On another forum I heard someone dismiss the analog knob in H-Delay as being just noise. I knew already from my ears that it was more than that, but I needed to prove it.
So I ran it through a spectrum viewer. You can see it in PAZ-Frequency but I ended up using a 3rd party tool which is much higher resolution.
What I discovered is – H-Delay is adding significant harmonics to signals that pass through. “Analog” has 5 settings: Off plus 4 variations. Even when “off”, it’s doing a lot… but the other 4 settings lets you shape the generation of harmonics.
Run a 100hz sine wav through to see this on a spectrum viewer!
So anyone who loves this incredible delay plugin like I do — I suggest looking at what it does through a high res spectrum view so you can add eyes to your ears and get a better understanding of what’s happening.
Also, the LoFi button is a lowpass filter that starts at 5khz and completely cuts off by 8.5khz. That, too, is a useful button.
This has always been my #1 goto delay plugin, but discovering the harmonic shaping of the 5 analog settings makes me even happier with it. You get 5 flavors of analog-style delay with H-Delay, and that’s awesome.
PS. Running pink noise and sine waves through your plugins, with a detailed spectrum view is a great way to actually understand what your plugins are doing. Once you see what’s happening, it helps clue your ear in on the various subtleties so you notice them even if you didn’t before…
And remember – subtleties are important. If you have a subtle difference on every track, and those subtle difference add up across 20-40 tragic — you’re talking about a massive difference in sound by time it’s summed on your master bus.
The difference can be as significant as digital/cold/sterile versus warm/saturated/full-of-life.
A sine wave or pink noise passed through a plugin with a detailed spectrum view can help you better understand those subtleties so they can be applied across your entire mix to add up to significant character.