Recreating Soundtoys Echoboy in Reaktor

There is this in the user library, apparently it’s a cross between Echoboy and Primal Tap.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/9375/

Seems like very odd behaviour for a delay.

Maybe some some quirk of the Echoboy implementation, and they liked the sound, so decided it was a feature rather than a bug?

The tape-ish delay macro is more ish than tape.

There are two ways of changing the delay time on a delay. You can change the read position in relation to the write positin within the recording media, or you can change the update speed of the recording media.

BBD delays change the update speed via the clock used to drive the BBD chip.

Most digital delays change the read position - all the Reaktor factory delays do this, including the Tape-ish delay

Tape delays can work in both ways, some have a speed knob to change the transport speed of the tape. Others (e.g. echoplex) allow you to physically move the playback head - or let you switch between different play heads.

The issue here though is that tape is a mechanical device, and there are small changes in playback speed due to friction etc. that cause a chorusing or thickening effect. The only way to accurately simulate this is to use a system where you can change the update speed - modulating the read position only gets you half way there.

Echoboy claims to do BBD and Tape style delay, so I would imagine (maybe wrong here?) that it correctly simulates changes in the update speed of the whole system. You can't do that with tape-ish delay.

This is pretty much the reason for the delays I uploaded to the UL - trying to find a way to get closer to this characteristic of BBD and Tape delays that differentiates them from most digital delays.

All that said, it really doesn't get you a whole lot closer to simulating bugs in Echoboy :) For that you would need a whole lot more deatiled analysis, and maybe some inside information as to what causes the glitches. Then you might get closer.

Although with this kind of problem, being somewhat non-linear, your probably going to need very precise and detailed information to siulate it. Other option is to just go for something which a somewhat similar character. So, in great detail, what it it about the character of the effect that is important to you (Other than 'Richard Devine')?

Do you have an audio example you can point to.. Reaktor excels at this sort of thing.

So can you not just use some click generator for a similar suond, maybe with some filtering. The 'geiger' primary module can generate some clicks like that.

Is there a particular reason why this must be generated by a delay bug?

Note also, that generating large DC offsets and sharp discontinuities is not particularly good for equipment, speakers headphones etc. Should be OK as long as there is always AC coupling somewhere in the chain, but still... best avoided.