Price: $50 each (£35)
Valhalla is a small plugin manufacturer that specialises in reverbs, delays and modulation effects. These are the effects that you use to make audio sound interesting by adding movement and ambience. I have had Shimmer for a while but this week I acquired Delay and decided that it was worth looking at both of them together in the context of teaching music.
Shimmer
Let's start with Shimmer because that was where I began. I first encountered this plugin when it was required for some third-party sounds that I was downloading for Apple's MainStage, which is a music application that is focussed on live performance rather than studio music-making. I had all of the requisite instruments but all of the sounds required Shimmer, which necessitated a trip to Valhalla's website to further investigate this unknown quantity. The first thing I was struck by was the price – $50 is quite reasonable for a plugin and once it's been bought, you can put it on all of your personal machines.
I felt that the preset sounds I was downloading for MainStage overused the plugin to be honest, and that the reverb was swamping the quality of the sound. However, that's a personal preference and something that is easily remedied by adjusting the wet/dry mix. I then decided to experiment with Shimmer by loading it into a regular digital audio workstation (DAW) project and it was here that I really began to explore its potential.
For those that don't know, a shimmer reverb takes the tails of the reverb and creates pitch-shifted versions of the sound (usually by an octave) to create a glassy sound which, when used on a reverb with a long decay, can create ambient and evolving textures. It is perfect for creating sounds with movement in a band setting, or to add a bit of brightness to a mix.
I have been teaching a Year 9 music technology class all year and we are currently in the middle of a module called ‘music in the unmusical’. I was introducing the students to clever sounds such as reverse reverbs and Shimmer was my go-to tool for this task. We had sampled the sound of a student blowing across the top of a test tube and by editing and applying a reverse reverb in Shimmer we created an enormous pad sound. The students enjoyed this process immensely and having the richness of the shimmer reverb really helped them to create and develop a distinct sound.
Delay
Valhalla's newest product is a delay plugin that follows in the style of its previous plugins by including a lot of different sounds. It features emulations of all the major delay types including tape, analogue bucket-brigade-style circuit and modern digital sounds. Each of these different types then has a variety of ages within it, so you can have a really modern sounding tape delay that has been well maintained or a really old digital delay when the technology was still in its infancy and sounded less pristine due to the poor digital conversion.
The controls are very straightforward with one control per function and no hidden menus. The controls change slightly depending on the delay mode, but they all basically do the same thing. A nice bonus is the additional effects within the delay. You can add modulation to emulate the variation within a tape or for some gentle movement on a digital delay, saturation for a bit of distortion, and a basic equaliser. It's a very robust delay, packed with features.
However, the greatest asset for me is the ability to create more ambient textures. Within the presets there are a large number that are described as SFX, including sounds that change the pitch and a whole folder labelled ‘otherworldly’. These sound incredible and, when combined with the right texture, will generate some very musical sounds.
This creative use of effects is an excellent bonus because it essentially increases the number of sounds you have available within your DAW by combining all of your existing instruments with Shimmer or Delay to create even more instrumental sounds. As an aside, this use of creative effects is now a compulsory element for A Level Music Technology. And, as I mentioned above, I've also been introducing it to Year 9 classes, so it works perfectly well with younger students.
Delay can create beautiful timed delays and otherworldly textures
Summary
These plugins are clearly designed for users that want something a little more ‘out there’ which, luckily for Valhalla, I am. I encourage all my students to explore the outer reaches of composition and using effects because it equips them in appropriate use of processing while introducing them to new worlds of sound. Therefore, if you are looking for a new, affordable, ambience plugins I can wholeheartedly recommend the offerings from Valhalla.
