A Great Sounding Yet Ultra Affordable Tape Delay
Over the past few years, Portugal-based Imaginando has created an intriguing, good-looking small catalogue of software tools (ranging from Live & Traktor controllers to the powerful DRC polyphonic synth), but for one reason or another, I had never been able to spend some quality time with them for ANR. Until now, that is. I’m a sucker for tape delay-style effects, so when I heard of Imaginando’s new plugin/app, K7D, I couldn’t miss out.
What Is It?
In the company’s words, K7D is an audio plugin designed to simulate a tape delay effect, recreating the characteristic sound of classic hardware tape machines, with some modern modulation features, giving the possibility to achieve a mix of modern and vintage sounds.
For those of you who are not yet familiar with tape delays, here’s how they work in a nutshell. The musician’s performance is recorded by the recording head, then it passes through the playback head milliseconds later creating the delay effect. The distance between the recording and playing heads represents the delay time. There are some extra factors that make these delays particularly interesting, such as the magnetic tape’s wow and flutter, the rolled-off high-frequency response and increased distortion with each repeat.
Look and Sound
K7D is available for Mac, Windows and iOS. It comes with a sleek, minimal interface (thumbs up!). The interface consists of a status bar on the top, the main panel with common delay parameters along with three tabs on the bottom for modulation, filtering and character manipulation. Basically, you can’t go wrong, since everything is pretty intuitive.
The Pre-Gain control can add a nice crunch (try it with some beats!) and if you love playing with the stereo image of your tracks, the Character tab offers some effective ways to do that. Plus, the plugin/app comes loaded with some helpful presets, which doesn’t hurt.
Wrapping It Up
If you love the unique vibe of those (now awfully expensive) classic tape delays, I wholeheartedly recommend checking out Imaginando’s K7D. At a fraction of the price, you get a well-designed, easy-to-use, great-sounding piece of software that will give your tracks ‘mojo’ for days. The only thing I would add is a sort of ‘tape age’ feature. It would be cool to be able to switch between a pristine reel and a worn-out one (for a ‘dirtier’ sound), but for the price, I sure can’t complain!
Personally, I feel like K7D is a must-have on iOS and might become a trusted friend of mine on my Mac-based desktop setup, alongside some of my favourite effect plugins such as those from Valhalla, Eventide, Soundtoys, etc.
Original Source: Audio News Room.net
