Find the right flavour of delay to suit your needs in this hand-picked plugin roundup.
Contents
- What Is Delay?
- Types of Delay Plugin
- Karanyi Sounds Matra
- Soundtoys EchoBoy
- D16 Group Repeater
- Minimal Audio Cluster Delay
- Audio Damage Other Desert Cities
- Surreal Machines Modnetic
- Baby Audio Comeback Kid
- Moog Moogerfooger MF-104S Analog Delay
What Is Delay?
Delay is one of the most versatile effects in music production. You can use it to create a variety of new dimensions for your sound, whether you want to add width and size, fill gaps and empty space with new textures and rhythms, develop atmospheres and reshape spatial contexts, or creatively reshape timbre. By utilising repetition of existing sounds and echoing them in often completely bizarre new ways, delay allows you to transform simple sounds into something much more.
Types of Delay Plugin
To get to grips with the best delay plugins, it's useful to know about a few different types of delay formats you're likely to come across in your search.
Digital Delay is a type of delay that uses digital processing to create the delay effect. Clean, precise sound is on the menu here, and it is often used in modern productions to exactly this effect. Digital delay can be used to create a range of space and echo effects, from short and rhythmic to long, ambient delays.
Analog Delay on the other hand is a type of delay that uses analog circuitry to create the delay effect. Its warm, natural sound is something plugin manufacturers commonly try to emulate through their software, and in recent years have arguably achieved. Analog delay is regularly put to use in classic rock and blues productions, but increasingly has found its way into modern electronic productions looking for warmer or more vintage-sounding delay effects.
Tape Delay is actually a type of analog delay that uses magnetic tape to create the delay effect. With heavy usage in dub and roots reggae circles, tape delay is renowned for its warm, rich sound and is often used in vintage-style productions. Tape delay is usable for everything from subtle slapback echoes to endless atmospheric delays.
Grain Delay is a type of digital delay that samples incoming audio in very small pieces known as grains, and releases them at set intervals to create a delay effect. Whilst perhaps losing the vintage edge of analog sound, this can be one of the most creative forms of delay in the sense that each grain layer can be individually modulated, resulting in a delay unit capable of warping sounds almost entirely beyond recognition, should you choose to take it down this route.
With such room for sonic interpretation, it’s no surprise that there is a wide array of delay plugin options in the market today. Some seek to emulate analogue delay units from bygone eras, and others introduce an entirely new set of creative time-based controls for you to apply to your sounds. Not all of these plugins are created equal, both in terms of their quality and their price points, which is why we’ve decided to round up six of the best delay plugins on Plugin Boutique.
1. Karanyi Sounds Matra
A low-cost, highly creative delay plugin with great customisation options and a real personality
Price: £34
Platforms: Windows or Mac
A digital multi-effect with a Dual Delay engine at its heart, Matra by Karanyi Sounds is a low-cost experimental delay option with the ability for incredible finesse and creativity. A simple user interface belies the power behind this plugin, with more behind the scenes in Tweak view, including dual resonant filters, a filter LFO, and dual distortion useful for heavy distorting of sounds and rich saturation in equal measure.
The Spread feature with built-in Wash control gives this effect unit wonderful experimental capability, allowing you to blend reverb and grains into the mix for your delays, unlocking novel and seemingly infinite sonic textures. A number of artist-created presets come packaged within the delay plugin as well, which impressively show off some of the varied capabilities of Matra, and display its ability to blur the line between vintage tape delay emulation and the sound of modern granular delay well. These can of course either be used straight out of the box, or for inspirational purposes in case you're struggling for ideas in your own project.
2. Soundtoys EchoBoy
A classic, hardware-inspired UI with a characterful, modern feel
Price: £159.95
Platforms: Windows or Mac
The team at Soundtoys’ goal during the development of EchoBoy was to create the ultimate classic echo unit emulator, a goal that they resoundingly achieved. On top of that though, SoundToys succeeded in creating a plugin that, while it certainly has a reverence for the years of echo device history that preceded it, also possesses its own unique character that you will find impossible not to fall in love with.
