When it comes to effects, Bob Clearmountain has always been ahead of his time. Going way back to the analog days of the late 70s and 80s, Bob’s effects chains went way beyond the basics, creating effects designed to pull the listener into the song immediately. One of those effects is the ping-pong delay on the main rhythm guitar part of David Bowie’s hit “Let’s Dance.” Now you can get that same effect and more with the new Clearmountain Dance ping-pong delay plugin from Apogee.
Clearmountain Dance is designed to create rhythmic stereo textures and patterns through its cascading ping pong delay that captures the warm, dual tape head delay character that became a defining part of the original song’s sound.
The plugin functions by recording incoming audio into a temporary buffer and then playing it back after a set period of time. For stereo input signals, the dry signal retains its stereo balance, while the wet signal is summed to mono and then hard-panned for its ping-pong texture. Mono input signals become stereo through the added wet signal of the cascaded delays.
Unique Parameters
Clearmountain Dance is unique primarily due to a number of parameters controls that you don’t normally see on delay plugins. The Degrade knob lets you dial in tape aging simulation, adding organic artifacts and imperfections.
The Offset and Skew knobs add subtle or drastic variations to the delay timing that takes the delay off the standard grid. Offset determines timing differences between the Left and Right channels, while Skew varies the rhythmic timing, similar to “swinging” a rhythm. This provides a customizable randomization to the cascading ping-pong delay not found on other delay plugins.
Of course you still have the usually Time, Feedback, and Mix controls, as well as input and output meters. The plugin can also be synced to the tempo of the track with the Sync button.
What you end up with is a gorgeous stereo delay that can provide new rhythms and interest to almost any part (listen to the video below for some examples).
Clearmountain Dance is priced at just $29, and is available for both Mac and PC in most popular plugin formats.
You can find out more here, or have a listen to the sound samples in the video below.
