After a few years of producing psytrance, I decided to do some research as I was curious about what “Psychedelic” means in the world of music. Going through a few Psychedelic genres I compared some of them. My focus was mostly on Psychedelic Rock and Psychedelic Trance, and I really wanted to see if there is anything similar, so I went through my Pink Floyd collection and some of my favourite Psychedelic Trance tracks from that period in search of similarities. My conclusion about this topic was that all of the Psychedelic genres have one thing in common, and that is the atmosphere that they make. Beautifull floating sounds were in all of the Psychedelic genres and all of these sounds were mostly processed with a lot of Reverb and Delays. Famous Pink Floyd delayed guitars and beautiful keyboard pads in the background are probably what marked this kind of music as Psychedelic. PsyTrance also has a lot of reverbs and delays in the production and my conclusion that if you want to do Psychedelic music, you will probably need to use a lot of Reverb and Delays. I already did a Blog and Youtube video about Reverbs and you can find it on the following LINK The Delay is probably the most used effect in psytrance production and here are my top Delay plugins that I use in Psytrance production!
NO6 – SoundToys – Crystallizer
Crystallizer – Granular Echo Synthesizer Amazing Plugin that has many amazing features. As the name says, when you look for the Crystal sounding effect, this plugin is a must-have. The stability of this plugin is stunning, it doesn’t use much of CPU and it comes with a lot of factories presets that are more than enough to cover all features of this amazing plugin. To bring a bit more psychedelic flavour while sound designing, I use it mostly to effect shorter single-shot sounds with Soundtoys bright star. This plugin is better to use when you want to do twisted sound design, as it has an amazing Pitch option, up and down, as well as the offset options that break standard patterns and make it even more interesting.
No 5 – Waves H-Delay
Analog Delay Plugin Here we have one of the Waves plugins that have its space on this list. Super simple delay plugin that has all the features that I need while producing. Delay time, Mono or Ping-Pong, Low & High Cut are the options that I use to get an amazing atmospheric background. There are loads of this kind of plugins on the market all around, but not much of them are actually good enough to be on this list.
No 4 – FabFilter – Timeless 2
In almost every Top Plugin list, I always have at least one FabFilter product. This company is worth mentioning for everything they make. I use all of their product, all the plugins that they make, and all of them are extremely useful. As I mentioned before, FabFilters GUI (Graphic User Interface) is something that makes those plugins unique and super easy for use.
Timeless2 is a delay plugin in a different way than any other plugins. Timeless2 is made from 2 delays that supposed to go on a different side, L/R (Left & Right), but it can also be used in so many different ways. It contains Modulation sections, and from that section users can connect modulators and every parameter in the plugin, which makes this beautiful plugin “modular.” In the video below, you can check two different ways of using this plugin, and see some of its best features. It comes with the best GUI and with tons of factory presses that can process your stems and make them sound like they come from another planet.
NO 3 – Tone2 FilterBank3
Tone2 is becoming one of my favorite VSTi companies. Their Instruments started to impress me with their sound quality. GUI is not that special and I think it can be much better, performance is also questionable, but the sound quality is stunning. FilterBank3 is a pretty old plugin that I have been using at the beginning of the E-Clip. My debut album “Shuma” is full of FilterBank3 delay. The plugin is actually a combination of Filter and Delay and that is the main reason for using this plugin. It is not standard delay, and I use it only in specific cases when I want to get filtered delay tales, and you can modulate this filter with LFO. Now, from the filter settings I use only Moog filter and only one delay, always with long tales. Drive option also gives a great character to the tale and can be super long and modulated and If you never tried it, I advise you to give a try on this one.
No 2 – Native Instruments – Replika
Replika is a standard delay plugin that doesn’t do much, but it is super easy for use and super sounding delay plugin. Performance is amazing and it doesn’t take much of CPU power, and the interface is just mindblowing. From the options side, it has everything needed, LoCut, HiCut, Filter, and Phase modulations as well as saturation. Super simple for use with high-quality sound. Recommended for melodies, arps, and leads.
No 1 – SoundToys – EchoBoy
The winner is ECHOBOY. Definitely my favorite Delay plugin! Performance is pretty good, while options are just insane. The plugin has four different delay modes, Single Echo, Dual Echo, PingPong ad Rythm Echo. Single Echo is a single delay mode, Dual Echo is two delays that work separately, Ping Pong is one delay that sends tale left and right, while Rythm Echo is unique for this plugin and it has an algorithm that allows users to make a rhythmic delay effect. It has LowCut & HiCut, Groove adjusting, Feel adjusting, and from the right side it has different sound algorithms that make this plugin going trough the roof. In this section you can choose different styles. On the left bottom, there is a tweak button, that opens the new section where users are able to slightly randomize patterns of a delay. All together makes this plugin stand on the top of my delay list for more than the last 5 years.
See all this plugins in action on my youtube channel:
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