Groovizm

There are a few features I was looking for in particular:

• Ping-pong type of stereo delay.
• Delays sync-able to host tempo.
• LFO for modulation of the playback speed.
• A filter in the feedback-chain to color the delays.
• I was not looking for a clean sound, but something that could provide something like tape-saturation, or maybe filter-drive.
• Ease of programming, I like to program effects as I need them, not picking presets from a huge library.

One thing I’d like to make clear is that I don’t think digital means clean and life-less persé. I’ve used an old Dynacord Digital Delay DDL 15 for years and this unit has shed loads of dirty and gritty character, you’d normally associate with vintage analog, or tape-based units.

An extensive query on the KVR database gave me a lot of delay plug-ins to choose from. I made a quick selection based on price, GUI, and brand-name.  This left me with the following options:

• PSP 85 – PSPaudioware.com $ 149, -
• Timeless – Fabfilter $ 149, -
• Ohmboyz – Ohmforce.net € 49, – (that’s a little over $ 65, -)
• Echo’s – Nomadfactory.com $ 129, -
• Soundtoys – EchoBoy $179, -

Because PSPaudioware gives you a 30-day trial period with no limitations and looked most promissing to me, I decided to give the PSP 85 the first try.

 

PSP 85 in detail
User Interface
The PSP GUI is quite small, but all buttons and knobs are easy to manipulate with the mouse. Pressing shift while dragging gives fine-grained control over the exact parameter value. One drawback of this GUI is that you have to select the left and right delay channels in succession if you want different values for both channels. If you want to assign the same values to left and right channels you can link them. I would have preferred to see both channels at a glance with the option to copy values back and forth between both channels.

Sound
I’m completely in love with the sound of this piece of software: Modulating the playback speed of the delay buffer gives beautiful pitch-shifting effects and the filter section is very funky. The drive control adds a bit of color without completely distorting the sound. But what really makes this unit stand out for me is the spring, or plate reverb that can be applied over the whole signal or applied after the filter before the dry signal is mixed into the output. This reverb is very simple, but it’s got an awful lot of character and can really help to separate the delays from the dry signal!

Features
The highlights feature-wise to me are:

• Independent panning of left and right delay channels (so left doesn’t have to be hard-left, it can also be dead-centre or hard-right, or anything in between.)
• There’s a gate in the delay channel, offering extended control over the way the repeats trail of.
• There’s automatic ducking (with a sidechain input option), too help you keep the volume of the delays under control.
• You can modulate the delay buffer playback with the LFO, or envelope follower, or a mix of both. That same modulation source can also be used to modulate filter cutoff and resonance.
• The routing of both the filters and the reverb is very flexible.

Documentation
This software comes with a simple 8-page pdf that contains all information you need.

Presets
There are some great presets showing of what the PSP 85 can do. I’d much rather create my own, though.

Customer Support
Something went wrong while I ordered, but they we’re very quick to get in contact with me and fix the issue. I have not experienced any software crashes.

Value For Money
The SPS 85 is one of the most expensive delay plug-ins, of the plug-ins I am considering. Only the Soundtoys EchoBoy is more expensive. Nevertheless I have settled for this one, just because I like the sound and I’m having so much fun tweaking!