ValhallaÜberMod released for OSX and Windows

I haven’t been blogging much lately. There has been a good reason. For the last 6+ months, I have been working on my latest plugin, ValhallaÜberMod. Today, it has finally been released.

ValhallaUberMod is a versatile multitap modulation delay, with various chorus modes allowing from 2 up to 32 independently modulated delay taps. The modulation combines slower, Dimension-style chorusing with faster vibrato oscillators, to allow the user to dial in a variety of choruses, flangers and vintage string ensembles. The taps can be spread out in time, have their amplitude shaped and their distribution randomized, to create nonlinear, gated and reverse reverb sounds, as well as echos that decay into delay clusters, metallic drones, and all sorts of stuff. With powerful Diffusion and Drive sections, a variety of diffuse delays, tape delays, and dark reverbs can be obtained. The list goes on and on.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting an overview of ValhallaÜberMod. Starting with a high level overview and a bit of history, I’ll then explore each section of the plugin in detail, and then delve into tips and tricks. ÜberMod is more complicated than the earlier Valhalla DSP plugins, and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of what it can do.

So, go check it out!

Comments (23)

  • scottvanduyne

    Very cool, Sean.

    Reply
    • Thanks Scott!

      For those of you who haven’t heard of Scott Van Duyne, he’s the guy that hired me to work at Staccato Systems back in 1999. Working with Scott, David Jaffe, Tim Stilson and the other guys there was like going to hardcore audio DSP school, and getting paid to do so. Super smart dudes.

  • As the shimmer and room are such superb plugins (and I own EOS too, sold via audio damage^^) – I just spontaneously bought ÜberMod. The tips&tricks in your blog are so great that I think everyone who reads it learns a lot and more. cheers!

    Reply
  • …and of course the snow here, falling onto the blog-site, was another convincing reason^^ (besides of the superb sounds we can achieve with your plugins^^). So after hitting “reply” to fast – another greetings from rainy Hamburg, Georg

    Reply
    • No snow here in Seattle either. It has been unseasonably sunny for this time of year, but today the rains returned.

      Thanks for buying ÜberMod!

  • Colin

    Sean, I just discovered your plug-ins and bought VRoom and Shimmer two days ago so I still had your webpage cached in my browser. This morning I saw UberMod has been released and, knowing the quality of your work, just couldn’t resist instantly buying that as well! I’m now having loads of fun with itl…

    Absolutely amazing stuff; Love the respectful keyfile cp scheme, the great info on your blog and most of all, your wonderful-sounding plug-ins!

    Reply
  • Sean, I love Room and Shimmer, and bought Ubermod immediately.
    Is this a bug?

    Ubermod on a mono audio track as insert, makes it stereo, no prob. Then bypass the plugin and the left side continues to sound. PT9 HD, MacOS 10.6.7

    Reply
    • It’s a FEATURE!

      Yeah, sounds like a bug to me. Looking at my code, it seems like ValhallaRoom would have the same bug. Do you mind checking for this?
      If the problem is the part of the code I think it is, it also looks like an easy fix. Probably best to get it fixed fairly soon, before it gets too cumbersome to send it out to all customers. I’ll send you a beta of the next version in the next few days.

    • Same in Room, Sean, although I’d never noticed it because I invariably put Room on a separate bus!
      pg

    • I looked into this yesterday. The ÜberMod code handles mono-to-stereo conversion correctly, but the bypass code in Juce presumes that each input channel is passed to a single output channel. The fix is to modify the Juce bypass code so that mono-to-stereo plugins are handled correctly.

      I am keeping track of any issues that customers have with ÜberMod, and will release an update fairly soonish. I prefer to have a few more days to gather the issues, as the fixes can be fast, but building 16 plugins (5 formats for OSX, 3 for Windows, full and demo of each), putting these into installers, and testing the installers, takes a fair amount of time.

  • I have been waiting for this – instant buy!

    Reply
  • Terrific work!

    Are any of the presets in particular meant to emulate the Boss/Roland Dimension choruses?

