Shimmer Delay

Name: Shimmer Delay
Price: 79.99 USD
Author: Nembrini Audio

by Nembrini Audio · Delay · Shimmer delay and reverb

Not rated yet

An ambient effect plugin from Nembrini Audio that combines delay, reverb, pitch shifting and feedback for shimmer sounds.

It has an auto swell section for volume swells, and is on sale for $24.99 (regular $79.99).

Best for: Guitars, Keys & Synths, Vocals, Sound Design. Genres: Ambient & Cinematic, Electronic & EDM, Rock & Indie.

Keywords: shimmer, ambience, pitch-shifting, A/B compare, vocals, electric guitar, keys, simple, pads, synths, undo/redo, cinematic, evolving, mixing, musical, samples & loops, sound design, sub bass, tempo-synced.

What it does

Shimmer Delay (Shimmer Delay Ambient Machine) is an ambient processor that builds shimmer textures from delay, reverb, pitch shifting and feedback. Nembrini says it was designed with "an emphasis on user control and playability".

Swell: an auto swell that fades notes in from silence, with a range of up to 3 seconds (or synced from 1/16 to 1 bar), a sensitivity control and three ramp shapes: linear, logarithmic and exponential.
Delay: time in milliseconds or synced to the host, feedback, high and low cut filters, and a stereo offset.
Octave Down: level and regeneration controls that add a sub-octave layer to the repeats.
Shimmer: upward pitch shifting from 1 to 12 semitones in the feedback, with distortion for extra harmonics.
Mix and saturation: a dry/wet blend, with the swell able to treat the dry and delay-feed paths separately, and saturation built into the signal path.
Workflow: smoothed sliders that avoid clicks while you tweak, undo/redo and A/B compare, and a light CPU load according to the developer.

The current version is 2.0.3. It was on sale when checked, and a demo can be downloaded.

Source: Nembrini Audio product page

When to use it

Shimmer Delay is a dedicated ambient box rather than a general delay. Compared with Valhalla Delay and Timeless 3, which offer shimmer among many delay styles, it adds a built-in auto swell, an octave-down layer and saturation in one simple panel, but it has far fewer delay modes and no modulation matrix. Unlike EchoBoy, it does not model classic echo hardware; it is built for pads and swells. MusicTech heard it as an "atmospheric slice of 80s rackmount multi-effects". At its sale price it is also cheaper than all of those.

Best for: ambient guitar swells, shimmer pads on keys and synths, and evolving textures from vocals or samples.
Genres: ambient, cinematic, post-rock, shoegaze and electronic.
Look elsewhere if: you need a general-purpose delay (Valhalla Delay), deep modulation and filtering (Timeless 3) or vintage echo styles (EchoBoy).
Tip: map the controls to a hardware knob and ride the feedback and shimmer live, recording the automation to capture the best moments.

What producers say

Reviewers liked its sound and playability, with swell setup and missing gain controls as the main gripes.

MusicTech (Robbie Stamp, 2021) gave it 7/10, praising its range, intuitive UI, separate dry and delay-feed control in the swell, and undo/redo with A/B.
Mixdown (Will Brewster, 2021) called it highly musical, with very few digital artefacts, and said it plays as much like an instrument as an effect.
Criticisms: the swell sensitivity needs careful setting, and MusicTech missed input and output trims and dB readouts on the meters.

Where to buy

Nembrini Audio: $79.99

Tutorials and reviews

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