I am happy to announce that the Z-DSP Shimmer cartridge has been released.
The Z-DSP Shimmer cartridge has 8 original algorithms, designed to combine lush reverberation with multiple voices of pitch shifting, to create ethereal pads, rich chordal textures, dissonant clouds of sound, and a variety of other sounds that are perfect for electronic music. The algorithms are customized to work with the Tiptop Audio Z-DSP Eurorack module.
There are 6 reverb algorithms in the Z-DSP Shimmer cart, arranged in order of complexity:
- Fast Shimmer: A modulated reverb that quickly decays away into an endlessly pitch shifting tail. The shift interval can be set between +/- 12 semitones. Perfect for that classic “octave up” shimmer sound.
- Slow Shimmer: Similar to Fast Shimmer, but with a much slower attack.
- Dual Shimmer: Two pitch shifted voices, embedded within a larger modulated reverb network, shifting the reverb decay in both positive and negative directions. Try slowly sweeping the Shift control in this mode for ridiculously cinematic sounds.
- Triple Shimmer: Two pitch shifted voices embedded within the reverb decay network, plus a third voice external to the network. This allows the user to have a reverb with +12 and -12 semitones of feedback, plus a stable +7 semitones voice without feedback.
- Quad Shimmer: Four pitch shifted voices feeding into a lush modulated reverb. This allows for a variety of dissonant and consonant chordal textures, with the max Shift setting corresponding to a rich major chord.
- ClusterVerb: Four pitch shifted voices embedded within the feedback network of a modulated reverb. The result quickly becomes dissonant or metallic. Perfect for insta-Ligeti, or Penderecki In A Box™.
In addition, the Z-DSP Shimmer cart features 2 special effects algorithms:
- Quad Detune: 4 short pitch shifted delays, feeding back on each other. A variety of chorus, detuned, and dissonant effects can be obtained through this mode. Turn up the Feedback for maximum fun.
- PitchEcho: A single pitch shifting voice, combined with a tape echo emulation = sound mangling joy. Turn up the feedback for barberpole self oscillation, and sweep the decay time for all sorts of swoopy glitches.
The Z-DSP Shimmer cart retails for $75, and will be available at your favorite Eurorack store in the next few days.
It’s nice to see another Valhalla cart for the Z-DSP/Spin FV-1. It would be really nice to see something with more horsepower than the Z-DSP which is open to third party algorithms. Only some of the Valhalla Vintage Verb (VVV) algorithms would run on the Spin FV-1 (probably with the modulation changed); forget about porting Valhalla Plate to that chip. Actually, now that we have ported a VST to the Z-DSP, it would be really nice to go the other way and have a “super Halls of Valhalla” ported to VST/AU/AAX, with more parameters since we’re not limited by the FV-1.
Sean, very exciting news. Many months ago I wrote you to get news about the possibility of getting halls of valhalla algorithms to VST and AU version. What about these? I a fun of shimmering and huge reverbs effect but I mainly use vst’s and DAWs to process my signals, what about a plugin version of these two?
At some point, I want to create a plugin that builds upon the techniques I developed for the Halls of Valhalla algorithms. For right now, my plugin line is pretty reverb heavy. I need to do a few non reverb plugins before I explore reverbs again.