The Delay2 module is a handy module which introduces a delay into an audio signal. The Delay2 Module has a minimum of 0 seconds, and a maximum of 10 seconds delay time.
To control the delay time of the delay module, you use it’s Modulation input to adjust the delay time parameter set in the modules property view. The Delay Time parameter sets the maximum delay time of the module. This maximum time can then be modulated, or adjusted, from 0 to the maximum of 10 using the modulation input. This allows you to make an adjustable delay by connecting a slider, or by modulating the input using another control voltage source such as an oscillator module, we can create effects such as flanging and chorus.
Very basic delay effect.
To set up a delay time that you can vary vary from 0 to 1 second:
1) Connect a slider module to the Delay module’s Modulation plug.
2) Go to the delay module’s properties panel and make sure the Delay Time value is at the default value of 1.0 Second.
The feedback plug gives you control over the internally generated feedback level, between 0% (0 volts) and 100% (10 volts).
Note: The interpolate out option is only used when you are going to have rapid changes in the value on the Modulation plug to prevent unwanted clicks, and stepping effects. If you’re not modulating the plug with an Envelope or LFO leave it un-ticked to save on CPU power.
This works, and it’s relatively easy to work out the delay time from the slider’s readout; 10V gives us a 1 second delay time , 5 Volts give us a 0.5 sec delay, 0 V gives 0 Sec, but its not the best of solutions.
Adding a Delay time display in mS.
Normally, delay times are given in milliseconds, so how do we get our slider to display the actual delay time in milliseconds? Using the structure below it’s quite easy;
1) Set the maximum value of the delay slider to 1000, leaving the minimum at 0,
2) Connect a Multiply module between the slider and the Delay2 Modulation plug. Set input 2 to 0.01 either in the Properties panel or using a Fixed Volts module to supply the value.
3) For the display we use a Volts to Float2 converter, feeding the float value to a
PatchMemory Float Out3 where it’s converted from DSP to GUI data.
4) The GUI float value is then converted to Text using a Float To Text module, mine is set to 0 decimal places, but it all depends on your delay time range, and how accurate you prefer to be.
5) Untick the Writeable property for the Text Entry4 module, as changing this value won’t affect the delay time (this would only frustrate your plug-in’s users).
We now have a readout in milliseconds. Well yes, you could use the readout on the slider control but this has a small drawback. By default it adds three decimal places, and with the sort of values we’re using the display is cut off at one end.
How our mS display looks:
Adding damped feedback to an echo effect in SynthEdit.
Again, the project above is a good basic Echo, but we would often find that in real life the sounds that are “echoed” will gradually change, they will lose some of their high frequency elements. What can we do about this?
Well, with the structure below we can add an external feedback loop, that has a 1 pole low pass filter included to give us variable HF damping. Because we are using a Feedback (Volts) module we don’t get error messages about feedback loops not being allowed, and the slight delay introduced by the module will have no real effect on the feedback. In practice we won’t want the filter to go as low as 0 hZ, so we could set the Filter to kHz per volt and the slider range from say .2 to 8000, giving a range of 200Hz to 8Khz. You’ll need to set some decimal places for the Float To Text conversion module to get a readout of both Hz and kHz.
Note: When testing in Synthedit due to the displays being GUI modules you’ll only see the Delay time and Damping frequency displays update if the Audio Engine is running.
How it looks with the filter control and frequency readout.
