Triple Delay

A clock-synced delay with three taps you crossfade between. Each tap echoes at a different musical division of the incoming clock, and an X/Y pad morphs smoothly between them — turning one delay into a shifting, rhythmic, slightly polyrhythmic effect.

How it works

The module measures the period between clock pulses and places three taps at fixed divisions of it: a 1/8 note, a dotted 1/8, and a 1/4 triplet. The X/Y pad sets the crossfade between these three echoes — drag toward a corner to favour that tap, or sit between them to blend. Because the divisions are related but unequal, morphing produces echoes that drift in and out of lockstep rather than a single clean repeat. With the Clock control on Ext and no clock patched it sits at 120 BPM; Song takes the timeline's tempo instead, which is also the only way the three taps are reliably a 1/8, a dotted 1/8 and a 1/4 triplet — in Ext they are divisions of whatever you clock it with.

Controls

  • Morph pad (X/Y) — the puck crossfades the three taps. Each corner is one division: A (1/8), B (dotted 1/8), C (1/4 triplet). Double-click to recentre.
  • Fdbk — how much of the delayed signal is folded back into the line, from a few repeats to long, smearing tails that hover just short of runaway.
  • Mix — wet/dry balance, fully dry to fully wet.
  • Clock — where the tempo comes from. Ext measures the pulses arriving at the clock input, which is how this module has always worked. Song follows the timeline's tempo directly, with no cable at all. Int runs at its own speed, set by the BPM field beside it. One thing worth knowing: in Ext the divisions are relative to whatever you clock it with, so feeding it sixteenths makes every label four times faster than it reads. In Int and Song the module knows what a quarter note is, so the labels mean exactly what they say.
  • BPM — the tempo for Int. In Song it greys out and shows you the timeline's tempo instead; in Ext it greys out too, because the cable is in charge.

Inputs & outputs

  • In L / In R — the signal to delay; audio or CV. Patch only In L and it is processed in mono and sent to both outputs. Patch In R as well and each side gets its own delay line and feedback, sharing the same clock, tap times, morph and knob settings.
  • Clk — patch a clock here to lock the tap times to your tempo.
  • X / Y / Fdbk / Mix CV — voltage control over each knob, summed into the pad's morph position, the feedback amount, and the wet/dry balance; patch an LFO or envelope to sweep any of them under a part.
  • Out L / Out R — the wet/dry mix. If you feed both inputs but only cable Out L, the two sides are folded together so the right channel isn't lost.

Tips

  • Send a slow LFO or envelope into X / Y to sweep the rhythmic feel while a part plays.
  • Push Fdbk near the top of its range while moving the pad to build dense, self-evolving echo clouds.