Ripple Delay Sounddesign Ideas

Tutorial | Oct 23, 2024

I recently explored the Ripple Delay plugin by Process Audio and found its ability to integrate effects within the feedback loop, while allowing delay times as low as one millisecond, to be quite impressive. This feature is currently challenging to replicate in Bitwig Studio due to its limitations with buffer size, which affects delay time when effects are included in the feedback chain. I'm hopeful for future updates in Bitwig, but in the meantime, I recommend trying out this plugin to experiment with creating unique soundscapes.

You can watch the Video on Youtube

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• Ripple Delay Website
• Feedback Loops in Bitwig

Summary #

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

Hey everyone! I recently downloaded a new plug-in called Ripple Delay by Process Audio and spent some time experimenting with it. I'd like to share my thoughts about how it works and how it compares to Bitwig Studio. Just a note—this isn't a tutorial where I go through each parameter like a manual. Instead, I’m diving into the creative potential of the plug-in.

One of its intriguing features is the ability to set the delay time down to one millisecond, making it usable as a resonator. I paired it with a Polymer Synthesizer, cranking up the noise to generate noise bursts. This allowed me to explore creating resonator effects by adjusting the feedback and delay time, affecting the pitch of the sound.

What's unique about Ripple Delay is its capability to integrate effects in the feedback loop. Typically, you have post-effects that process the sound after it exits the feedback loop, but Ripple Delay lets you embed these effects within the loop itself. For instance, you can place a filter in the feedback pathway, altering the sound over time as it feeds back through the loop. This creates evolving textures which I demonstrated during my exploration.

I further experimented by adding other effects like a phaser or ensemble into the loop to see how they influence the feedback. Adjustments have to be subtle, as altering the sound too dramatically can hinder the feedback build-up. Including a pitch module and tweaking its settings yielded interesting results, enhancing the atmospheric quality of the sounds produced. Toward the end, I added Valhalla Supermassive to push the creation of ambient soundscapes even further.

While experimenting, I questioned if Bitwig Studio could achieve similar effects. The platform can indeed support such configurations. However, in Bitwig, the lower limit for delay time is often constrained by the buffer size, which for me is capped at 10 milliseconds. This limitation restricts the type of feedback and resonator effects possible when compared to Ripple Delay, which doesn’t face this buffer size restriction.

Bitwig Studio could benefit substantially if it adopted features similar to Ripple Delay—especially in optimizing handling of feedback chains without being limited by buffer sizes. Users could then explore creative sound design opportunities more freely.

To wrap up, Ripple Delay stands out for its unique feedback loop integration and millisecond-level control, motivating a wish that more plug-ins explore this vast potential of feedback. I'm hopeful that Bitwig will update its system to incorporate similar features. In the meantime, tools like Ripple Delay fill that gap effectively. There's a trial version available if you want to experience it yourself, though it requires iLok registration, which some might find inconvenient. Thanks for tuning in, and feel free to try it out and let me know your thoughts!

