I might have confused things a little by posting about both the tape delay, and vintage delay algorithms.
Re: vintage delay. I understand that this is a DIGITAL delay, and is an attempt to recapture some of the sounds associated with early digital devices. I've owned (and still own) quite a few of these myself, from the classic Boss DD-2, to the Korg SDD3000, TC2290, Lexicon PCM-41, and also the Roland SDE series. IMO, the vintage delay routine does capture some of the elements of these kinds of delays, but the noise floor issue really limits its usefulness. With the latest Beta release it really sounds like there's a rapid transition from low bit-depth audio to high-depth audio as the repeats decay. It's that gating kind of sound that I'd associate from an early convertor without dither. Certainly none of my old digital delay units exhibit this kind of sound. Of course, they had to use all sorts of electronic trickery to get the best S/N out of low bit depth/low quality convertors…companding, and emphasis/de-emphasis was pretty common. These operations have a significant effect on the resultant sound of the delay once the bit reduction takes place…and I don't think that they've been accounted for in the Timefactor algorithms (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Also, another desireable change, IMO, would be to allow the filters to have bandpass in the vintage delay mode. One of the great features of the SDD-3000 delay is that it has a high-pass and a low pass filter, so the delays can get progressively thinner with each repeat. This is far preferable (to me) than low pass only, which leads to mud. Listen to those early U2 albums, the delay is bandpassed, and the repeats get thinner. To me, a good compromise would be for the filter knob control low pass filter break point when dialed to the left, and when dialed to the right would bring in a high pass as well as a low pass (for example with high pass at 20Hz, and low pass at 20kHz with knob straight up, and high pass at 400Hz, and low pass at 1kHz with the knob full clockwise).
Re: tape delay. To me, wow and flutter are not desireable characteristics for a tape delay. Yes, they were the real limitations faced by these mechanical devices, but not something that was a really desireable sound. Tape compression, and preamp distortion, on the other hand were desireable. Yeah, a compressor isn't going to sound like tape compression, but at least it's something that adds an element of dependance on signal amplitude. I don't think it needs to be perfect, or even really close, but I think it would be more useful than wow/flutter and hiss control.
Re: BBD analog delay model…this would be very cool, but I'm not willing to give up the other algorithms to get it (well maybe multi-tap….I haven't found a good use for it yet).
Again, I'm blown away by Eventide's support for this product. I hope you guys haven't regretted putting in the ability to do USB updates due to too many user requests for new features…it's something about the TF that I really value. Thanks for listening!
Cheers,
Kris
