Unify Manual

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sample-delay

Sample Delay

Unify's built-in Sample Delay is a very simple two-channel digital delay effect, where the amount of delay is adjustable either from zero to 10,000 samples or 0-25 milliseconds.

  • The L.Delay and R.Delay knobs allow independent adjustment of the Left and Right channel delay time
  • When Link L/R checked, the Left and Right channel delays are locked together, and adjusting either knob causes the other to move to match.
  • The Samples/Millisec pop-up lets you choose between Samples and Milliseconds as the unit of delay time.

This effect was added primarily for latency compensation (see below), and because of this, it has three important limitations:

  1. It does not mix any of the dry (non-delayed) signal into the output
  2. It adjusts the size of the delay buffers dynamically, in order to minimize the amount of RAM memory required. Hence you will hear clicking when adjusting the delay times.
  3. It does not expose delay times (or any other parameters) for real-time modulation

Plug-in latency compensation

Hidden instances of Sample Delay are used on each Unify layer, to implement automatic latency compensation. When plug-ins report non-zero latency values, Unify compensates by adjusting the layer delays so all layers have the same latency (and reports the overall effective latency value to the host, when Unify is working as a plug-in).

You can also use instances of Sample Delay anywhere you wish, to implement manual latency compensation. This is particularly important in ComboBox, which does not presently do any automatic latency compensation. See the ComboBox page for details.

Creative uses

Sample Delay can also be used creatively for sound design.

  • You can put an instance of Sample Delay on a layer using Link L/R to cause that layer to sound slightly later than other parallel layers.
  • Delaying only the Left or Right channel of any signal very slightly can simulate the effect of a stereo miking, where one microphone is closer to the sound-source than the other. (Sound travels about 343 meters/sec in air, so every millisecond corresponds to a distance of 343 millimeters.)
  • Delaying only one channel of a stereo signal by larger amounts can often provide an enhanced sensation of width. (A true stereo width effect such as Polyverse Music's excellent, free Wider plug-in will provide better results at the cost of a little extra CPU.)
sample-delay.txt · Last modified: 2023/05/08 18:59 by 127.0.0.1