Fabfilter announce TIMELESS 3 !!!!!!!

[vitocorleone123]

This will be boring answer for you if you are not using Live but ableton's stock Echo Device is my go to. It's suprisingly good imo, better than most 3rd party plugins.

Before I read your post, I just thought: the problem with timeless is, that even with all the tweaking options, I never get it soo good sounding as Ableton‘s Echo. I not just agree with you. I‘d even say that Echo is one of the best sounding delay plugins around. Much better than the here well regarded Valhalla Delay or Replika XT IMHO or unfortunately Timeless.

Any chance you could prove it sounds better than Valhalla Delay and Replika XT? Maybe some quality examples, a blind test, and then the exact settings used?

I strongly dislike the Ableton experience, so will never get to experience that delay plugin. I do have both Valhalla Delay and Replika XT. I also sold Timeless3 (the only FF plugin I ever sold after buying).

Nobody is going to be able to prove that… As mentioned its subjective.

Echo is a great character delay. Live has multiple delay devices, and Echo is yet another option that is not clean and made to replicate tape delays with an ability to saturate in a very pleasing way.

I love FabFilter Timeless and Echo doesn’t replace it for me, but Timeless also doesn’t replace Echo.

I don’t use Replika XT despite having it, only because I have a crazy number of delays, including hardware delays. It does sound good though.

Thanks for the additional info.

[Jac459]

Yeah, I was agreeing with you.

Ha ha, my bad, lol.

[SamDi]

Any chance you could prove it sounds better than Valhalla Delay and Replika XT? Maybe some quality examples, a blind test, and then the exact settings used?

I strongly dislike the Ableton experience, so will never get to experience that delay plugin. I do have both Valhalla Delay and Replika XT. I also sold Timeless3 (the only FF plugin I ever sold after buying).

With prooving it's not so easy. First, as some mentioned already,at the end it's pretty subjective thing. Second, Echo has some features like separate adjustable highpass and lowpassfilters including Q settings or the ability to split the LFO phase on L/R, which are part of the sound greatness, which Valhalla Delay or Replika do not have one to one, so for the best Echo settings, there would be no equivalent. Echo vs. Timeless would be easier, but I would be more fun to do a blind test myself, than to prepare one TBH.

I don't find echo better that Replika XT, it simply doesn't have all the modes XT has. Yeah it can make a nice tape delay but not a BBD or really saturate while doing tape.

One thing I would like to understand: so Echo does mimic a tape delay and has not the modes, as Valhalla Delay or Replika XT do. But what is the signature sound of a BBD and what is missing in Echo to do that? Or the other way around: how would I need to set Timeless to mimic a BBD?

[rod_zero]

One thing I would like to understand: so Echo does mimic a tape delay and has not the modes, as Valhalla Delay or Replika XT do. But what is the signature sound of a BBD and what is missing in Echo to do that? Or the other way around: how would I need to set Timeless to mimic a BBD?

BBDs delay degrade the sound each step, originally capacitors are passing the signal to one another in series but not 100% equal to the original signal, also the timing and changes to it provoke fluctuations to the degradation.

I honestly don't know how you could mimic that in timeless, maybe if you modulate a LP filter cutoff after each repeat.

[vitocorleone123]

One thing I would like to understand: so Echo does mimic a tape delay and has not the modes, as Valhalla Delay or Replika XT do. But what is the signature sound of a BBD and what is missing in Echo to do that? Or the other way around: how would I need to set Timeless to mimic a BBD?

BBDs delay degrade the sound each step, originally capacitors are passing the signal to one another in series but not 100% equal to the original signal, also the timing and changes to it provoke fluctuations to the degradation.

I honestly don't know how you could mimic that in timeless, maybe if you modulate a LP filter cutoff after each repeat.

Probably an imperceptible touch of noise, too, but ideally it’d cascade and increase to them point it may barely be audible at the end.

Generally speaking, it’s just easier to use Valhalla Delay (which emulates at least 15 delays now it seems). The simplicity of Valhalla Delay in addition to the sound is the reason it’s my primary one.

[pdxindy]

Generally speaking, it’s just easier to use Valhalla Delay (which emulates at least 15 delays now it seems). The simplicity of Valhalla Delay in addition to the sound is the reason it’s my primary one.

Valhalla Delay is versatile and sounds good with little effort.
MFM2 is my favorite for off the beaten path.

[matamoris]

For those not using Live, what 3P plugin is the closest match to the feature set of Echo? I'm thinking Timeless or Replika XT. Although Replika XT supports LFO modulation of the filter cutoff, it allows very little control of the LFO.