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] Hey folks I just downloaded this new plug-in here called Ripple Delay by Process Audio
[00:00:06] and I have some thoughts about it I want to share with you and also about Bitwig Studio
[00:00:11] in the end and this is not a tutorial so I don't explain what's in the manual right I don't explain
[00:00:17] every parameter like here this is the drive knob and if you turn up the drive to 100 then it's loud
[00:00:22] when you turn it down then it's quiet when you put it on 50 percent and it's not quiet and not
[00:00:26] loud so it's in the middle and sometimes you have to put it on 50 and so on so it's not that kind of
[00:00:31] tutorial there are probably a lot of videos popping up over the next weeks doing this
[00:00:34] I want to experiment with this because we can go down here with a delay time to
[00:00:41] one milliseconds and this is interesting because you can use this as a resonator right and here we
[00:00:49] have a Polymer Synthesizer down there and just turning up the noise and creating some kind of
[00:00:57] noise burst so it's just white noise going into this delay here so when we turn up the feedback
[00:01:09] we can create some kind of resonator and because it's a feedback loop we can change with the delay
[00:01:24] time here the wavelength right so we have here now a wavelength of one millisecond basically so it's
[00:01:31] creating some kind of sound and with the delay time then you can decide about the pitch
[00:01:37] okay so nothing special so far but in this plug-in we can use here postfx right so we can say we want
[00:01:55] to have at the end let's say an eq yeah let's on let's not use an eq use filter so we have a filter
[00:02:03] here right so we can a high cut and we can low cut so this is postfx so we go into the delay then we go
[00:02:10] into the feedback create our feedback loop and then we go out into the postfx but with this plug-in we can
[00:02:17] choose here this loop setting and can say we want to integrate this filter inside of the loop
[00:02:23] in the feedback loop right so instead of going into the feedback here and then out in the postfx
[00:02:30] this one here is now integrated inside of the feedback loop so the sound go is going out into
[00:02:36] the filter and then back into the feedback again and again and again right so this then changes the
[00:02:43] sound over time so let's listen to this one
[00:02:46] so we damp near the frequencies a bit
[00:02:53] and because we are filtering here a lot of frequencies away we also go down with the volume
[00:03:06] of course so we need to increase the feedback a bit more
[00:03:13] so nice we can create sounds with this uh but we also can uh use your more effects so we can use let's say
[00:03:33] say flanger phaser chorus let's use chorus or not chorus um let's use a phaser maybe here we can
[00:03:40] change the amount we can also integrate this into the feedback loop and maybe in front uh can we change
[00:03:46] change this here yeah in front of the filter so let's try this one
[00:04:01] maybe let's add here a peak limit oh we have a peak limit already in place nice
[00:04:07] i would say the phaser maybe changes the sound too much so we can't build up here some kind of feedback
[00:04:24] oh there it goes so instead of phaser let's use here ensemble maybe also in front
[00:04:41] let's use here a different um delay method maybe let's go to tape
[00:05:03] so tape is a bit wobbly you can hear it it wobbles a bit in pitch
[00:05:25] so let's try and add here pitch so we can change the pitch
[00:05:29] uh that's seven amount is zero
[00:05:38] and remember if you change the sound too much inside of the feedback loop you can't build up some kind of
[00:05:48] feedback so you need to only dial in slide settings here
[00:05:54] oh this is outside here let's put this in there
[00:06:02] and then you can use here maybe a valhalla
[00:06:17] super massive at the end
[00:06:18] and then it gets more atmospheric
[00:06:45] and we could even after this ripple delay we can use here some kind of pitch correction plug-in
[00:06:51] say we want to limit this to a certain range here let's see how this sounds
[00:07:05] almost like creating soundscapes with this
[00:07:16] almost like creating soundscapes with this
[00:07:31] so feedback is always fun no matter where you use it or where you create it
[00:07:42] and the question now is can we do this in bitwig studio and the answer is yes we can but the problem
[00:07:50] the problem is as always um you are limited by the buffer size right if you go here into the settings
[00:07:57] then you have here some kind of block size and for me it's 10 milliseconds so my
[00:08:03] minimum minimum delay time is 10 milliseconds in the grid or with the delay
[00:08:12] delay plus delay plus delay plus can go as low as one millisecond or even lower
[00:08:17] if there is nothing in the feedback chain and as soon as you put something in the feedback chain
[00:08:24] you jump you jump basically to this buffer size which is a bit sad because you can do so many things here with feedback
[00:08:34] it's really fun to play around with this yeah i'm still on the trial version here
[00:08:49] so the special feature of this plugin is the combination of that you can put something in the feedback loop
[00:09:01] so we can put fx into the feedback loop and you can go lower than 10 milliseconds here
[00:09:07] right so i'm not limited by the sample rate or the buffer size in my DAW so that's the that's the big feature set
[00:09:15] and in my opinion more plugins should experiment here with feedback because feedback is such an interesting concept
[00:09:23] um it's also used in um with video effects where you have feedback loop
[00:09:29] at some place you can create many many interesting sounds with this
[00:09:34] and in my opinion bitwig should
[00:09:37] update bitwig or the delays of bitwig studio to make actually use of this i can show you this here in the in the grid
[00:09:44] um fx grid um right so we create then here
[00:09:52] long delay going to the long delay and then use a blend
[00:09:59] then blends together maybe using ampere right and then we choose here a very short delay time 0.02 milliseconds
[00:10:12] our this is wrong it's not true right it's limited by the buffer size
[00:10:24] in here it doesn't sound it doesn't change
[00:10:34] it stays at one at 10 milliseconds that's the lowest size but we can also include here let's say a filter
[00:10:42] um all paths yeah we can choose an outpass here why not i'll pass maybe um
[00:10:57] uh no feedback here
[00:11:38] that's too fast. and sometimes very hard to find it perfect.
[00:12:01] so you need to find the sweet spot here for the feedback of course. maybe the
[00:12:30] amplifier is not the right thing maybe i used to use here the gain thing.
[00:12:56] but you get the idea right. so we could do this in bitwig and
[00:13:04] the only problem is it's limited by the buffer size right. so here you can
[00:13:11] go always to one milliseconds no matter what buffer size you have in the DAW.
[00:13:16] so this is basically the benefit of using this plugin at the moment. i hope bitwig studio updates this in the
[00:13:24] future but i talked about this in many videos for some years now and i hope we get it at some point.
[00:13:33] but for now you have to use plugins like this to create these type of sounds. okay so that's it for
[00:13:40] this video i want to show you this here that you can try it out. there's a trial version here of
[00:13:45] this plugin on the website. so you need to also have ilog which i don't like but it is how it is.
[00:13:54] and it's free for 30 days. okay thanks for watching. leave a like, leave a subscription. see you in the next video. bye!