Newfangled Audio’s Recirculate may be the last delay plugin you ever need

$99 (currently $49 introductory price), newfangledaudio.com

Newfangled Audio, the forward-thinking developer distributed by Eventide, is always cooking up something unique. Past plugins include Generate, a synthesizer with chaos oscillators, and EQuivocate, an EQ that uses filters modelled on the human ear. For their latest, Recirculate, Newfangled is tackling delay.

• READ MORE: Best free plugins and freeware of the month

You’d be forgiven for expecting something wild and woolly, like a delay that models signal disruptions in an analogue telephone relay. Not this time. Recirculate is a feedback echo that aims to be the best delay out there. It does this by combining a high-quality, pristine sound with an intuitive user interface and throwing in some novel yet incredibly useful extras that reveal themselves as you dive deeper.

With so many delays on the market, does Recirculate have what it takes to make it into your plugins folder?

Beats and stems

Delays are all about the echoes; Recirculate gives you detailed control over these taps. At the centre of the plugin is the Stem Display, a horizontal bar that intuitively presents the delay taps as stems poking up and down from the centre bar. The display shows you both left and right channels, with each stem’s length indicating its volume in terms of feedback. You can snap stems to a grid by whole, dotted or triplet notes, or let them run free in milliseconds (and sync to DAW tempo as well). You’re free to tweak the various controls below the graphic or you can grab the stems and work directly with them.

Below the display are various sections, including a mixer with dry and wet sliders plus separate (and linkable) feedback sliders for left and right channels. Move any of these and changes are reflected in the display. Likewise in the Delay Beats section, which handily has separate beat/time divisions for the first echo and subsequent repeats. You can link them together as in a traditional echo, but by giving us the freedom to use these separately, Newfangled has created a powerful and experimental tool.

Strange behaviour

You should already be beginning to see the possibilities involved with Recirculate but they’re about to increase. Recirculate has four different modes, or what Newfangled calls ‘Behaviors’, with each one having its own unique parameter controls.

Standard is as you’d expect, a traditional (and clean) delay, with a chorus circuit in the Soundstage section. Pitch Warp recalls digital delays of the 1980s, with audible pitch changes occurring when you alter the delay time. Accordingly, there’s a modulation button in the Soundstage section to capitalise on this. Granular turns Recirculate into a granular delay, with Spray and Size controls to adjust grain size and randomisation. Finally, Ping Pong pushes left and right channels out into the stereo field and includes a modulation option.

All of these modes are extremely useful and, when combined with the other sections, go a long way towards extending the usefulness of Recirculate.

Dynamic transients

While many recent delay plugins have dynamics elements like ducking as standard (this one does too), Recirculate adds a few extra parameters that are exciting to see. The first is the Transient control, which lets you emphasise (or de-emphasise) the echo transients, all the way from essentially a click through to a smeared sustain.

Also useful is the compression control. This is to add in the kind of compression you might get in tape delays or other, older hardware circuits. It’s a small thing but dialling in a little compression can make things sound more natural.

There’s even a Gate function to force repeats to only sound when the wet signal is present. Use it alongside the Ducking control for unusual effects.

It’s got character

Sound-shaping possibilities continue with the filter section. With its multiple filter shapes including slope, notch and resonant peak, it’s capable of much more than just shelving.

Recirculate tends towards the pristine. If you want it to emulate something darker and dirtier like a tape or bucket brigade analogue echo, use the Drive and Noise parameters. Each includes a drop-down menu with a variety of settings, allowing you to go from mix-ready frequency bands to pokey, synth-like resonant peaks.

Finally, the Soundstage section is where you add your final effects, including stereo spread and reverb. There’s even the option to push the effects into the dry signal.

Improve recirculation

Recirculate is a fantastic delay. Kudos to Newfangled Audio for taking on a tried-and-true (and honestly a little tired) type of effect plugin and injecting new life into it. It’s an excellent all-around delay, whether your needs be bread-and-butter slapback echo or something much wilder. It’s intuitive and easy to understand yet never at the expense of complexity – it can get as deep as you want to dive. It also sounds fantastic.

Recirculate offers pretty much everything we could ask for in a delay. If we had to ask for more, a limiter to control the volume would be handy, since dub effects with lots of drive and feedback can get hairy quickly. But it’s easy enough to slap a limiter into the effects chain after Recirculate.

If you’re in the market for a delay, Recirculate could be just what you’ve been going around in circles waiting for.

Key features

• Windows and MacOS (VST/VST3/AU/AAX)
• Feedback echo
• Four unique delay behaviours including granular
• Detailed control over taps
• Independent left and right parameters
• Comprehensive filter section
• Novel dynamics section
• Drive and noise circuits to rough the sound up
• Effects section including chorus and reverb