Colonnade Delay: the manual
The manual for Colonnade Delay: installation and activation, the two engines and four characters, the depth axis, the echo stage as a control surface, routing, groove, and the FAQ. Current for v1.0.1.
Colonnade Delay is a dual-engine character delay that stages its echoes in space. Two independent delay lines, A and B, each carry one of four character engines inside the feedback loop, so tone, saturation and wear accumulate with every repeat the way hardware behaves. Each engine also has a Depth control that moves its repeats from in front of the dry signal to far behind it. Two engines at different depths give the mix the receding rows the name describes: a close slap against a distant wash, from one insert.
This manual covers installation and activation, the interface, common session workflows, and the reference material for the v1.0 series, current through v1.0.1. It applies to the VST3, AU and AAX builds on Windows 10 and later and on macOS, Intel and Apple Silicon.
Overview
Each engine is a complete delay line: time (free from 1 ms to 4 seconds, or host synced across 21 divisions from 1/64 to 1/1 including dotted and triplet), feedback to 120 percent, a character engine, a multimode resonant filter, drive, diffusion, pitch shifting, pan, width, level, reverse and depth. The engines route four ways: Dual, Ping-Pong, Serial with A feeding B, and Mid/Side.
The echo stage display draws each engine's repeats as receding pulses of light at their actual times, staged by depth, on a beat grid when synced. It is a control surface, not a picture: the repeats themselves are the handles, covered in the interface tour below.
The plugin runs at zero samples of latency at all settings; nothing is reported to the host because nothing is needed. Echo placement is sample accurate, verified at 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz. CPU cost is 1.41 percent of one core at 48 kHz with a 512-sample buffer, measured with both engines running worn tape and ghost characters, diffusion, an active pitch shifter and ducking. The build passes pluginval at strictness level 5, and every control carries a tooltip.
Install and activate
Colonnade Delay installs as VST3, AU and AAX; any DAW that loads those formats will see it after a plugin rescan. Licensing runs through the license panel inside the plugin, and it is built so that an offline studio machine never needs an internet connection.
The machine code
Open the plugin's license panel and it shows a machine code in the form VTM1-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. Every activation, trial or full, is bound to this code.
Starting the 3 day trial
The trial is the full plugin for 3 days, every engine and every feature, no locks. To start one, go to /license/trial on the Vitric site, pick Colonnade Delay, paste the machine code from the license panel, then sign in with your email. A trial license file bound to that machine arrives at your verified address; load it and you are running. One trial per product, per person and machine.
When the trial ends, processing locks until a purchased license or valid subscription is installed. Saved session settings are preserved but not applied while locked. The plugin never requires a network connection.
Full licenses and offline machines
A purchased license key looks like VT-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX and can be issued to 3 machines over its lifetime. Online machines activate from inside the plugin. Offline machines activate through the license portal at /license from any online device: enter the key and the offline machine's code, download the license file, carry it over and load it in the license panel. Deactivation is self service in the same portal and the same bound machine can be reactivated later. Because a permanent offline file cannot be erased remotely, deactivation does not free a lifetime binding for a fourth machine. Contact support for a legitimate hardware replacement beyond the three bindings. Lost keys can be resent to your registered email.
Interface tour
The window is resizable from 1000 by 680 up to 1860 by 1260. The toolbar holds the routing selector, the preset menu with section headings and stepper buttons, A/B compare with COPY, undo and redo, and bypass, which crossfades click free and is host automatable. The echo stage fills the face; the two engine decks sit below it, and the utility strip runs along the bottom.
The echo stage
Every audible repeat is drawn at its actual time, staged front to back by depth, with the beat grid visible when an engine is synced. The display is driven directly:
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Drag a lane's head node | Time sideways, depth up and down; the node follows your pointer and a HUD reads TIME and DEPTH |
| Drag the lane away from the node | Time only |
| Drag the last repeat (the decay grip) | Feedback: growing the train outward is what feedback does |
| Mouse wheel over a lane | Feedback |
| Shift while dragging | Fine adjustment |
| Double-click | Resets what you clicked on |
| Right-click a lane | The lane menu: on, sync, reverse, resets, copy between A and B |
| Click an engine deck | Focuses that engine; the chrome re-lights in its colour |
When an engine is synced its repeats snap to divisions as you drag. Ducking reads as the trails dimming, freeze holds the stage with a FROZEN caption, and feedback past 100 percent raises a SELF-OSC caption over the lane.
