.
10. a high cut knob that allows you block out high portions of the sound from the effect.
11. a controller that determines how the relationship between the effect signal and the original signal on the output is. Turning the knob to the left, you get the pure original signal, turning it fully clockwise, you get only the output of the effect.
12. a controller for the volume of the output signal. TIP: The Classic Delay makes the sound a little more quiet. Therefore, if one wants to rehash the original volume of the signal, turn the knob a little higher.

Ok, that became somewhat  extensive ;) So we get straight to the quality: The sound is even superb if you set the "Quality" knob to the lowest setting. As with all products made by Kjaerhus, much attention has been paid to resource-friendlyness. The VST has been working, even with multiple instances simultaneously, already on my Pentium II 233 Mhz with 16 MB of RAM back then in 2004. So you really don't have to worry that your computer might be too old. Crashes, freezing the DAW and other problems? NEVER happened since 2004!

Conclusion: One of the truly essential and most used VST effects in my arsenal. Especially for dub reggae this VST is absolutely wonderful. A must have!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Kjaerhus Classic Delay!