Raèld Echo is a delay built around 22 echo machines: tape decks and tape echoes, a magnetic drum and an oil can, bucket-brigade pedals, studio digital delays from the late 70s to the 90s, and a few special ones. Each machine records, plays back and loses tone the way its kind does, so the repeats sound like that machine's, not like a copy with a filter on it. Four modes put one or two machines to work: a single echo, two echoes with their own times, a ping-pong, and rhythm patterns. Feedback goes past 100 % into a held self-oscillation you can play.
It has no latency, the dry signal is never touched, and it runs on mono, mono-to-stereo and stereo tracks.
Installing
- Close your DAW.
- Run
Raeld-Echo-Setup.exefrom the download page or your purchase email and follow the steps. The plugin goes intoC:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, where every DAW looks. If Raèld Echo 1.0 is installed, 2.0 replaces it. - Open your DAW and rescan plugins. Look for Raèld Echo. DAW plugin lists show it without the accent ("Raeld Echo"), so type "raeld" in the plugin browser.
Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and any VST3 host, for example Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper or Bitwig. Sample rates 44.1 to 192 kHz. Mono, mono-to-stereo and stereo tracks; the MONO switch folds the output to mono.
If Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" when you run the installer, click More info → Run anyway. Why this appears.
Activating your license
- Open the plugin. The activation screen appears; if it doesn't, click LICENCE at the top right of the window.
- Paste your key and click ACTIVATE. This can be the Raèld Echo key from your purchase email or your All Access key. You need an internet connection for this step.
- That's it: Raèld Echo is unlocked on this computer. A 1.0 key works for 2.0.
| Your key | What it unlocks | Checks |
|---|---|---|
| Raèld Echo bought to own | Raèld Echo, forever. | About once a week when online; works offline for 30 days at a time. |
| Raèld All Access subscription | Every Raèld plugin, current and future, for as long as you subscribe. | About once a day when online; works offline for 7 days at a time. Stops working within about a week after a subscription ends. |
Each key covers 3 computers. To move to a new computer, open the license screen on the old one and click DEACTIVATE THIS PC first.
Without a key the plugin runs as a demo: the sound drops out briefly every 45 seconds. Everything else works, so you can try every feature.
Quick start
- Load a preset close to what you're doing (the menu at the top: by instrument and by job), or start from Init.
- Pick a MACHINE with its arrows, or click its name for the list by family.
- With SYNC on, set TIME to a note value: 1/4 for a quarter-note echo, 1/8 D for the dotted eighth. The tempo comes from your DAW (DAW BPM), or tap it with TAP.
- Set FEEDBACK for how many repeats, MIX for how loud they are against the dry signal.
- Give it DRIVE for more of the machine's colour, and shape the repeats with LOW CUT and HIGH CUT.
On an aux send, switch on WET ONLY and HOLD MIX: only the echoes come out, and presets you try don't change MIX.
The window
A long, low cabinet: a matte black faceplate in a rosewood frame, with the controls running left to right the way the signal flows (INPUT and DRIVE, the MACHINE and its MODE, TIME, FEEDBACK, TONE, then MIX and OUTPUT). The knobs are machined aluminium with a knurled side and a lathe-turned top, on silk-screened scales; the screens are an amber dot-matrix display. It opens small, at 845 × 307, and scales from 85 % to 300 % of that: click SIZE for a size, or drag the corner (it keeps its shape). It stays sharp on any screen and opens at the size you left it.
The top rail
Brass keys: the preset name (click for the menu: factory presets by group, your own, save), < / > to step through presets, SAVE, UNDO / REDO (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y), A / B / COPY to compare two settings (saved with the session), DEEP EDIT, BYPASS, MONO, SIZE and LICENCE.
The display
The echoes one hit makes with your settings, drawn on your song's beat grid: left above the line, right below, each as tall as its level (down to −60 dB). Reversed echoes are drawn as swells. Above them: the machine, the mode, the time (with its note value) and the tempo. At the foot, when they apply: RUNAWAY, FROZEN, REVERSED, LIMITED TO 20 s, WET ONLY and BYPASS. A cursor sweeps across once per span, in time.
The meters
Two VU meters on the echoes, left and right (0 VU = −18 dBFS, with real VU ballistics), with a peak lamp that lights within 1 dB of full scale. Under them, the input's left and right levels, the ducker's reduction (DUCK) and the RUNAWAY lamp (the loop is self-oscillating).
Handling
Drag a knob up or down (hold Shift for fine steps), or use the mouse wheel or the arrow keys; double-click to reset it. A value readout shows while you adjust and when you hover. TIME's note values, MODE and PITCH click into their notches. Every control has a tooltip. The knobs follow your DAW's automation.
