Plugin interface — screenshot pending
Delay

Spectral Time

Ableton

Where to get itIncluded with Ableton Live. It is part of that DAW, not a separate download.ableton.com

Spectral Time is a spectral delay and time-freezing effect that combines freeze and delay processing to reshape audio through frequency-shifting and time-smearing techniques. It offers two independently controllable sections—Freezer and Delay—that can work serially or in parallel, enabling creative sound transformation from sustaining tones infinitely to adding metallic echoes and spatial effects. The plugin uses spectrogram visualization to show how frequencies in dry and wet signals evolve over time.

Written from the manual and checked against it. How we check

Key Features

01Freezer section with Manual/Retrigger modes
02Onset detection with adjustable sensitivity
03Sync mode with millisecond or beat-time intervals
04Envelope fade shape with up to 8 simultaneous stacked freezes
05Crossfade fade shape with X-Fade control
06Spectral delay with frequency shifting and feedback
07Tilt and Spray controls for frequency-dependent delay distribution
08Mask control to limit Tilt/Spray effects to high or low frequencies
09Resolution control to balance latency and processing accuracy
10Spectrogram visualization with dry/wet signal display

Things to Try

  • 01In Retrigger Onsets mode, increase Sensitivity above 50% to trigger freezes on subtle transients for tighter rhythmic effect
  • 02Stack up to 8 simultaneous freezes by switching to Envelope fade shape and adjusting Fade In/Fade Out times in milliseconds for layered textures
  • 03Use Tilt with positive values to delay high frequencies more than low frequencies for frequency-dependent smearing, or negative values for the inverse
  • 04Enable Zero Dry Signal Latency from the context menu when monitoring a live instrument through Spectral Time to reduce latency on the direct signal

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