Opening up the plugin reveals a straightforward, hardware-inspired interface, with three sections for all your tempo tweaking and delay diddling needs. You can keep things simple with Single Echo mode, switch to Dual Echo or Ping-pong modes for stereo echo effects, or go further with the plugin’s powerful Rhythm mode and Echo Style editor. Rhythm Mode allows you to set the rhythmic timing of up to 16 repeats, which SoundToys say is “like having a tape echo with up to 16 read heads (or “taps”).
If you love vintage gear, or even if you don’t, you’ll be delighted with EchoBoy’s classic echo box tones, including EchoPlex, Space Echo, Memory Man, DM-2, and the TelRay oil can delay. Choose the amount and type of analog saturation to dial in the vibe, an easy way of completely freshening up the sound. You can also add realistic tape wobble or chorus with the wobble control, or soften the delay repeats with reverb-style diffusion.
3. D16 Group Repeater
Why emulate only one classic delay, when you can recreate 23 of them?
Price: £79
Platforms: Windows or Mac
If flexibility is what you’re after, then look no further than D16 Group's Repeater, which is brimming with 23 incredibly accurate re-creations of the industry’s most famous delays, from classic tape delays to studio-favourite digital units. D16 Group teamed up with Slate Digital to create the delay models for Repeater, and the result is a varied selection of delay effects that will cover you for pretty much anything.
There are four different tape delays on board, as well as a cassette tape delay modelled on a 1980s Japanese tape deck. Vintage digital delay units are represented as well, with classic Boss and Lexicon models cleverly renamed so as to avoid any legal hot water. You’ll also find vintage radio and telephone sounds, pitch modulation options and much more.
The interface is clean and easy to use, with what initially looks to be a typical stereo delay effect processing section with independent control of the processing path for the left and right channels. If you care to look a little closer though, you’ll see that Repeater features independent re-panning and dry/wet mixing for each of the two stereo channels, making it a versatile double delay line effect.
4. Minimal Audio Cluster Delay
A modern legend in otherworldly, multi-layered, and personality-rich delay
Price: £42.19
Platforms: Windows or Mac
Delay upon delay upon delay upon...
As you might expect from the name, that's certainly what's in store with Minimal Audio's Cluster Delay, which gives you the ability to layer up to eight different delay taps on top of one another to create unique musical effects with real personality. This feature-rich multi-delay plugin is without a doubt one of the key creative delay plugins in our own arsenal, with a huge number of great built-in presets and six powerful integrated effects for wild creative customisation.
Whilst it might take a bit of getting used to, the user interface for Cluster Delay becomes surprisingly intuitive once you've got the know-how, with a brilliantly-designed multi-tap visualiser to help you plan out how your delay will sound before you've even given it any sound input. If you're struggling with the the interface, Minimal Audio have actually also provided full access to a number of tutorial features to help you navigate your way. There's also an analog modeling mode, which gives you access to more vintage-inspired delay modeling based on retro gear.
Built-in ducking, mid-side control, and filters, alongside numerous other onboard effects allow you to easily clean up your mix and add stereo-infused energy to your sound without compromising on quality. You know we mean it when we say we love this one as well, as Cluster Delay was actually a winner of the 2023 Plugin Boutique Awards for Delay.
5. Audio Damage Other Desert Cities
Wildly creative, with 6 unique delay algorithms for tailored responses
Price: £59.95
Platforms: Windows or Mac
Another delay plugin on our list that can do everything from granular effects to more conventional but still experimental repeating tricks is Audio Damage’s Other Desert Cities. Audio Damage are the ones responsible for unleashing Quanta upon the world, so it’s no surprise at all that Other Desert Cities is a similarly exciting and intuitive plugin, with six different types of delay algorithms to choose from.
Other Desert Cities is great for creating self-modulating delays, rhythmic effects, granular textures and sounds that are continually shifting and evolving. Where you land with this plugin is really up to you, whether it's in lush atmospheres and crystalline-type reflections or realms of interesting percussive elements.