Main controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| MACHINE | The echo machine (below). Its arrows step through the 22, its name opens the list by family; the wheel and the arrow keys step too. |
| MODE | A switch with four positions, its legends lit: ONE, TWO, BOUNCE, PATTERN (below). Click a legend or turn the switch. |
| TIME | The echo time: with SYNC on, a note value from 1/64 to 4 bars, straight, dotted (D) or triplet (T); with SYNC off, 1 ms to 5 s. |
| SYNC | TIME as a note value at the tempo. |
| DAW BPM | Follow the DAW's tempo. Off, or with no tempo from the host: the BPM in DEEP EDIT. |
| TAP | Tap the tempo. With SYNC on it sets the BPM (and turns DAW BPM off); with SYNC off it sets TIME. |
| FEEDBACK | How much of each echo comes round again, 0 to 120 %. 100 % holds the loop; past it, the loop grows into a held self-oscillation. The knob glows warmer as the echoes build. |
| MIX | The echoes against the dry signal. The dry is never touched. |
| DRIVE | How hard the echoes drive the machine: tape, a bucket brigade's compander, a converter. It is level-matched, so you hear more colour, not more level. |
| LOW CUT, HIGH CUT | Thin or darken every repeat (in the loop, so each pass loses a little more). |
| INPUT, OUTPUT | The level into the echoes (more drives the machine harder) and the echoes' level. The dry is not affected. |
| WIDTH | The echoes from mono (0) to wider than they are (150 %). |
| FREEZE | Hold what is in the loop, repeating for ever, while new sound passes by. |
| WET ONLY | Only the echoes come out (for a send). Kept with the session, not in presets. |
| HOLD MIX | Presets leave MIX where it is. |
The modes
The strip along the bottom shows only the controls of the mode you're in.
| Mode | What it is | Its controls |
|---|---|---|
| ONE | One echo machine, on left and right (or middle and sides). | OFFSET (the right side later by up to 25 ms, for width), SWING, TIMING, BEAT, BALANCE, L/R or M/S |
| TWO | Two machines with their own times, feeding each other with CROSS. | TIME 2 with LINK, CROSS, SWING, TIMING, BEAT, BALANCE, L/R or M/S |
| BOUNCE | The echoes bounce left and right. TIME 2 is the bounce back. | TIME 2 with LINK, BALANCE |
| PATTERN | A rhythm of up to 16 taps across TIME (a bar at the default), repeated by FEEDBACK. Choose the pattern in DEEP EDIT; the strip shows its taps. | BALANCE |
- SWING: every other echo late, swung (−, towards a dotted feel) or shuffled (+, towards a triplet).
- TIMING: the echoes ahead of the beat (rushing) or behind it (dragging), up to 50 ms, or a 1/32 note when synced.
- BEAT: the off-beat echoes (−) or the on-beat ones (+) louder, up to 12 dB.
- SWING, TIMING and BEAT work on the single-head machines in ONE and TWO; on the multi-head machines HEADS sets the rhythm instead.
The machines
| Family | Machine | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| Tape | REEL 30 | A high-end studio deck at 30 ips: wide, smooth, gentle. |
| REEL 15 | The same deck at 15 ips: the classic slap and throw. The default. | |
| SLIDE HEAD | A single-head cartridge tape echo with a solid-state preamp: forward mids, grit. | |
| TRI-HEAD | A three-head tape echo: warm, gritty, its heads in a galloping pattern (HEADS). | |
| CASSETTE | A consumer cassette deck: compressed, hissy, fluttering. | |
| WORN LOOP | An old stretched loop: dull, crushed, with dropouts and wobble. | |
| Drum and oil | MAGNETIC DRUM | A spinning magnetic drum with four heads and valve electronics: steady and round. |
| OIL CAN | Electrostatic recording on a disc turning in oil: dark, smeared, warbling. | |
| Bucket brigade | BRIGADE | A classic analog delay pedal: warm, resonant, punchy. |
| LUSH BRIGADE | A bucket brigade with its chorus: darker, moving. | |
| STUDIO BRIGADE | A 70s/80s rack analog delay: more bandwidth, light distortion. | |
| Digital | 12-BIT RACK | Late-70s studio digital: 12 bits, about 12 kHz of bandwidth, grainy. |
| RACK 80 | 80s studio digital: 16 bits with emphasis and companding, warm and clear. | |
| RACK 90 | 90s studio digital: 20 bits at 48 kHz, nearly clean. | |
| CLEAR | Pristine: each echo is the input, bit for bit. | |
| SAMPLER 8 | An 8-bit sampler: real aliasing, by choice. | |
| Special | PHONE LINE | A telephone line: 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz, squeezed. |
| RADIO DIAL | AM radio: band-limited, squashed, with static and drift. | |
| SOUND SYSTEM | A tape echo voiced for dub: a resonant loop built to run away and be played. | |
| HAZE | Repeats that smear into a wash. | |
| MIRROR | Reverse echo: each repeat the last TIME played backwards. | |
| HALO | Repeats shifted up an octave, on the beat. |
Each machine's echo is matched to the input's level in the mids, so switching machines changes the colour, not the level. The machines are modelled on the behaviour of their kinds of equipment; they are original designs.
