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The experimental delay & multi-effects laboratory
Deep echoes. Warm saturation. Swaying springs. Beautiful sonic trouble.
XEN FX LAB takes the sound of Zen Delay Virtual into its next chapter. Its acclaimed sound quality has been carried over and further improved with an expanded playground for dub, experimental electronics, ambient textures and whatever strange creature is currently crawling out of your speakers.
Developed by Liquid Sky d-vices, with Matt Black (Coldcut) and Dr Walker (Air Liquide), co-inventors of the original Zen Delay, and Benjamin Weiss - Nerk (TokTok / MID - Instrument Design Berlin).
FROM SUBTLE WARMTH TO BEAUTIFUL DAMAGE
Feed it drums, bass, synths, guitars, vocals, field recordings or an entire mix.
Add a little movement and colour. Send a snare into a cloud of echoes. Pull a loop through a resonant filter. Push the drive until the edges start glowing. Let the spring reverb rattle, splash and haunt the spaces between the notes.
XEN FX LAB can gently reshape a sound or become an instrument you play in its own right.
ECHOES WITH PERSONALITY
Move between warm tape echoes, precise digital repeats, wide stereo ping-pong and gritty vintage delay.
Sync the repeats to your track with straight, dotted and triplet timings, or explore freely shifting delay times. Switch the delay off to work with the filter, drive and spring reverb on their own.
FILTER. DRIVE. SPRING. DUB.
A resonant virtual analogue filter brings low-pass, band-pass and high-pass shaping. Tube-style saturation moves from gentle warmth to assertive distortion.
The physically modelled spring reverb adds its own metallic voice, with controls for mix, tension, tone, decay and regeneration. Strike the virtual tank for a percussive splash, or push its regeneration into sustained textures.
DUB mode cuts the incoming signal while existing echoes and reverb keep ringing. Catch a moment. Let it travel. Bring the world back in.
LET THE MACHINE WANDER
Two LFOs animate delay time and filter cutoff, with nine waveforms, tempo sync and cross-modulation through FM and AM.
In the digital delay modes, bit-depth reduction, sample-rate reduction and added noise open another door into rough textures and glorious digital debris.
Choose different feedback routings, including placing the filter inside the feedback loop, so the echoes change character with every return.
Slow drift. Nervous pulses. Unstable machinery. Your laboratory, your experiment.
BUILT FOR HANDS-ON EXPLORATION
Explore the factory presets, save your own discoveries and use MIDI learn to bring the controls onto your favourite controller.
From a restrained studio effect to a dub performance tool and a source of evolving soundscapes, XEN FX LAB invites you to follow the accidents.
MAKE SOME NOISE. FOLLOW THE ECHOES.
THE ZEN DELAY VIRTUAL LEGACY
XEN FX LAB continues and expands upon Zen Delay Virtual, carrying its acclaimed sound quality forward with further sonic improvements.
- macOS 12 Monterey or later, Apple Silicon and Intel Macs from one universal installer.
- Formats: Standalone, VST3 and Audio Unit
- Internet connection for authorization
- XEN FX LAB for Windows: 64-bit Windows 10 or later on a 64-bit (x64) processor.
- Formats: VST3 plug-in for any 64-bit VST3 host
- Internet connection for authorization
- Can be installed on 3 computers at the same time
Reviews Summary
While it aims to provide a helpful overview, it may not capture every perspective or detail. We encourage you to read individual reviews to make an informed decision.
Reviewers widely praise the Zen Delay plugin for its distinct character, gritty analog textures, creative sound design potential, and faithful recreation of the original hardware unit, especially for dub, ambient, and electronic music. While celebrated for its expressive feedback and drive, some users noted drawbacks including the lack of AAX support, confusing preset management, high CPU usage on older machines, and occasional channel dropout or crashing bugs in certain DAWs.
