PSP Multidelay 608

$149

www.pspaudioware.com

Hi, I’m Kent, and I’m addicted to audio delays. It started out simply, with an Alesis Midiverb that had just a few presets with no adjustments on delay time. Then I got an analog-delay stomp box, which fed my habit with its lo fi, fuzzed-out echoes. Then things got serious: Yamaha analog rack delay, an Alesis Quadraverb, and finally a genuine Echoplex Tape Delay. Pretty soon, every track I made sounded like it was recorded in the Grand Canyon. I was always on the lookout for a new kick—like an Electrix MoFX or an ancient Ross rack delay that swooped and wiggled almost as well as the Echoplex.

Due to my lengthy addiction, I’m confident to say that the PSP 608 is the crack cocaine of delay processors. The Polish company deserves some sort of award for building what may be the most comprehensive, capable VST delay plug-in currently on the market.

The PSP 608 is actually eight separate delay lines in one. Each delay line has the usual controls-input and output levels, delay time, and feedback controls. But it also has a filter with nine different filter modes, a Drive processor that simulates tape saturation, and a reverb section. The filter can be modulated by an LFO or an envelope follower. As a result, even one delay tap has enough different knobs and sliders and such to be an effect by itself.

While each line can be configured separately, you can also link two taps together. They can be configured as a Multi-Delay, where each delay tap feeds back just to its own input, or as a Multi-Tap, where you choose the output of one tap to feed back into the input of all.

In Use

The user interface is divided into a top section called the Multidisplay and a bottom section with a row for each delay tap. The Multidisplay is designed to look like the luminescent LCD displays used most memorably on early Akai samplers, and provides an animated overview of the 608’s current state. On the right side of the Multidisplay is a sort of bar graph that displays the settings of one parameter for all eight delays at once. You can either scroll between parameters in the Multidisplay, or this bar display changes to the parameter you last tweaked on one of the delay taps.

Given the sheer depth of this effect, the variety of possible sounds is huge. Your average drum loop doesn’t stand a chance when passed through eight different delay times, synced to tempo, filtered, fed back, and reverberated. The PSP 608 can even be used as a sound-design tool itself, because it can generate such absurdly unrealistic ambiences or intricate rhythmic variations. But since feedback can get out of control, there’s a big red Panic button in the lower left-hand corner, which could save your speakers if things get a little too crazy.

Or you can use it as a simple send effect, with just a couple of taps and minimal additional processing. Each optional processing stage (filter, drive, reverb) can be turned off, as can each tap, which saves on CPU usage. Nonetheless, the 608 is fairly moderate overall in its demands for processing power—with everything turned on, it was using 15 to 20 percent of CPU power on my 1.73GHz Pentium M laptop. With just a couple of taps activated, it was well below 5 percent.

The overall sound quality is excellent. It’s probably hard to make a digitally delay sound bad. But the PSP 608’s additional processing—the filter, drive, and reverb sections—are all very nice. No surprise, considering they are simplified versions of code borrowed from PSP’s other well-regarded VST effects. I particularly like the Drive effect, as you can get very close to the distinctive signal degradation that gives the tape-driven Echoplex and Roland Space Echo their coveted sound.

There’s one thing missing that keeps the PSP 608 from truly being the delay to end all delays: delay time modulation. While you can use the envelope follower or LFO to modulate the filter cutoffs of the individual taps, the delay time only changes if you move the slider. Given everything else the 608 does, this isn’t a fatal flaw, but it does mean that you can’t use it for flange and chorus effects.

Conclusion

While I was writing this review, I had Ableton Live going in the background, but not playing, and after about three minutes, the PSP 608 started building up a loop of what was playing before I stopped the sequencer. I have no idea how I’d tweaked it to the point where some audio was hiding down in the feedback lines, only to jump out at me several minutes later. There’s no higher praise for a VST effect than that it can surprise you.

Kent Williams