fDelay - fBox Audio

A delay repeats what you feed it. What separates one from another is what happens to the sound on the way round, and how much worse or warmer or stranger it gets each time it comes back.

fDelay is eight different technologies rather than eight settings. Tape running past heads. Chains of tiny cells handing a signal down the line. A spinning oil-filled can. Clean digital. Each one falls apart in its own way, because each one was built to work in its own way.

Every mode keeps its own settings, so you can try another and come back to find the first exactly as you left it.

Eight Delays, One Plugin

Each a different technology, not a different setting

Tape Echo

The one to start on

Warm, saturated repeats with the wow and flutter of a real transport. Every repeat runs through the record and playback stages again, so the echoes darken and thicken as they go round. That cumulative warming is the whole point of tape echo.

Tape Loop

Three delays from one loop

A loop of tape running past three heads, so one tape gives you three delay times at once, always in proportion because they come from the same moving tape. Switch heads in and out to build a rhythm, and age the machine until the join in the loop dips the level every time it passes.

BBD

Falls apart as it gets longer

The real hardware hands your signal down a chain of tiny cells like a bucket down a line, and every hand-off loses a little. A longer delay means passing it more slowly, so the sound has further to fall apart on the way. Short is relatively clean, long is dark and murky.

Digital

The clean reference

No saturation and no noise, and the one the others play against. Its filters sit inside the feedback path, so the first repeat comes through untouched and each one after is shaped a little more. A diffusion control smears the repeats from sharp into a reverb-like wash.

Oil Can

Narrow, haunting, slightly seasick

An electrostatic delay with a slow drift that never repeats the same way twice, and a band-limited sound entirely its own. Six controls and no sync. Almost nobody has modelled one, because almost nobody remembers it existed.

Lo-Fi

The longer it runs, the worse it gets

Bit and sample rate reduction build up on every pass, so the repeats fall apart the further they recirculate. Turn the degrade off and it holds one fixed lo-fi colour instead. It resets when the delay falls silent, so each new phrase starts fresh.

Multi-Tap

Four delays at once

Four independent taps, each with its own time, level and place in the stereo picture, with eight rhythmic patterns to start from. You choose which single tap feeds back, and that decides how often the whole pattern comes round again.

Ping-Pong

Bounces side to side

The first repeat lands on one side and every one after bounces to the other, while your dry signal stays untouched in stereo. Bring the width down and the two sides move together until the bounce collapses to the middle, or offset one side for a lopsided rhythm.

Every Repeat Is A Round Trip

And the sound changes each time it goes round

A digital delay copies your sound and plays it back later. Everything else does more than that, because the signal has to travel through the machine again to come back, and it picks up whatever the machine does to it every single time.

That accumulation is what fDelay models. Tape Echo darkens and thickens on every pass, so a long feedback setting fades into warmth rather than just getting quieter. Lo-Fi throws away a little more resolution each time round, so the repeats crumble as they go. BBD loses a little at every hand-off down the chain, which is why its longer settings are murkier than its short ones.

It is the difference between echoes that fade and echoes that decay into something else. Push the feedback up on any of them and you are not just hearing more repeats, you are hearing the machine's character stacking up.

In Time With The Song

Most modes lock their delay time to your tempo. Switch Sync on and the time knob chooses note divisions instead of milliseconds, from a whole bar down to a sixteenth, each with dotted and triplet versions so the repeats can bounce or gallop rather than simply landing on the beat.

Two modes have no sync at all, and deliberately. Oil Can drifts by its own nature and Tape Loop takes its timing from three fixed heads and a motor, so neither has a delay time to lock in the first place.

Shared Controls

The same toolkit, whichever mode you are in

Mix

The balance between your dry signal and the repeats. Set it to full when the plugin is sitting on a send rather than across the track.

Feedback

How much of the output goes back round for more repeats. On the analogue modes it is also how much of the machine's character stacks up.

Tone

Darkens the repeats as they recirculate on most modes, so the echoes recede rather than competing with the source.

Input Trim

Drive it up to push harder into whatever saturation that mode has, so the repeats thicken as well as getting louder.

Soft Bypass

Mutes the delay but leaves the output trim and the unit's own noise floor in circuit, so the level does not jump as you compare. Each mode keeps its own bypass state. Use your host's bypass when you want a completely clean one.

Every parameter is automatable from your DAW, including the mode selector itself, and fDelay runs anywhere the suite does: on a track in your DAW, in an insert slot in fBox Console or the standalone application, or in a slot in fBox Rack.

Your Unit

Every unit is different. Keep the one you like.

Serial No. 7C4A-19E8-B035-D6F1

Every instance is minted with its own serial number and its own character, the small manufacturing differences that make this unit sound like this unit and no other.

Set the feedback high and listen to the tail. One unit's repeats fade into dark warmth while another stays brighter for longer. The motor drifts at its own rate, the saturation arrives at its own point, and because every repeat goes round again, the feedback loop multiplies each small difference across the whole tail. Tape Loop varies the most of the eight, exactly as the cheap machines it comes from do.

Every new instance can be a different unit, or it can be the one you have chosen to keep. The Unit button beside the serial is where you decide.

Saved units live in your Documents folder, a folder per product, so you can find them, back them up and copy them between machines.

A unit is the character. A patch card is the character plus everything you set on top of it. Save a patch card and it carries the unit it was made on as well as the settings, so loading one back gives you a choice: Recall Unit brings that machine back with it, character and all, while Apply Settings Only keeps the unit you are on now and takes just the knob positions.

You cannot choose a unit's character any more than you can choose the character of a real machine. But you can learn it, and you can keep the one you love.

At A Glance

Eight Technologies

Tape Echo, Tape Loop, BBD, Digital, Oil Can, Lo-Fi, Multi-Tap and Ping-Pong. Each a separate engine with its own controls, not a preset.

Independent Per Mode

Every mode remembers its own settings, including its own bypass. Try another and come back to find the first as you left it.

Character That Accumulates

On the analogue modes every repeat runs through the machine again, so the tail warms, darkens or crumbles as it fades.

Tempo Sync

Note divisions from a whole bar down to a sixteenth, each with dotted and triplet versions, on the modes that have a delay time to lock.

Three Heads, One Tape

Tape Loop reads one loop at three points at once, so its delay times always stay in proportion. Switch heads in and out to build a rhythm.

Four Independent Taps

Multi-Tap gives each tap its own time, level and stereo position, with eight rhythmic patterns and a choice of which tap regenerates.

Your Own Unit

Serial-seeded character throughout. Roll a new one, save the ones you like, and pin your favourite so every instance opens as that unit.

Three Quality Tiers

Eco for tracking and dense sessions. Studio for mixing. Master for final mixes and mastering.