The four characters
All four engines live inside the feedback loop, so colour is written into the signal on every pass and accumulates per repeat:
| Engine | The machine | What accumulates per repeat |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | Clean digital line | Nothing. Transparent at any feedback |
| Tape | Program-dependent saturation, head bump and high-frequency loss tracking tape speed, wow and flutter built from measured machine behavior, optional hiss and splice noise | Warmth, compression, wear |
| Bucket | Bucket brigade on a virtual clock, so repeats darken as times get longer; compander pumping and bloom, optional clock whine | Darkness as times stretch, pumping, bloom |
| Ghost | Companded bit reduction that breathes with the signal, sample rate reduction, deep slow warble, smeared repeats | Grit that breathes with the signal |
An Age control per engine sweeps each model from calibrated new to worn, and each character's noise layer (tape hiss and splice, clock whine, warble) can be switched off.
The engine decks
Each deck carries the character selector, noise and reverse chips, the time block (the note value or free time with a live ms readout, drag-scrub, sync and tap tempo chips, and the Repitch/Fade switch), the feedback knob and the depth rail. The remaining controls sit on four pages of three, following the signal chain: MACHINE (age, drive, noise), FILTER (type, frequency, resonance), SPACE (diffusion, pitch, pitch mode) and OUT (pan, width, level). A and B page independently.
- Time behavior. Repitch glides between times like a tape transport, with motor constants measured from a real echo machine, so the move is the doppler. Fade crossfades cleanly at constant pitch. Both are click free, including host tempo changes.
- Feedback. 0 to 120 percent. Self oscillation begins at 100 percent and stays bounded and musical to 120, limited inside the loop the way tape saturation limits a real echo machine.
- Filter. Multimode resonant filter in the feedback path: low pass, high pass or band pass, so each repeat is filtered again.
- Pitch. Pitch shifting inside the loop, plus or minus 24 semitones with cent resolution. Quartz is clean and granular; Slide glides between pitches. Because the shifter is in the loop, an octave setting climbs another octave every repeat.
- Diffusion. From discrete repeats to a washed, reverb adjacent smear, without moving the echo off the grid.
- Depth. -100 in front of the dry signal to +100 far behind it. One control drives level, air absorption, smear, arrival time and stereo width together, so a repeat recedes instead of just getting quieter.
Routing
- Dual. A and B run in parallel.
- Ping-Pong. Repeats alternate across the image.
- Serial. A feeds B, for compound machines: a tape eighth feeding a bucket quarter is one patch.
- Mid/Side. One engine on the centre of the image, one on the sides. Each engine runs mono in this mode, so the per-engine pan control is inactive there.
Groove, ducking and the utility strip
- Swing. 50 to 75 percent on synced engines, in the MPC convention. The swung repeat moves; the grid never does.
- Nudge. Plus or minus 30 ms, sliding repeats ahead of or behind the pocket.
- Ducking. Driven by the dry signal, with amount, attack and release.
- Freeze. A click-free loop hold.
- Kill dry. Removes the dry signal for send use.
- Mix and mix lock. The mix control with a lock so presets never change your send balance.
- Width and output. Global stereo width and an output trim.
Presets, A/B and undo
44 factory presets organized by source and job: Vocals, Drums, Guitars, Keys and Synths, Mix FX, Ambient and Sound Design. Preset recall respects mix lock. A/B holds two complete plugin states with a COPY button, and both slots persist with the session. Undo and redo live in the toolbar.
Workflows
Vocal slap and throw
One instance covers both jobs. Put a clean Studio eighth on A at a slightly negative depth so it sits against the dry vocal, and a worn Tape quarter on B pushed far back: the depth control carries the level, air loss, smear and width of distance in one move. Set ducking so both lines duck under the phrase and bloom in the gaps. The stage shows the slap up front and the throw rows behind it, which is exactly what the mix will do.
Guitars
Bucket. The virtual clock darkens every repeat as times get longer, and the compander pumps the way the pedal lineage does. At the turnaround, grab the decay grip and lean the feedback past 100: self oscillation stays bounded and musical to 120 percent, so the swell is playable rather than a runaway.
Synths and shimmer ladders
Put the pitch shifter inside the loop to work: an octave up in Quartz mode climbs another octave every repeat, building a ladder that diffusion can smear toward a wash. Slide mode glides between pitches instead, which reads as a transport being played. Depth staging keeps the ladder behind the dry synth while it climbs.
