If you’re looking for a perfect replica of a vintage tape echo unit, then Klevgrand’s Parrot may not be for you, as it offers a novel approach to creating rhythmic delays — but it certainly has a charm of its own! Rather than treating echo as simple delay with the usual time, feedback and mix control, Parrot treats delay as a means of turning a sound into a rhythmic instrument. The grid‑based interface feels closer to that of a drum machine or step sequencer than a conventional delay unit, opening up a lot of creative opportunities not available from conventional delays. All the usual plug‑in platforms, including AAX, are supported on macOS and Windows.
Parrot’s grid‑based interface allows the user to programme delay events in discrete steps, and the Master Loop display at the top of the screen shows how much of the incoming audio is sent into the repeat sequencer. Parrot essentially grabs a section of audio from its looping buffer and then repeats it according to the active cells on the grid to create repeating patterns. The sequence’s step size can be selected by the user, up to a maximum of 16.
There’s control over the fade in/out times of the captured audio section, which is renewed each time the sequence restarts. Each step has independent pitch (up to ±1 octave, directly stepped or bent) and accent controls, in addition to a Variation control that applies random note, offset and direction values for each step. A global offset can be applied to the loop start position with timing set by DAW sync, free or to the next beat. A Humanise control adds random length variations to the steps, and there’s a Crop switch to create more staccato repeats. Further sound‑design tools can be used to treat the delays using modulated resonant filters with a separate static filter for the dry sound. Pan and volume can be linked to the sequencer steps in order to create rhythmic panning and level‑based effects.
It can transform any sound, from a synth to a piano, into a rhythm.
In Use
A typical application might be where you grab the first beat or two of a drum loop, and then use the grid to make this repeat in a rhythmic way. Mixing this with the dry drum loop can create interesting variations on a beat. But while the process works well for drums, in reality it can transform any sound, from a synth to a piano, into a rhythm. A simple guitar line can be turned into a complex rhythmic texture, one that becomes all the more interesting if octave or interval pitch shifts are added to some of the steps. For Live use, performers can change patterns on the fly by turning the steps on or off manually. Most parameters can be automated within the DAW but not the switching on and off of grid steps.
The learning curve may seem steeper than for a regular delay effect, but there’s nothing too threatening here and Klevgrand have provided a useful selection of presets to get you started. It’s good to see a product that offers a different approach from the norm, and there’s a lot of creative potential here that blurs the line between audio processing and sequencing.