Eurorack Voltage-Controlled Analog Delay

US Pittsburgh Modular introduce the Lifeforms Analog Delay Unit 04/12/19

Pittsburgh Modular has introduced the Lifeforms Analog Delay Unit which they say is based on the design created for the Voltage Lab synthesizer module. A spokesperson described it as “A finely tuned circuit designed to enhance the source material by adding depth and warmth.”

Module Overview

The Analog Delay utilizes a pair of 4,096 stage BBD chips to produce a voltage controllable analog delay signal. Clean delay time can vary from 16ms to 340ms. The maximum delay time can be increased using the TIME CV INPUT delay time maxes out at 465ms but the increased time comes at the cost of fidelity and a bit of high frequency clock noise bleed. The name BBD stands for bucket brigade device in reference to a line of people passing buckets of water to quickly extinguish a fire. Each stage of a BBD chip contains a single capacitor. Pairing two chips together creates a chain of 8,192 capacitors. Like the water buckets, an audio signal is passed from capacitor to capacitor within the BBD chips once every clock step. A slower clock produces a longer delay and a faster clock produces a shorter delay.