10 best delay plugins in 2024 from Native Instruments

Delay effects bring richness and depth to any track, transforming simple sounds into lush soundscapes. Whether you’re looking to add a subtle echo, intricate feedback, or rhythmic syncopation, delay plugins offer a range of ways to make your mix come alive. Here, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 best delay plugins available this year, starting with iZotope’s powerful new Cascadia.

Discover Cascadia

1. iZotope Cascadia

The first delay we’re sharing is iZotope Cascadia, a delay plugin designed to give you clean delays that are easily kept from becoming intrusive. 

Cascadia’s interface keeps things minimal, with an intuitive control set that lets you dial in anything from short slapbacks to expansive ping pongs quickly. It also provides spectral masking technology for keeping the delay out of the way of the dry signal. Cascadia seamlessly fits into any workflow, making it a great addition to iZotope’s Catalyst series – and a great addition to your arsenal of echoes. 

Hear how well Cascadia blends into the mix on this guitar solo during this before/after comparison:

2. Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7 Pro (Delays)

Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig 7 Pro isn’t just for guitars – it’s a comprehensive effects suite. Among its standout features are its panoply of delays. Indeed, you will be astounded by the sheer number of time-based effects on offer, as well as how good they sound. 

Here’s a just few of them:

Delay Man: an emulation of a classic pedal prevalent in many a guitar player’s “memory.”

Grain Delay: a glitchy delay based on repeating short snippets of the sound and manipulating them as need be.

Replika GR: An eminently useful powerhouse with multiple algorithms to give you wide delays, ping-pong effects, and multiple different saturation characters.

Tape Echo: Classic tape echo reminiscent of the Roland Space Echo

Twin Delay: Combines two parallel delay lines for powerful stereo effects – perfect for rhythmic delays

Quad Delay: Offers four delay lines across stereo channels for complex and lively echoes.

Traktor’s Delay: a clean delay with freeze functions, stereo spread manipulations, and more.

Replika GR: A deceptively simple delay unit with a whole host of analog and digital delay emulations on hand.

Hear these delays in action in our mixing with Guitar Rig blog.

3. Plugin Alliance ADA STD-1 Stereo Tapped Delay

The ADA STD-1 by Plugin Alliance uses multiple short delays to bring a sense of modulation to the sound, adding a certain kind of vintage space and character in the process. Known for its lush, chorus-like qualities and rich stereo spread, this effect is a favorite for adding thickness and movement to vocals and instruments. 

The STD-1’s ability to add chorused delay taps makes it ideal for complex, swirling textures, adding a dimensional effect that is often hard to achieve with conventional delay plugins.

Observe how it can widen a guitar:

4. Plugin Alliance bx_delay 2500

Another offering from Plugin Alliance, the bx_delay 2500 takes the hallmarks of traditional delay plugins and adds plenty of bonus features, such as distortion, modulation, ducking, and lo-fi quantization effects. 

This plugin delivers comprehensive control over tone, ducking, stereo spread, panning over each delay, and more. You can control either of its two delays independently, or link them together. For tight, rhythm-focused effects or intricate stereo manipulation, this one’s hard to beat.

Hear how can make a rather dry room mic sound into something special with this delay:

5. Unfiltered Audio Instant Delay

Unfiltered Audio’s Instant Delay brings an experimental approach, giving you extensive modulation options to manipulate the delayed audio in real-time. In the main panel of the GUI, you’ll find standard controls for delays, as well as a few more esoteric parameters such as jitter and filtering options.

But down below, in the modulation section, things get wild: you can patch together anything from insane self-oscillating effects to outlandish pitch-modulated echoes. A standout feature is the Feedback Filter, which can be modulated to shift delay feedback in unexpected ways, thus creating evolving, atmospheric delays.

Let’s listen to this delay in action on a synth:

6. Unfiltered Audio Sandman Pro

Sandman Pro, also by Unfiltered Audio, takes the scales of Instant Delay and tips them further into cacophonous insanity, allowing you to create synthetic, almost synthlike sounds out of anything you throw its way. 

This delay is perfect for stuttering effects, glitchy freezes, and playing with the delay buffer (how much signal is encapsulated in the delay line at any one time). You can use this delay to create looping and granular-like effects, or choose among delay modes to get strange tape-like wows and flutters. Other features like Reverse and Pitch Delay make it easy to add playful, glitchy echoes to any sound. All of the parameters are tweakable using the same modulation concept offered in Instant Delay.

7. TANTRA 2

While DS Audio TANTRA 2 isn’t strictly a delay, it brings powerful rhythmic effects that include delay, glitches, and extensive modulation via step sequencing. This plugin’s multi-stage effects, including its delay section, make it excellent for creating rhythmic complexity and movement in your track.

TANTRA 2’s strength lies in its sequencer-driven modulation, which lets you apply delay effects that evolve over time, making it a great choice for electronic music and intricate sound design.

8. Native Instruments Replika

Back in a more organic and traditional mindset, we recommend Native Instruments’ Replika. This simple interface offers high-quality echoes that emulate prized digital, analog, and tape echoes popular in the pre-plugin days. Easy modulations are also on hand. 

Replika’s strength is in this simplicity: digital, you can easily switch between clean, modern delay and warmer, more vintage tones. With an adjustable diffusion feature, it’s also capable of creating reverb-like effects for lush soundscapes, making it a powerful, flexible tool for almost any mixing situation.

Observe how we’ll use two instances of the plugin to add both a diffuse delay and a slapback to a lead vocal.

9. Native Instruments Replika XT

Building on the streamlined versatility of Replika, Replika XT expands on the standard version’s delay capabilities with a wider range of delay types and extended controls. You also get a whole bunch of “after effects” for processing the echoes, including flangers, phasers, pitch modulations, verbs, and more.

This is a good one to split the difference between Unfiltered Audio’s synthy, “patch-cable” approach and a more conventional interface. You can still play with delays in a creative fashion, but if your brain doesn’t do well with the complex routing schemes of the Unfiltered Audio interfaces, Replika XT is a good fit for you.

Here I’ll use Replika XT to give the guitars a nice sense of space in the mix.

10. Native Instruments Psyche Delay

The Psyche Delay from Native Instruments has been part of Guitar Rig for years, bringing a unique delay that adds depth and modulation to any signal. It also has pitch shifting for shimmery effects. This plugin excels for adding trippiness to your signals.

For instance, here we’ll take some guitar parts in the chorus and use psyche delay to give the illusion of a hammond organ pad being played in the background:

Get yourself a top ten delay today

This list gives you a solid roundup of some of the best tools out there right now from the Native Instruments universe. Whether you’re looking for clean, simple echoes, wild modulation, or something in between, these ten plugins have you covered. Download your demo of any of these today.

Try Cascadia for free