I love delay. Used with care it can transform a mix and unlike other effects it can transform an arrangement too. Think of Dave Gilmour’s dotted echoes or Brian May’s harmony layering though to dubby delay throws. Delay is awesome!
While every DAW has at least one very serviceable stock delay plugin, third party delay plugins offer everything from meticulous recreations of classic hardware through to super flexible premium offerings. In this article we offer our pick of the best delay plugins out there. Whether you’re into a character unit to stamp some personality onto your mixes to a ‘do anything’ delay here are some of the best available today.
SoundToys EchoBoy Jr
If you just want a good sounding delay which has a bit more flavour to it then you could do a lot worse than Soundtoys Echo Boy Jr. It’s not sold separately. To get it you’ll have to buy Echoboy or the Soundtoys bundle but It sounds every bit as good as the full fat Echoboy plugin but has a simplicity to its UI and operation which the original can’t quite match. It’s easy to use with all the analogue vibe you could desire.
Waves H Delay
Alternatively an equally capable alternative would be Wave’s H Delay. Offering just a single ‘sound’ but a lightning fast interface and some nice additions like tap tempo for setting delay times and a filter lock feature which allows the high and low pass filters to be offset from each other but move together for interesting band pass effects on long repeats.
Vintage And Classic Hardware Delay Plugins
I really enjoy recreations of vintage electromechanical delays and this area is well catered for. Reverb was challenging to do well in the pre-digital days. Cumbersome solutions like plates and chambers were the most satisfactory but for delay, or echo as it was known, things were much simpler and more effective.
1950s - Tape Slapback
The first incarnation of artificial delay was tape delay. Use of both the sync and repro heads of a tape machine introduced a short repeat echo which became a hallmark of rock and roll. Listen to classic 50s rock and roll and you’ll hear this distinctive ‘slapback’ tape delay on guitars and vocals. The thick and rather claustrophobic sound of slap delay is used today, either subtly, often combined with reverb or as a stylistic reference. For instant Lennon vocals dial in some slap.
UAD Ampex ATR 102
While it’s easy to create slapback delay with any plugin, for the real thing use a tape machine but the next best thing in the authenticity stakes has to be the ATR 102 plugin from UAD. This plugin is as tapey as plugins get and as it has the facility to create tape delay too, if you want the sound without the hassle there’s nothing better. It’s no slouch as a tape plugin either!
Mid 1960s - Binson Echorec
The Echorec was an unusual device, designed to be tougher than fragile tape, it recorded magnetically like tape but to a rotating drum. You might not know the hardware but you’ve definitely heard the results. Hank Marvin of the Shadows was a user from the mid 60s and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd used one to create some of the most famous guitar lines ever.
Pulsar Echorec
There is an excellent plugin version of the Echorec from Pulsar. See it in use demonstrated by James Ivey here.
Mid 70s Tape Echo Units - Maestro Echoplex and Roland RE 201
Although the tape delay unit had been around since the late 50s. Notably the Watkins Copycat, check out Wavesfactory’s excellent Echo Cat for a plugin version of that, it was in the mid 70s that the two most iconic tape delay using came to the fore. The Maestro Echoplex had been around for some time but the EP4 version was a runaway success. Listen to ‘Small Hours’ by John Martyn for an example of the creative use of delays.
McDSP EC300
There are lots of tape delay plugins available but one we’ll highlight here is the excellent McDSP EC300, which offers a Tape, Digital and Analog mode. The tape mode has all the compression and degradation you’d expect of a worn out tape loop. It was given away for free in March this year and if you downloaded it then but haven’t explored it properly we’d recommend revisiting it and if you missed the free promotion, which has now ended, it’s still a very capable plugin so check it out.
IK Multimedia Space Delay
Perhaps even more iconic is the Roland RE 201Space Echo. Its multi head design and built in Spring Reverb found its way onto many classic Dub releases from the likes of Augustus Pablo and Lee Scratch Perry. The tone of these delays is so recognisable that they credit careful modelling and recreation.
Luckily we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to and the one we’ll highlight here is the IK Multimedia Space Delay. IK really nail tone and the Space Echo is all about tone.
1970s - Bucket Brigade Delay
Electromechanical Delay is a wonderful thing but involves complex engineering and lots of moving parts. With the release of the Electro Harmonix Memory Man in 1976 a really portable delay suitable for guitarist’s pedalboards arrived. The use of a ‘bucket brigade’ design where solid state analogue electronics produce the delay made this possible and while the fidelity was rather poor, this was part of the charm. Bucket brigade delays are wonderful because they are so bad!
An excellent plugin which echoes (excuse the pun) the Memory Man is found in the Arturia 3 Delays You’ll Actually Use bundle.
Arturia Delay BRIGADE
This plugin captures the dark, low fi repeats of a bucket brigade delay. Dark, indistinct echoes naturally sit in the background meaning that you can use quite a lot before they get in the way of the dry signal. If you thought tape delay was low fi you need to try BBD!
1980s - Digital Delays
Although Digital delay was available in the early 70s courtesy of Eventide’s 1745 delay line, it was in the 80s that they became both accessibly priced and had long enough memories to cater for long delay times. When it was released in 1986 the H3000 represented the state of the art in modern, programmable delay. Also a very capable pitch shifter, it is for its delays that it features here.
Eventide H3000 Factory
The H3000 Factory is a plugin version of the original hardware and ships with over 450 preset, 100 of which are from the hardware. Programmable and with a semi modular design really bewildering effects can be built. Multiple taps with modulations and filtering make this a delay you can get properly creative with this plugin for period sounds and much more.
What About A Delay Which Does Everything?
If there is a style of music or a period you particularly admire then using a specialised delay which evokes that style or period is a great idea. If your delays are distinctive then that can’t help but make your mixes a little more distinctive - right?
FabFilter Timeless 3
However if you want a delay which does everything then FabFilter’s Timeless 3 is hard to ignore. It sounds wonderful and offers a totally comprehensive feature set with modulation options and filter shapes you probably didn’t know you needed, and might not, but if you want limitless creativity this as close as you’ll get with delay. A really impressive product.
My First Call Delay? - Valhalla Delay
I’m a huge fan of the Space Echo but it’s a bit too flavourful to be a ‘daily driver’. Since trying Valhalla’s Delay plugin I’ve been a fan. It does everything I need with the minimum of fuss, offers a broad palette, sounds very characterful and in use it’s just so easy as the setting persists between different delay modes. See it in use in the. video below.
As you can see there is a lot of choice and nearly all the choices are good ones. You can get by with stock plugins but if you really want to get creative with your delays make sure that which ever plugin you are using, I doesn’t create stepped ‘zipper noise’ when changing the delay time. Some do and it makes ‘playing’ the delay in real time via a control surface rather compromised. Worth checking out as interacting with delays via a control surface is where the fun really starts…