How can I get a real bouncing ping pong delay effect?

  • Hi,


    I can’t create a delay effect resulting in a real ping pong delay bouncing from one channel to another, based on a linear decrease of the repetition level, probably due to my lack of knowledge of the delay parameters.


    I will try to explain it better.


    My current preset is based on a dual delay, aiming to get a dotted 1/8 time value, with the following values: Note Value 1: 6/16 (1/4 dot), Note Value 2: 3/16 (1/8 dot). The result is a delay bouncing from left to right and vice versa.


    The problem is that the volume of each repetition is not decreasing in percentage according to the level of the previous repetition occurred on the other channel.
    It is as if the two channels have independent scale of decay of the sound, not linked each other.


    If I assume the values as percentage of the volume level in comparison to the original sound, I would expect to have a similar decay pattern (take the values as examples):


    100% (original) à (80% on the L) à (60% on the R) à (40% on the L) à (20% on the R)


    And the feeling of the current behavior is as if the levels of the dotted 1/8 were added to the dotted ¼.


    As far as I remember, there were many rack multiFX providing a real ping pong delays, giving the impression of the sound really bouncing between the channels.


    What am I missing in the parameters settings?


    thanks

  • I haven't really messed with the KPA's stereo delays much, but one thing I've noticed with many hardware and software delays is that they don't do a proper L R L R L R L R etc delay.


    What they tend to do is that the first repetition is on the left at 1 x the delay time, then the 2nd repetition is on the right but ALSO coincides with the 3rd repetition on the left, which means that they sum, resulting in a net pan offset of something like 75% right (instead of 100% right).


    So what you end up with is delays that actually have a pan position that tends towards the centre, something like 100%L, 75%R, 65%L, 60%R, 55%L and so on.


    Could that be what you're hearing?


    I actually wrote my own VST plugin because I was fed up of this problem. I'm not sure the KPA is flexible enough to remedy the problem...but then again like I said I haven't really played with them much (all my stuff is in mono).

  • Hope I understood it correctly, but you I think you can get a delay like you described with the following settings:


    Type: Rhythm Delay
    To Tempo: off
    Delay 1 Ratio: doesn't matter
    Delay 2 Ratio: doesn't matter
    Delay 3 Ratio: 50%
    Delay 4 Time: to taste
    Volume 1: 0
    Volume 2: 0
    Volume 3: 10
    Volume 4: less than 10 so the delay on the right is lower in volume (you may need to experiment with this in combination with the feedback setting)
    Panorama 3: -100%
    Panorama 4: +100%
    Stereo: 100%

  • Try to use two tap delay. From the manual:



    Quote

    The Two Tap Delay is based on a single delay, but with two signal taps for the left and right sides. This allows for dedicated ping-pong delay patterns, that are quite different to those of the Dual Delay, for example.

  • That will have the same problem.


    Think about it: Delay 3 has 50% of the time, so will repeat at twice the rate of Delay 4, which means that every other repetition of Delay 4 will sum with Delay 3, resulting in a more central pan position.


    This also applies to the Two Tap delay.


    What you REALLY need (and what I did in my VST) is two delay taps with the SAME delay time, but with one of them OFFSET by 50% of the delay time. From looking at the manual, that's not possible in the KPA


    .

  • again from the manual about Two Tap Delay:


    Only the left delay will feed its signal back to the delay input, which means the length of the left delay will define the overall pattern length. When you set the length of the right tap to half that of the left, for instance, you will create a classic ping-pong delay. However, swapping the values will not only result in a swap of the stereo sides, but also in a different delay pattern.