Drum Echo

Drum Echo is a stereo, transient-aware, three-head tape delay for individual percussion voices and complete drum buses. It can reinforce selected attacks, duck the existing echo while a new hit lands, and recover the tail between hits.

The interaction model takes broad cues from classic multi-head tape echoes and modern software such as Arturia Delay TAPE-201. Drum Echo uses original DSP and is not a circuit or product emulation.

Drum Echo interface processing an active stereo signal, with three-head timing, feedback, tape wear and flutter, transient send and ducking, tone, spread, mix, and live peak, hit, and wet-duck meters — The compact editor keeps the multi-head tape path, transient response, output controls, and active hit and ducking readouts in one view.

Workflow

Insert s3g Drum Echo after a drum instrument or stereo drum bus.
Route the processed track to the main stereo output or a headphone monitor.
Choose a HEADS pattern and a host-synchronized CLOCK division, or select FREE and set TIME.
Set HIT SEND positive to emphasize attacks in the repeats, or negative to keep clicks and sticks out of the echo.
Raise DUCK, then tune SENSE until each new hit briefly clears the wet path without erasing its tail.
Finish with feedback, wear, flutter, tone, stereo spread, mix, and output trim.

Heads and Clock

The three playback heads are equally spaced at one, two, and three times the base delay. HEADS selects any single head, the three two-head pairs, or all heads. The rhythmic pattern therefore remains related when tape time or host tempo changes.

CLOCK provides Free, 1/32, 1/16 triplet, 1/16, 1/8 triplet, 1/8, 1/4 triplet, 1/4, 1/2, and one-bar bases. Host tempo is read from the CLAP transport; 120 BPM is used when the host does not publish tempo. Time changes glide like a moving tape mechanism rather than jumping discontinuously.

Drum Response

Control	Drum-specific behavior
Hit Send	Changes only the detected attack written into the echo. Positive values make kicks, sticks, and rim attacks repeat more strongly; negative values favor bodies and tails.
Sense	Moves the transient and duck detector threshold from strong bus hits toward quiet percussion detail.
Duck	Attenuates the wet output while a fresh hit is present, then releases over roughly 150 ms. Delay memory and feedback continue underneath.
Tone	Sets repeat bandwidth. Darker values reduce cymbal accumulation and leave more room for new attacks.
Spread	Places heads left, center, and right while adding restrained stereo cross-feedback.

Tape Behavior

WEAR increases record and regeneration saturation while reducing feedback bandwidth. FLUT combines two slow tape-speed variations whose depth grows nonlinearly, so low values add movement without noticeably shifting the groove. Feedback is high-pass protected and soft-limited to keep low drum energy from producing DC buildup or unbounded regeneration.

Controls

Panel	Controls	Role
Multi-Head Tape	Heads / Clock / Time / Fdbk / Wear / Flut	Selects the tap pattern, timing, regeneration, and tape instability.
Drum Response	Hit Send / Sense / Duck / Tone / Spread	Controls transient injection, new-hit clearance, echo bandwidth, and image.
Output	Out / Mix / Byp	Sets final trim, clean/wet balance, and sample-exact bypass.
Readout	PK / Hit / Wet Duck	Shows output peak, detected transient activity, and current wet attenuation.

Automation and State

All fourteen controls are automatable and saved in CLAP state. The effect reports a tail derived from the longest active head and feedback setting. It allocates delay memory during activation, not on the audio thread.

Limits

Drum Echo requires a two-channel input and output and does not accept MIDI. It provides tape-style saturation and speed variation, but no spring-reverb model or claim of hardware accuracy. At extremely slow tempos, the longest head is limited by the prepared twelve-second delay memory.