DEEP EDIT
DEEP EDIT opens a panel over the faceplate with the rest. Click it again to close.
| Group | Controls |
|---|---|
| CHARACTER | STYLE / TAPE / CLEAN: how a TIME change sounds (as the machine does it; always bending the pitch like tape; always a clean crossfade). WOW, FLUTTER, DRIFT and NOISE: 0 to twice the machine's own. AGE: wear (duller highs, dropouts, a coarser converter, more drift and noise). REPEAT TONE: each repeat darker (−) or thinner (+) than the last. HEADS: which heads play, on TRI-HEAD and MAGNETIC DRUM. |
| FILTER | OFF, LP, BP or HP, resonant, in the LOOP (every repeat again) or POST (on the echoes as they come out). CUTOFF, RESONANCE, and ENVELOPE: the input's level moves the cutoff up or down. With FEEDBACK past 100 % the filter plays the self-oscillation. |
| LFO | Five shapes (SINE, TRI, SQR, WALK, STEP), RATE in Hz or synced (SYNC), TIME (moves the speed, up to 50 cents), FILTER (moves the cutoff, up to 4 octaves), STEREO (the phase between left and right). |
| SPACE | DIFFUSION smears each echo into a soft cloud, SIZE sets how big, in the LOOP or POST. |
| PITCH | PITCH −12 to +12 semitones (in the loop, each repeat shifts again; 0 is the machine's own), PITCH MIX, REVERSE. |
| DUCK | The echoes go down while you play: AMOUNT (to 24 dB), THRESHOLD, ATTACK, RELEASE, keyed by the INPUT or the plugin's SIDECHAIN (route a track to it in your DAW). |
| PATTERN | The rhythm pattern for PATTERN mode, drawn with its taps (place, level, and pan as colour): Quarters, Ping Steps, Gallop, Dotted Run, Triplet Fall, Clave, Tresillo, Swell, Stutter, Offbeats, Scatter, Bloom. |
| TEMPO | BPM: the tempo SYNC uses when DAW BPM is off. |
Tempo and sync
A quarter note is 60,000 ÷ BPM ms, a dotted note ×1.5, a triplet ×2/3. At 120 BPM:
| Note | Straight | Dotted (D) | Triplet (T) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/16 | 125 ms | 188 ms | 83 ms |
| 1/8 | 250 ms | 375 ms | 167 ms |
| 1/4 | 500 ms | 750 ms | 333 ms |
| 1/2 | 1.00 s | 1.50 s | 667 ms |
| 1 bar (4/4) | 2.00 s | 3.00 s | 1.33 s |
Bars follow your DAW's time signature. Tempo changes follow at once. Raèld Echo holds 20 s of sound: a note value longer than that at a slow tempo plays at 20 s, and the display says LIMITED TO 20 s.
Changing a synced time crossfades cleanly; in ms, a tape machine bends the pitch like a real transport speeding up or slowing down (choose with STYLE / TAPE / CLEAN in DEEP EDIT).
Feedback past 100 %
At 100 % the loop holds its level; past it, the echoes build into a self-oscillation. A governor holds it at about −18 dBFS (0 VU), and the wet signal never passes −1 dBFS, so it never runs away into clipping. The RUNAWAY lamp lights, and the host is told the tail is endless. Play it with TIME (tape machines bend the pitch), the FILTER in the loop, and DUCK. FREEZE holds the loop as it is.
