Princeton Digital took some of the software code from the new unitand the retro user interface from the original unit and voila, wepresent to you the Space Station SST-282 plug-in for Pro Tools. It's amultitap delay whose output delays are modulated (swept) to providesome really unique effects.

The Space Station is a signal processor that uses time delaytechniques. It's different than just a plain digital delay thoseusually have one or perhaps 2 taps. The Space Station has eight tapsjust for listening: These are called Audition Delay Taps. There are anumber of others used to synthesize reverb and echo.

You can think of the Space Station like a multi-head tape recorder,operating with a loop of tape 255 milliseconds long. The tape is likethe Space Station audio memory and the multiple playback heads are akinto the Space Station's multiple taps.

The eight Audition Delay Taps are placed along this imaginary pieceof tape with a resolution of 1 millisecond, and can be repositioned atwill to any of 16 pre-programmed patterns.

You also have continuous control over another tap, the Echo tap(active in Echo mode), which can be set from 1 to 255 milliseconds andcan be fed back to the input to create the traditional effects of tapeloops.

A Reverb mode is also available. Proprietary internal programmingrandomizes these taps so that they can be stably fed back to producereverberation. The equalized sum of these taps appears at a pot(Reverb/Echo Feedback) where the level of this sum can be adjusted tocreate any decay time from zero to about 3.5 seconds.

An important part of the Space Station's fundamental concept iscontained in two groups of delay taps, one for auditioning (output) andthe other for reverberation. They operate independently of each other;that is, the Audition Delay Taps set up a way of hearing the contentsof memory, while the Reverberation or Echo taps, when fed back,determine the type of reverberant sound existing in the memory.

Each acts independently so that endless varieties of sound can becreated. For example, a sound approximating normal room reverberationmay be set up by feedback, and then auditioned with any of the 16programs to sound like rooms, like a slap, an echo, or even areverberating comb filter. Or, a comb-like reverberation effect can beset up by feedback and then auditioned in a room, another comb, or asecho, slap, etc.

Even more versatility derives from the built-in mixer, whereAudition Taps may be mixed in any desired ratio to emphasize earlierreflections, to delay the onset of reverb, etc. The possibilities areendless yet the front panel is intuitive, due in part to the flow chartdisplayed on the background graphic of the plug-in.