the twisted world of guitar pedals I

Quite recently I had a closer look into the vast amount of (guitar) effect pedals out there. Most are already DSP based which surprised me a little bit since I still ecpected more discrete analog designs after all. While looking for some neat real analog BBD delay I finally stumbled across Fairfield Circuitry’s “Meet Maude” which got me intrigued, having a rather rough look&feel at first sight but some very delicate implementation details under the hood.

Their delay modulation circuit has some randomness build in and also there is a compression circuit in the feedback loop – both designs I’ve also choosen for NastyDLA and which makes a big impact on the overall sound for granted. But the real highlight is the VCF in the delay feedback path which actually appears to be a low-pass gate – a quite unique design and soundwise also different but appealing in its very own regard.

They employed very similar concepts to their vibrato/chorus box “Shallow Water” featuring also random delay modulation and a low pass gate but this time a little bit more prominent on the face plate. On top, their JFET op-amp adds some serious grit to any kind of input signal. All in all, I did not expect such a bold but niche product to exist. If I ever will own such a thingy, there will be a much more detailed review here for sure.

NastyDLA mkII version released

NastyDLA mkII – A classic chorus echo device with tape-delay simulation

  • classic chorus and echo effects
  • authentic signal path coloration
  • tape-delay style feedback and saturation

The mkII version of this plug-in is  an overall technical redesign and features “stateful saturation” algorithms for an improved sound experience and changes several things under the hood. Basically, NastyDLA mkII  remains feature wise the very same but introduces the input stage modelled by this new and exciting technology and also redesigns the tape compression algorithm for an improved IM distortion performance. In general, the distortion generation appears to be more analog like and the perception of width and depth has been improved significantly. [Read more…]

some great freebie tips

Urs' Tyrell Nexus6

Quite recently u-he released his awesome “Tyrell” software synthesizer as a freeware for the german online magazine amazona.de. If you are seriously into synth based music production then this is a must try for sure. It does not feature any fancy fx section but just raw synth waveform combination and modulation which are executed brilliantly. Soundwise this offers true analog qualities which includes both, punch and balls as well as some mojo which you rarely find in digital synths as of today. [Read more…]

NastyDLA updates to version 1.0.1

A small but crucial update has been released today for NastyDLA which finally fixes all known issues related to the chorus effect. This is a safe update and should be performed by all users of NastyDLA 1.0 (or the recent 1.0.1 public betas)!

Release notes:

  • Fix: modulation artifacts in the chorus section (affects all setups)
  • Fix: clearly audible lofi artifacts in the chorus section (crackle or noise) in some setups
  • Fix: crackle/artifacts when turning chorus from Off position to On and vice versa
  • Improvements: further assembler optimizations with lower overall cpu footprint
  • Minor improvements: subtly wider and better chorus imaging

The download is available in the Downloads page or just click here.

public beta 2 for NastyDLA 1.0.1

A second public beta bug fix release is available for NastyDLA 1.0.1 which fixes some issues related to the chorus effect:

  • Fix: clearly audible lofi artifacts in the chorus section (crackle or noise) in some setups
  • Minor improvements: wider and better chorus imaging
  • Minor improvements: assembler optimized chorus section with lower cpu footprint

If you are not affected by this issues there is no need to download and install that. If you download and want to install it be aware that this is a beta version and not a final release and might not properly work due to other bugs or side-effects. If so, please report here for further bug tracking and fixing!

The download is available in the Downloads page or just click here.

knee-deep in beta testing

That’s where I am at the moment. Beside that I’m currently into setting up a new development test- and workbench to further speed up things a little bit in the future. Most fun currently is reading some DSP papers. Not so fun is all the debugging for the NastyDLA chorus bug – but you can help me on that one easily: The main problem is that there are not enough tester available which can reproduce that specific problem and so are able to confirm a final fix. If you suffer from that chorus issue with DLA and want to support a bugfix for that then just drop me a note with your email address here.

I’ll be back (soon)!

public betas for NastyDLA and VCS, BootEQ, Density and Ferric

Some public beta bug fix releases are currently available for:

  • BootEQ mkII 2.1.1 beta
  • Density mkII 2.0.3 beta
  • FerricTDS 1.5.1 beta
  • NastyDLA 1.0.1 beta
  • NastyVCS 1.0.1 beta

This are Win32 releases only (SSE2 or higher) and are bug fix releases which addresses the following issues: [Read more…]

just a short wrap-up

My day job consumes all my attention and energy at the moment (the usual year-end project rally) and therefore I might not be that responsive here during these days. Anyway, just to keep you informed the recent NastyDLA release was a huge success speaking in terms of downloads and attention all over the web and I’m expecting some more reviews to follow in the traditional magazines. It seems that Patrick and me hit the nerve once again. The dropbox bandwith limits where exceeded after a day or so and I promise that there will be a better solution for that with a next whatsoever major release.  As spotted by some users the 1.0 release contains a bug in the chorus section (lofi artifacts/crackle/noise, clearly audible) but only in some specific configurations so it still appears a little bit hazy. At least I was able to reproduce it in one single host configuration here which provides a basic starting point for performing some tests. But hey, some cold and long winter nights are expected to come maybe quite soon and thats a real great time for bugfixing 🙂

NastyDLA – released today

NastyDLA – a classic chorus echo device with tape-delay simulation, is released today.

The free download for Windows x32 and VST compatible systems is available via the download page or just click here instead and please acceppt the end-user license agreement.

Related links:

NastyDLA – final teaser and release info

[Read more…]