Pitch Echo

A stereo feedback delay with a pitch-shifter wired inside the feedback loop. Each repeat returns transposed relative to the last, so the echoes climb or fall in pitch — a cascading ladder a plain delay can't produce.

How it works

Every echo is sent back through a granular pitch shifter before it re-enters the delay line, so the transposition compounds: the first repeat is shifted by your Pitch amount, the second by twice that, the third by three times, and so on up or down. With Pitch at unity it behaves as an ordinary feedback delay. Feedback sets how far the ladder climbs before it decays — low for a single re-pitched slap, high for a long staircase that keeps evolving. Left and right keep independent echo histories — feed them slightly different signals and each side spins its own cascade for real stereo width.

Controls

  • Time — base echo spacing, from 50 ms to 2 s; sets how far apart the rungs of the ladder land.
  • Pitch — semitones each repeat is transposed, -12 to +12; centred at 0 for a normal delay, up for rising cascades, down for falling ones.
  • Mix — wet/dry blend; at 100% the echoes fully replace the dry signal (insert behaviour).
  • Feedback — how much of each pitched repeat is fed back into the line, 0% to 99%; low gives a single re-pitched slap, while pushing toward the top spins out long evolving pitch staircases that take their time to fade.

Inputs & outputs

  • In L / In R — stereo audio in; when the two sides differ, each channel grows its own cascade.
  • Time / Pitch / Mix / Feedback CV — voltage control over each matching knob; patch an LFO or envelope and sweep the Pitch input for ladders that change direction mid-tail, or ride the Feedback input to grow and collapse the cascade in motion.
  • Out L / Out R — the stereo wet/dry result.

Tips

  • A short Time plus a few semitones of Pitch turns single notes into shimmering rising arpeggios.
  • Negative Pitch with a longer Time sinks the repeats into a descending well — great for dub-style drops.
  • Detune In L against In R by a hair to let the two cascades drift apart and widen the image.