    Reply
    • Many of the 2 tap chorus presets are inspired by my understanding of the Dimension choruses. I don’t have a hardware unit to dial things in with, so I don’t want to claim that anything is an exact clone, but the essential principles of the Dimension D (2 delay lines, modulated by a single triangle LFO, inverted modulation phase between channels, outputs of a given channel are filtered, inverted and mixed in with other channel output) can be reached in the 2TapChorus mode.

  • Colin

    Is this a bug? To reproduce (Windows 32-bit in Reaper 4.13):

    1. Select Mode: “DualEnsemble”
    Result: Mode changes one step back (to “6TapRandom”)
    Then
    2. Select Mode “DualEnsemble” again
    3. Click on any of the sliders above
    Result: Mode changes to 6TapRandom

    Same thing happens with “16Phase” Mode (reverts to “8Tap” in the same way)

    Reply
    • I’ll fire up Reaper on my XP 32 machine tonight and see if I can reproduce the behavior.

    • 0=0

      same thing happened to me in the latest build of reaper. xp32

  • Colin

    P.S. In fact, maybe I’m missing something, but it seems that neither the “Dual Ensemble” nor “16Phase” modes work at all! That is, i can’t discern any difference between “6TapRandom” and “DualEnsemble” modes (both sound like “16TapRandom”). The same with “16 Phase” and “8Tap”…

    Reply
  • just communicated your new module’s launch around in the guitar world here!

    Reply
  • Webb

    Sean, got this just like the rest of your products…valshimmer changed how I look at verb all together. Compared to the new clusterflux coming out, how would you compare it to UberMod?

    Reply
    • Webb

      excuse me, the cluster flux that IS out and shipping.

    • I haven’t tried the Moog Cluster Flux. My impression of it is that it it is a single delay line (probably 2 cascaded BBD chips, with 1024 stages each, clocked at a high rate) with a very powerful LFO, and real analog distortion and feedback. It is pretty much impossible to compare a plugin to a pedal that has real knobs, real voltage control inputs, and the ability to put different analog processors in the feedback. I have a few Moogerfoogers, and I’m sure the Cluster Flux will be amazing. The price is a bit steep, but Moogerfoogers are well made, handbuilt pieces of kit. I bought my Moogerfoogers in 2000, and they work great today. It is hard to say that about any plugin from that era.

      On the other hand, ValhallaÜberMod has up to 32 modulated delay taps, up to 48 independent LFOs, fully variable diffusion section for getting modulated reverbs (the diffusion has its own independent random modulation), the ability to dial in the amount of drive you want, several seconds of delay (accessible from the Sync parameter), and various modulation patterns to get string ensembles, Dimension-D-style chorusing, tape echo, BBD echo, reverse reverbs, long reverbs, tape reverbs, gated reverbs, strange pitch modulations…the list can go on and on. And it is $50.

      I’d say that the Cluster Flux is essentially taking an analog chorus pedal like the Small Clone or Boss CE-1, adding voltage control to all parameters, and expanding it to the point where it is essentially a modular synth-style delay in pedal form. ÜberMod takes its inspiration from the rackmount units of the 1980’s/1990’s (Eventide, Lexicon, Ensoniq, Roland), while vastly adding to the number of modulated taps and modulation sources. There are very few rackmount effects with the horsepower of a modern Intel CPU – the Bricasti exceeds modern CPUs, but they are the exception that proves the rule. Combine a modern CPU with SIMD-optimized delay processing, and you can get a LOT of modulated delay taps to play around with.

    • Webb

      Thanks for the detailed answer Sean! I had ordered a clusterflux earlier and your product came out. I’m blown away w/the added diffusion parameters….really unique combinations. If I had known of your release date….to be honest…I probably would have held off on the CF, but I guess it’s good to have two beasts to do work in different situations. Keep up the good work!

  • Ubermod is uber =) The reverse reverb mode was stunning, never heard such a good one. Great stuff, another winner

    Reply

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