> >I'd like a digital delay, similar to Roland's SDE-3000 but in MOTM
> >format (natch) with voltage controlled EVERYTHING.
> >...the ability to
> >sample and hold a loop (like Frippertronics). Build it and we will
> >buy it.
>
> and... it should be DC coupled so it can also sample control voltages
> and process them just like audio. This would likely require longer
> delay times to be useful, say 5 to 8 seconds.
>
You need 5-8 seconds to do Frippertronics stuff anyway. The tape delay
on Fripp's "Let the Power Fall" is around five seconds, and the delay
on Eno's "Discrete Music" (the first released recording of the
two-deck long-delay system) was around seven seconds.
Fortunately, RAM is cheap these days. The harder part is that the old
digital delays had a variable sampling rate driven by a high-frequency
VCO. The ADC, DAC, and RAM were all clocked together by this
oscillator, and the variable clocking is what produces the interesting
interdependence of perceived pitch and delay time that is characterist
of old delays. Emulating the behavior of such a system with code
running on a contemporary processor turns out to be trickier than one
might initially guess. (There are next to no software plug-ins that
emulate this behavior correctly, which ∗cough cough∗ possibly explains
the popularity of the ones that my company sells.)
--Adam