Presets
| Group | Presets |
|---|---|
| Vocals | Rockabilly Slap, Tight Double, Quarter Throw, Dotted Tape Throw, Ambient Wash, Radio Callback, Phone Throw |
| Guitar | Dotted Lead, Tape Gallop, Surf Drum, Chorus Echo, Oil Can Swirl |
| Drums | Snare Slap, Ping-Pong Eighths, Gap Filler, Trash Room |
| Synth | Dual Cross, Wide Taps, Filter Sweep, Arp Rhythm |
| Dub | Sound System, Siren Runaway, Offbeat Skank |
| Ambient | Halo Shimmer, Frozen Pad, Reverse Swell |
| Cinematic | Octave Abyss, Long Tape Bloom |
| Rhythm | Clave, Tresillo, Swung Sixteenths, Shuffle Eighths |
| FX | Tape Bend, Telephone Ghost, Envelope Wah, Random Warble, Fifth Climb |
Plus Init and your own. Presets keep the song's tempo, FREEZE, WET ONLY and HOLD MIX as they are.
Names in your DAW
A few faceplate labels are worded differently from the parameter names your DAW lists for automation:
| On the faceplate | In your DAW |
|---|---|
| MACHINE | Style |
| DRIVE | Saturation |
| SWING, TIMING, BEAT | Groove, Feel, Accent |
| ONE, TWO, BOUNCE, PATTERN | Mode: Single, Dual, Ping-Pong, Rhythm |
| PATTERN (in DEEP EDIT) | Rhythm |
| WET ONLY, HOLD MIX, DAW BPM | Kill Dry, Mix Lock, Auto BPM |
| OFFSET | L/R Offset |
What we measured
- No latency. The dry signal is untouched, bit for bit; MIX 0 is the input bit for bit; CLEAR's first echo is the input bit for bit.
- Echoes on time: CLEAR to the sample, the other machines within 0.05 ms (OIL CAN and PHONE LINE within 0.09 ms). Every note value from 1/64 to 4 bars at 40 to 240 BPM within half a sample.
- DRIVE keeps every machine's first echo within 0.01 LU from 0 to 100 %.
- Self-oscillation settles at −17.5 to −21.8 dBFS RMS on 18 machines, steady to 0.01 dB over ten minutes, peaks at −2.25 dBFS at most.
- DUCK: 6, 12 and 24 dB measured −6.0, −12.0 and −24.0 dB, through the sidechain too.
- No clicks when switching TIME, MACHINE, MODE, FREEZE, REVERSE, PITCH, the filter or the pattern.
- Every machine folds to mono without loss at its defaults.
- The same output at every buffer size, bit for bit; no allocation on the audio thread.
- CPU, stereo at 48 kHz: 1 to 2 % of one core for most machines, up to about 3 % with every feature on.
From version 1.0
Raèld Echo 2.0 replaces 1.0: same plugin, same licence. Your 1.0 sessions open with the nearest 2.0 settings, and your 1.0 user presets are rewritten once for 2.0 (the originals kept beside them, as .raeldpreset.v1). The engine is new, so a 1.0 session sounds close to before, not identical.
| 1.0 | 2.0 |
|---|---|
| Digital, Tape, Multi-Head, Analog | CLEAR, SLIDE HEAD, TRI-HEAD, BRIGADE |
| Ping-Pong, Dual | CLEAR in BOUNCE, CLEAR in TWO |
| Slapback, Dub, Lo-Fi | REEL 15, SOUND SYSTEM, SAMPLER 8 |
| Diffused, Reverse, Shimmer | HAZE, MIRROR, HALO |
| DRIVE, MOD, SPREAD, DUCK | DRIVE, WOW and FLUTTER, TIME 2 (TWO) or OFFSET, DUCK's AMOUNT |
Troubleshooting
The plugin doesn't show up
Rescan plugins in your DAW. Check that C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Raeld Echo.vst3 exists. Raèld Echo is 64-bit VST3 only.
The echoes keep going after I stop
FEEDBACK is past 100 % (the RUNAWAY lamp is lit) or FREEZE is on. Turn FEEDBACK under 100 % or FREEZE off, and the echoes fade.
The display says LIMITED TO 20 s
The note value you chose is longer than 20 s at this tempo; Raèld Echo holds 20 s, so it plays at 20 s. Choose a shorter note.
"Couldn't reach the license server"
Check your internet connection and any firewall that might block your DAW. Activation needs to reach api.lemonsqueezy.com.
"This license key has reached the activation limit"
Deactivate an old computer from inside the plugin, or contact support and we'll reset it.
Windows says "Windows protected your PC"
Click More info → Run anyway. This appears for new software that hasn't built up a download reputation yet. More about this.
Uninstalling
Settings → Apps → Raèld Echo → Uninstall. Deactivate your license first if you're retiring the computer.
Support
See the support page for common questions, or email info@raeldaudio.com with your order number.
Raèld Echo's machines are original designs modelled on the general behaviour of tape, drum, oil-can, bucket-brigade and digital echo equipment. Raèld Echo is not affiliated with or endorsed by any other manufacturer.