New Music Gear Monday: Nembrini Audio Shimmer Delay Ambient Machine Plugin
Whether you’re a mixer or a musician, you’re always on the lookout for cool sounds. Anything to take what we do out of the ordinary will do, but the easier it can happen the better. The new Shimmer Delay Ambient Machine plugin from Nembrini Audio clearly fits into this category, providing some rich soundscapes with lots of room for expression in an easy-to-use plugin.
The Shimmer Delay Ambient Machine (I’m just going to call it Shimmer Delay from here on out) combines a delay, pitch shifter and feedback with the ability to swell the level to easily produce sounds that it took tons of outboard gear to originate the sound in the 80s. As a matter of fact, synths, guitars, samples and loops take on a new life just from the Swell section alone. If you want an idea of the sounds it can generate, think Brian Eno and his ambient music.
The Parameter Controls
Shimmer Delay consists of 4 main sections – Swell, Delay, Octave, and Shimmer. There’s also the obligatory input/output meter section, and a Dry/Wet Mix control. The Swell section features a Time control (which can be synced to the tempo of the track), a Sensitivity control that effects how the swell reacts to the input sound envelope, and a Ramp control with 3 selections (Linear, Log or Exponential) that control the rate of the swell.
The Delay section features the familiar Time (with sync to track), Feedback and High and Low-Cut filters, plus an Offset control that creates a time offset in left / right delay sections to spread the stereo image. The Octave section features the downward pitch shifter with Level and Regeneration controls to intensify the effect.
The Shimmer section is where this plug really lights up. There’s a Level control for the amount of the effect to be added; Distortion controls the amount of parallel distortion where 0 is dry and 10 completely distorted; Semitones controls the amount of shift for the shimmer pitch shifter in semitones; and finally Regen controls the amount of signal in the feedback loop creating a more intense effect.
Shimmer Delay is available for Mac and PC operating systems as well as iOS so you can take it with you while you create. The price is currently just $29 until May 3rd, when it returns to its $79 retail.
You can find out more here, or check out the video below.
