Analog Delay / Pitch Shifter
The discontinued boutique pitch-shifting delay, faithfully emulated as a plugin. Bucket-brigade repeats that step through musical intervals, two octaves down to two octaves up, locked to your tempo. Glide, modulation, ramping and full MIDI control (VST3).
$14.99 $44.99 launch sale
Imperial Echo is a faithful recreation of a cult stepped-interval analog delay, a boutique pedal that is no longer made. Every knob, toggle and DIP switch is where you expect it, it reads the same MIDI CCs, and it adds what the hardware never could: on-screen indicators, 100 presets and total recall in your DAW.
Now available for MacOS & Windows
What's Inside
No time knob: the delay time is the tempo. Follow your DAW, locked to the bar, or tap a pulse from 40 ms to 2 s. The TAP LED shows which one is in charge.
BASE, INT 1 and INT 2 loop in time. Eleven intervals per knob, from two octaves down to two octaves up, and the intervals stack, so the repeats play a melody instead of a single echo.
A toggle per step sets quarter, dotted eighth or eighth, with 8th triplet, sextolet and 16th one right-click away. Or switch to STEP mode and play the pitch changes by hand with TAP.
REGEN runs all the way into self-oscillation, a resonant LPF in the feedback loop darkens every pass, and GLIDE turns jumps into swoops or bent, never-arriving pitches.
An LFO on the delay clock for vibrato, shimmer or seasick wow. Triangle, sine and square, each steady, twitchy or abrupt: nine flavours, and it can keep running behind the sequence.
Sweep up to five knobs on every engage, or ride them with the EXPRESSION control. Sixteen back-panel DIP switches set ramps, trails, momentary bypass and more, saved with each preset.
100 preset slots in 10 banks, with 60 factory presets from classic echo to runaway drones. Plus the unit's own Left / Live / Right slots on the preset lever.
Every control is MIDI-learnable, with a factory CC map that matches the original unit, so a controller set up for the pedal works unchanged. Program Change, channel select and preset actions.
Coloured overlays show what the pedal hides: interval stops, the step you are hearing, where the ramp has moved a knob and how far the LFO swings. Mono or stereo, with front and top views.
Imperial Echo is laid out like the pedal it is modelled on. The top row sets the echo: MIX blends dry and wet, LPF darkens every pass through the feedback loop, and REGEN sets the repeats, all the way into self-oscillation.
Below them, INT 1 and INT 2 pick the intervals the sequence steps through, GLIDE slides between them, and the three note toggles set how long each step lasts.
TAP / HOLD sets the tempo or, held down, sends the delay into runaway. BYPASS switches the effect, and the lever between them recalls the Left, Live and Right preset slots.
Each interval knob clicks through eleven stops, from -2 Oct to +2 Oct, with OFF at noon. INT 2 stacks on top of INT 1, so two fifths down make a leap no single knob can, and every echo that comes back through REGEN gets shifted again at the next step.
Flip to the top view and sixteen DIP switches open up the back panel. Pick which knobs ramp and which way they move, let the repeats ring out with Trails, make bypass momentary, play the sequence by hand with Step, or turn the interval knobs into an LFO with Modulation. Every switch is saved with your preset.
Top View & Indicators
The hardware has no screen: you work out what a knob is doing by ear. Imperial Echo adds a layer of indicators drawn right on the controls. With Modulation on, orange tracks over SPEED and DEPTH follow the LFO as it swings, and a blue dot shows where the ramp has actually moved a knob, while its pointer keeps the value you set.
Click TOP to look down on the unit and reach all sixteen DIP switches along the back edge. Badges like STEP and MOMENTARY flag a footswitch that has changed jobs, and hovering any control shows its exact value. In interval mode, grey ticks mark the stops and white dots light up the step you are hearing.
Three toggles set how long each step lasts: a quarter, a dotted eighth or an eighth of your tempo, with 8th triplets, sextolets and 16ths one right-click away. Follow your DAW and the sequence lines up with the bar, or tap your own time and watch the TAP LED blink along.
Flip the Modulation switch and the same controls become an LFO on the delay clock. INT 1 sets the speed, INT 2 the depth, and the toggles pick triangle, sine or square, played steady, twitchy or abrupt. From gentle vibrato to seasick tape wow.
Control
Put the whole pedal under your feet. In the VST3 version, right-click any knob, toggle, DIP switch or footswitch to MIDI Learn it: intervals, glide, regen, tap, hold, expression and bypass. Step through presets and banks from your controller, or call up any of 100 presets and the Left / Live / Right slots directly with Program Change.
It ships with a factory CC map laid out like the hardware it grew from, so a controller already set up for the pedal on your board drives Imperial Echo straight away. The MIDI panel shows the last message received, so you can check your rig in seconds.
Audio Demos
Flip between dry and Imperial Echo at any moment. Same take, same spot.
Pitch-shifted echoes on synth keys
Pitch-shifted echoes on soft piano synth
Specs
Pricing
$14.99 $44.99
Introductory launch price, no code needed. Lifetime updates included.
A pitch-shifting analog delay for your DAW.
Instant activation. No restrictions. No subscription.
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