[SamDi]

For those not using Live, what 3P plugin is the closest match to the feature set of Echo? I'm thinking Timeless or Replika XT. Although Replika XT supports LFO modulation of the filter cutoff, it allows very little control of the LFO.

I think from features it's really Timeless. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I find Echo sounding better. This is, because I wanted to model a Echo preset with Timeless once, but I didn't get it managed to sound it as good than Echo. Could also be, that I was not able this moment to do it right, but the "mojo" on Echo, I just liked better at this moment. Maybe if you take the time and model each stuff out (phase-splitted LFO + envelope follower +ducking + gating + ...) you can also get there, but it's then much work vs. goto.


What is also a really excellent delay, but abandoned and PITA to set presets yourself is Excalibur. What is also very mighty and one of my favorites, while underrepresentated in this forum here is Relayer from UVI, you don't have the features one to one like Echo, but you come with this also pretty far, when it comes to design your delay as you want.
Last I rember, is U-He ColorCopy, which has also an excellent sound and shares many features ( but not setting LP and HP indepently) with Echo. Yes I think ColorCopy is maybe the one which come closest in terms of features, sound and getting this fast...

[rod_zero]

It has been a long time since I used it but I think echoboy sounds closer to Live's Echo, except the LFO.

[kraster]

Other Desert Cities by Audio Damage is my goto for weird and wonderful stuff.

Valhalla is the quickest to use, imho.

Timeless is great though.

I do find it a bit too fiddly for general us but if do have time it's a great delay to dig into. So many options!

Generally I'll go for a plugin dedicated to a particular emulation if I know that's what I'm looking for like the Pulsar Echorec, Delay Brigade or any of the 1,000,000 space echo clones.

One very unique delay is Objeq Delay by AAS. Haven't really come across anything that does what it does.

[matamoris]

PSP 285 has great filter mod capabilities, and it sounds great. But I think it is too expensive at $150.

[Caine123]

i think they should add a simple mode or something? i think too that Timeless is awesome but to make a simple delay etc. it takes more time than it should

[HOTF]

Other Desert Cities by Audio Damage is my goto for weird and wonderful stuff.

Valhalla is the quickest to use, imho.

Timeless is great though.

I do find it a bit too fiddly for general us but if do have time it's a great delay to dig into. So many options!

Generally I'll go for a plugin dedicated to a particular emulation if I know that's what I'm looking for like the Pulsar Echorec, Delay Brigade or any of the 1,000,000 space echo clones.

One very unique delay is Objeq Delay by AAS. Haven't really come across anything that does what it does.

On the subject of audio Damage. I got Dubstation 2 delay plugin for free a while back on plugin boutique. It's a simple plugin but it sounds really good if you are looking for that degraded audio sound delay

[bmanic]

One thing I would like to understand: so Echo does mimic a tape delay and has not the modes, as Valhalla Delay or Replika XT do. But what is the signature sound of a BBD and what is missing in Echo to do that? Or the other way around: how would I need to set Timeless to mimic a BBD?

BBDs delay degrade the sound each step, originally capacitors are passing the signal to one another in series but not 100% equal to the original signal, also the timing and changes to it provoke fluctuations to the degradation.

I honestly don't know how you could mimic that in timeless, maybe if you modulate a LP filter cutoff after each repeat.

You can definitely mimic it to a degree.. but it gets a bit fiddly to setup and actually use/manage.

You need separate LFOs for each feedback step to do all the degrading you want for that particular step, then figure out a way to keep the LFOs "individual/unique".

The fiddly bit is that when you change the delay timing, you need to also change the LFO cycles so they line up with their individual taps.

A much more general approach would be to just keep things moving/degrading with a few random LFOs, possibly using one at audio rates to give some noise on to each tap.. or even on the input itself.

[bmanic]

i think they should add a simple mode or something? i think too that Timeless is awesome but to make a simple delay etc. it takes more time than it should

I'll say it again:

USE THE PRESETS. I very specifically made a "basic" category for a quick starting point. All sorts of "mojo" pre-mapped to the green macro sliders. It is sooooooo infuriating to see people on YouTube go through presets and _never_ adjust a single macro control. They are there for a reason and it took quite a bit of work to set them up!

All you need is to load one of the basic presets, set the timing you want, tweak the macro controls and you are done. Just because there is a huge amount of additional things to tweak doesn't mean you have to do it! Hide the LFO/env/mod "matrix" controls and stick with the green pre-assigned macro controls.