The plugin boasts some useful tools for modulating each parameter of the delay, with two LFOs as well as an Envelope Follower and mixer section for fine-tuning the amount that the modulators will affect each part of the sound. Getting stuck in is quick and easy, as you can assign modulators to any knob with a click, and then simply dial in the amount. From here, you can use the Skew and Sense settings to mutate LFO wave shapes or route a sidechain input into the Envelope Follower to react to your track.
6. Surreal Machines Modnetic
Powerful tape delay and multi-FX unit with a vintage feel, perfect for vast lo-fi spaces
Price: £56.95
Platforms: Windows or Mac
Berlin-based Surreal Machines Modnetic is an analogue delay emulation with a few tasty digital twists. The plugin is part of Surreal Machines’ analog-inspired bundle set Dub Machines (the other plugin is Diffuse), and the developers say the plugins “take full advantage of their digital engines, but their sonic power stems from analog gear and the inspiration it provides.”
Modnetic emulates classic analog tape delay hardware from the 1970s, providing faithful vintage emulations and unusual sound design capabilities. In a nutshell, the plugin combines classic tape delay, saturation, versatile convolution reverb and amp modelling with analog-based modulation.
The plugin’s Echo section has three combinable virtual tape heads, two different reverse delay effects for creative processing and a hold mode for sustained delay action. As well as this, Modnetic offers 26 types of convolution-based reverbs grouped into springs, plates and halls, as well as a rich modulation section with chorus, phaser and flanger.
The real fun of the plugin comes in the ways you can characterise each of these effects, with nine colour options for the reverbs, and four different circuit models for each modulation option, which can vary from liquid to rigid, and blurry to clear.
7. Baby Audio Comeback Kid
Analog flavours with an intuitive, feature-rich UI
Price: £49
Platforms: Windows or Mac
Furthering their reputation for designing creative plugins that don’t get in the way of a good idea, Baby Audio Comeback Kid is a versatile delay with a retro character that may well become your go-to for any mix situation. Whether you want a tape delay vibe for your lead synth, a modern slap on your vocals or a crunchy lo-fi echo on your guitar, this kid can do it all and does so with pristine sound quality.
As with all of Baby Audio’s plugins, Comeback Kid’s interface is streamlined and intuitive, with no time-consuming submenus to tunnel through or awkward hidden features. Instead, there are 14 shaping knobs that allow you to instantly sculpt your wet signal.
The plugin’s Flavor section is where you zhuzh up your delay signal with some analogue-style colour, via four aptly-named features. Cheap pulls down the bit rate for some lo-fi fuzz, Tape adds some tape saturation breakage, Swirl coats the signal in a lavish phaser and Sauce drips it in reverb.
Aside from all this, the factory presets on this plugin sound fantastic, with 61 options created by engineers like Mick Schultz (Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Jeremih) and Anthony Saffery (Portugal. The Man, Dirty Vegas, Cornershop).
8. Moog Moogerfooger MF-104S Analog Delay
A well-executed emulation of a classic piece of Moog kit, brought up to date with modern functionality
Price: £78
Platforms: Windows or Mac
Designed around a classic and hugely-loved piece of Moog hardware from the turn of the millennium, the Moogerfooger MF-104S Analog Delay had huge shoes to fill upon its release in terms of quality expectation, but fill them it surely did. Accurately capturing the warm, analog-driven tone of the original Moogerfooger hardware from Bob Moog and co. was no small feat, but in doing so, the Moog software team have created one of the most appreciated pieces of analog-mirroring delay in recent years.
Despite existing love for the hardware version of this plugin, the team behind the Moogerfooger MF-104S thought that the original features were a little lacking for a contemporary plugin audience, and so have also kindly added CV interconnectivity, stereo functionality, an extended feature set, the ability to run multiple instances, and presets to the mix in order to bring the software fully up to date, and to no lack of celebration. For characterful emulation of an analog delay legend with contemporary functionality, there's arguably few better places to look than to the MF-104S.
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