Mix FX and send use
On a send, engage kill dry and lock the mix so preset browsing never upsets the send balance. Mid/Side routing puts one engine on the centre and one on the sides for width moves a normal delay cannot make. Freeze holds a loop click free while you ride the filters and depth live.
Reference
| Control | Range | What it sets |
|---|---|---|
| Time | 1 ms to 4 s free, or 21 sync divisions (1/64 to 1/1, dotted and triplet) | Per-engine delay time |
| Time mode | Repitch or Fade | Transport glide with pitch, or clean crossfade at constant pitch |
| Feedback | 0 to 120 percent | Regeneration; self-oscillation from 100 percent, bounded |
| Character | Studio, Tape, Bucket, Ghost | The engine inside the feedback loop |
| Age | Calibrated new to worn | Condition of the modeled machine |
| Filter | LP, HP or BP, resonant | Filtering inside the feedback path |
| Pitch | Plus or minus 24 semitones, cent resolution, Quartz or Slide | Shift per pass through the loop |
| Depth | -100 (front) to +100 (back) | Level, air, smear, arrival time and width in one control |
| Swing / Nudge | 50 to 75 percent / plus or minus 30 ms | Groove on synced engines |
| Routing | Dual, Ping-Pong, Serial, Mid/Side | How A and B connect |
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Engines | 2 independent delay lines, full per-engine control |
| Characters | Studio, Tape, Bucket, Ghost, all inside the feedback loop |
| Latency | Zero samples at all settings, nothing reported to the host |
| Timing | Sample-accurate echo placement at 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz |
| CPU | 1.41 percent of one core at 48 kHz / 512, both engines worn and working |
| Extras | Ducking, freeze, per-engine reverse, kill dry, mix lock, tap tempo per engine, global width, output trim |
| Sessions | A/B with copy, undo and redo, host-automatable click-free bypass |
| Presets | 44 factory presets in six sections |
| Window | Resizable, 1000x680 to 1860x1260, tooltips on every control |
| Validation | Passes pluginval at strictness level 5 |
| Formats | VST3, AU, AAX |
| Platforms | Windows 10+, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) |
| Activations | 3 lifetime machine bindings per license |
What it does not do
A manual is more useful when it says where the tool stops. As of v1.0:
- No oversampling. There is no HQ mode; the unit runs at the session rate.
- No modulation matrix. Deliberate. This is a character and depth instrument, not a modular routing environment.
- Pan is inactive in Mid/Side. That routing collapses each engine to mono, so the per-engine pan control does nothing there.
FAQ
What does the depth control actually do? It moves an engine's repeats from in front of the dry signal to far behind it by driving five things together: level, air absorption, smear, arrival time and stereo width. That combination is what distance sounds like in a room, so the echo recedes instead of just getting quieter.
Are the characters in the feedback loop or on the output? In the loop. Tape, Bucket and Ghost colour the signal on every pass, so saturation, darkening and wear accumulate with each repeat the way they do in hardware. The tenth repeat of a worn tape setting is audibly further gone than the first.
Does it self-oscillate? Yes, deliberately. Self oscillation begins at 100 percent feedback and stays bounded and musical up to 120, limited inside the loop the way tape saturation limits a real echo machine.
Can it do shimmer? The pitch shifter sits inside the feedback loop with a range of plus or minus 24 semitones, so an octave setting climbs another octave every repeat. Quartz keeps the shifts clean and granular; Slide glides between pitches.
Does it add latency? No. Zero samples at all settings, nothing reported to the host, and echo placement is sample accurate at 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz.
Do tempo changes click? No. Both time behaviors are click free through host tempo changes: Repitch glides like a transport, Fade crossfades at constant pitch.
Can I use it as a send effect? Yes. Kill dry removes the dry signal, and mix lock holds your wet balance through preset changes, so a send instance stays a send.
What DAWs does it support? VST3, AU and AAX on Windows 10+ and macOS covers Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Cubase, Studio One, FL Studio, REAPER and every other major host.
Can I try it before buying? Yes. Every Vitric plugin has a free 3 day full-function trial, requested at /license/trial with the machine code from the license panel. One trial per product, per person and machine.
What happens if I use all 3 machine bindings? A permanent offline license cannot be remotely erased, so deactivation does not create a fourth binding. Write to support if you replaced hardware and we will review the legitimate move.
Support
Questions, activation trouble, or anything this manual does not cover: support@vitricaudio.com. Every purchase also carries a 14 day money back guarantee, no questions asked, so the real test is always your own sessions.
