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 | | | | Nov30Written by:Rip Rowan
Tuesday, November 30, 1999 6:00 PM  SuperTap is Waves' entry into the delay category, and it leaves almost nothing to be desired. The plug-in comes in two flavors: a two-tap version and a six-tap version. Both are exactly alike except the number of delay taps provided.
Chalk up another user interface victory for Waves. Without a doubt the best, most powerful user interface I've ever seen on a delay unit. Let's take a UI tour through SuperTap and you'll quickly see what I mean.
 SuperTap
Let's start with the tempo setting control. Delay times can be set in either ms or BPM, and SuperTap will perform the conversion for you. The tempo control includes a large "tap" button to help you easily find the correct tempo settings for the delay. Most delay units have these. SuperTap includes a powerful averaging feature that averages the "taps" over time. Click along with the beat for a while and the variance in your taps will average out over time, giving you an accurate tempo setting.
Now notice the "Mode" button. This can be set to either "Tempo" or "Pattern" mode. When this is set to the Tempo setting the tap button finds and sets the tempo. When it is set to "Pattern" mode, SuperTap "learns" the pattern you're clicking and sets the delay lines to reproduce the pattern. Extremely cool, and a great feature if you want a delay that creates a rhythm, or a continually increasing delay, like "Echo.Echo..Echo….Echo……..Echo……….….Echo".
Each tap has its own settings for Gain, Pan (Rotation), Delay Time, and EQ. Having set the song tempo using the Tempo section, you can now easily set delay times in terms of beats! Just drag the delay time slider near a beat, and it will snap to the beat. This makes setting delays just as easy as it can be. Of course you can nudge the taps "off-beat" if you want. You can set SuperTap to snap to quarter, eight, or sixteenth notes (or triplets) to quickly create virtually any rhythmic feel.
Check out the EQ section. Each tap has a choice of five EQ types: high-pass, low-pass, hi-shelf, low-shelf, wide-Q boost/notch, and narrow-Q boost-notch. The EQs can be swept from 100 Hz to 20KHz with a gain / cut of +/- 12 dB. That's a lot of EQ, and it's available independently on every tap and the feedback loop.
Impressed yet? Sit back. We're just getting started. Let's have a look at the pan graph. This graph allows you to see and control the gain and pan of each delay tap. The bottom point of the graph represents "full-cut" and the outermost circle represents full gain. As you move outward from the center the pan changes. Each tap is color-coded so you can see which tap is which. You can select any tap and drag it to the gain and pan position you want. Or you can select some or all of the taps and drag them together.
SuperTap's flexible feedback control gives you a lot of choices. Two modes are provided: Normal, and Tap Feedback. In Normal mode, each delay line is simply routed back into the input. This works just like any delay unit you've ever used. In Tap Feedback, the Feedback loop is actually on it's own delay line. It's like a seventh tap which is "listening" to the unit's overall outputs.
Confused? Let's say you set up five taps to produce a delay rhythm like "quarter, quarter, eighth-eighth, quarter". If you set the feedback to Normal mode, each tap will feed back into the unit, destroying the movement of the rhythm. But if you set the mode to Tap Feedback and set the Feedback's delay time to one measure, then the entire measure will repeat through the feedback loop. The Tap Feedback mode combined with the various tap EQ options creates a tremendous opportunity for loopers and technogeeks to invent awesome polyrhythmic tonal landscapes with SuperTap.
Also note that all the taps use the Rotation technology. When fed back through the Feedback loop (which also has a rotation control) the audio is rotated through 360 degrees. Unlike "bouncing" feedback (where the feedback from one channel's tap is sent back into the opposite channel, creating a "ping-pong" delay) you'll hear the stereo signal move all around your head, with strange and sometimes bizarre (and usually cool) stereo phasing effects.
I do think, however, that Waves really missed the boat on two aspects of the Feedback control. First off, the feedback control only goes to 100%. Sometimes I really want totally out of control digital distortion feedback, a la Radiohead. SuperTap doesn't go there. And unlike the other taps, the Feedback tap only has subtractive (cut) EQ. You can't crank up an 880 Hz note and feed it back at 125% so that it starts ringing and singing until it distorts and finally totally craps out. I guess I'll just keep using Cool Edit 96. Am I the only person who thinks it's ridiculous that I can do things with a little $60 shareware program that I can't do with the almighty - and pricey - Waves Gold Bundle?
I was able to use SuperTap to create the entire gamut of tape, analog, and digital delay sounds, and having separate EQs on each tap (and a seventh on the Tap Feedback) can create really cool sonic landscapes. With the exception of my issues with the Feedback loop, this is just one hell of a great delay system.
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