New Music Gear Monday: McDSP EC-300 Echo Collection Plugin

I know many hitmaker mixers who refrain from using reverb on a mix, preferring delay instead to provide all the ambience they need for the track. As a result, they’re always using a wide variety of delay plugins to achieve different effects. That all may be possible now with just a single plugin – the McDSP EC-300 Echo Collection.

 The EC-300 Collection has three delay types (Magnetic, Digital and Analog) that are accessed at the bottom of the plug-in. As you might expect, each has its own color and interface, and comes with a collection of user controls, plenty of character modes, and stylized visual feedback. So far, so good.

What makes this different from other delay plugins is the fact that it integrates 75 synthetic impulse models (SIM). Basically the SIM settings replicate different types of environments, from different types of loudspeakers (even earbuds), to a dustbin, a water cooler bottle, a plastic pipe and a vacuum cleaner hose. These all change the sound of the repeats in a different way, which makes them fit better into a mix.

Each EC-300 delay type comes with a host of character modes to create new and unique sounds, along with adjustable saturation, wow and flutter, delay output ducking, in-loop filtering and EQ, and level control at the input and output stages. The EC-300 can operate in single, dual, and ping-pong modes, and delay time can be synced to session playback or to a tapped tempo.

EC300 hosts two separate delay lines that can be configured in single, parallel or ping-pong modes. Single mode provides a single delay control and produces delays similar to a single-head tape echo. Dual mode provides separate controls for the each delay line, which are panned hard left and right. In ping-pong mode, delay one feeds into delay two.

The McDSP EC-300 Echo Collection plugin is available in either native or HD versions for $129. A demo version is also available. You can find out more details here, or check out the video below.