Modular Add-On: Doepfer A-188-1 BBD

This product is an expansion for Softube Modular. If you do not currently own Modular, you can purchase it HERE.

Lead The Charge

It’s time to take control of time itself, with the Doepfer A-188-1 Bucket Brigade Device for Modular.

Produce and CV-control gritty, distorted delays, flanging effects, choruses and more with this unusual, proto-digital add-on module for Modular, our software Eurorack synth. A BBD uses a chain of capacitors to sample and delay your signal, with increasing loss of fidelity as the delay line gets longer. This can give rise to an enormous range of creative options, and add extra dimensions to any sound, from drums, guitars, and vocals to synth waves. 

Before digital delays became the cheapest and most versatile option in the late 70s and early 80s, echo effects in recorded or live music were achieved by a variety of creative analog means. Short tape loops with adjustable playback heads, or variable speeds, were favoured for a while, despite the downside of needing to replace the tape now and again. Designs featuring magnetic drums or discs aimed to solve that issue, but never dominated the market.

Solid state designs enjoyed a brief but fruitful period of vogue in the mid-to-late seventies. These devices, featuring long chains of voltage sampling ‘buckets’ controlled and released in time by a high-speed oscillator, lent their unique characteristics not only to electronic, techno, and emergent dance styles but to guitar rigs the world over.

By passing the signal along a line of capacitors, the sound is delayed in time but also degraded with high-frequency loss and additional noise (as well as noticeable sample-rate reduction and aliasing at high delay times). This creates a warm and dirty sound, much sought after at the time, and still loved as a creative effect despite the practical disadvantages a BBD unit has compared to more versatile, cleaner digital delays.

Not only can this kind of delay produce tight slapbacks, grungey echoes, and smokey ambience, but by exploiting high feedback and very short delay times Karplus-Strong style plucked string synthesis is also possible.

The length of the delay line – the number of buckets in the brigade – has a significant effect on the sound and capabilities of the effect. The hardware module is available in six versions, each featuring a different number of stages (128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096). But our software version contains all six and can switch between them with one click.

In a sense, it’s six modules in one, four of which, due to component scarcity, are limited editions in hardware (all but the 1024 and 2048-stage versions).

Another change, as compared to the hardware, is the option to simply switch off the audible bleed from the high-frequency clocking oscillator. What would have required careful filtering after the event is now a simple flip of a switch.

Use this module to design your own flanging, doubling, chorus, and depth effects by blending a modulated delay signal in parallel with the dry, unprocessed sound. Or take the wet output separately from the dry and work with them individually.

Features

• Ultra-precise model of a rare and exciting style of analog delay effect.
• Can be used within synth patches in Modular, or for processing external audio in Modular FX.
• Six different models in one module.
• Great for dirty delays, sharp slapbacks, whooshing swirly ambience, or utter craziness.
• Build your own flanger/chorus for guitars, drums, or any other audio source.
• Take advantage of the disadvantages of this special design – use the BBD as a bitcrusher or distortion unit.
• Keep the original noise bleed, or simply switch it off.
• Requires Modular

System Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.13 up to OS 12 (older OS versions will not work) (64-bit only).
• Windows 10 (older Windows versions may work but are not tested) (Windows 11 Pending) (64-bit only).
• Mac: Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / Xeon - Full Apple silicon support (M1 or higher).
• Windows: Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / Xeon / AMD Quad-Core or newer.
• Screen resolution 1280x800 or larger.
• Supported sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz, in both mono and stereo.
• 8 GB RAM or more is recommended, as well as at least 8 GB hard disk space for installation (individual plug-ins take less space, while sample libraries may require additional disk space).
• A Softube account is required to register and install the software.
• An iLok account is required for authorisation of the software.
• Internet access for downloading installer and managing licenses.
• iLok generation 2 and up, if you intend to use a physical iLok dongle for authorizing your plug-ins (note that an iLok dongle is not a requirement).
• In theory, any 64-bit VST, VST3, AU, or AAX (11.0.2 or higher) compatible host application should work.
• The most recent maintenance release of the DAW application is recommended.

However, due to plug-in host differences between DAWs - and Softube's own rigorous testing standards - Softube only officially test their plug-ins and instruments in the most recent versions of Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, Live, Studio One, Digital Performer, Reaper and Sonar. Softube plugins are not tested in the non-listed systems, but they most likely work as long as the system requirements are met.

• Softube Modular is required to run this software.
• Make sure that you always use the latest iLok License Manager. It is not included in the Softube installer but can be downloaded from www.ilok.com​