Digital delay units are now taken very much for granted. This unit sets a new precedent in terms of its performance to cost ratio.

This Vesta Kozo machine, as its name might imply, comes from the Vesta Fire stable and is very similar to the Vesta Fire DIG410 DDL. Housed in a fairly standard 1U rack mounting case, the DIG411 offers all the facilities that you might expect from a high quality digital delay, including the option of in or out of phase feedback and delayed signal. The maximum delay time is over one second at a bandwidth of 15kHz and the only factor that can be considered to be in anyway negative is the somewhat dubious colour scheme employed on the front panel which can be most kindly described as eye catching.

The on-board modulation facilities mean that in addition to the usual delay and echo effects, the DIG411 can also produce the familiar chorus, flange and vibrato effects, and the inclusion of a high cut facility means that you can soften the tonal quality of the repeats without affecting the direct signal.

The rear panel sockets offer a choice of Mixed, Dry or Delayed outputs and there is provision for connecting footswitches to remotely control the Hold and Bypass functions.

"...the unit retains full bandwidth right up to its maximum delay time..."

Conclusions

Digital delays hold few surprises and this one is no exception unless you take into consideration its very low selling price. Though the effects it produces are very standard, the bandwidth and delay time make the unit compatible with more professional equipment and its noise performance is as good as offered by DDLs costing twice the price. Another good feature is that the unit retains full bandwidth right up to its maximum delay time unlike other units where you have to sacrifice bandwidth in order to utilise the full delay period.

The 15kHz bandwidth means that at least in theory there should be little difference in terms of brightness between the input and the output. In order to put this to the test I fed a compact disc recording into the unit and was very pleasantly surprised to find that there was very little appreciable difference of any kind. This would be commendable on a DDL of any price, but on one so inexpensive, it's quite remarkable.

The invert phase facility on the delay and feedback functions is worth having, and gives you a wider choice of flange effects than would otherwise be the case, and the unit seems happy to work at either line or instrument level.

The DIG411 would make a fine first choice for any home based studio whilst the commercial studio might consider buying one or two for those occasions where additional delay capacity is required. In terms of value for money, you can't really do better and it is gratifying to feel that no corners seem to have been cut.

The Vesta Kozo DIG411 retails for £213 including VAT. For further details contact:- MTR, (Contact Details).

Power Switch

Bypass and Hold switch depressing the hold switch causes any sound currently in the machine's memory to be looped indefinitely. The Bypass switch is used to mute the delay effect without affecting the dry signal.

Output - this section contains separate controls for the dry and delayed sounds rather than the more conventional balance control. The delay portion of the signal may be in either phase and the Delay control is configured to be off in its centre position with the positive and negative phases being clockwise and anti-clockwise respectively.

A mixed output is available on the front panel making the unit suitable for both rackmounting and stand-alone use.

Delay Time is variable in five ranges from 1mS to 1024mS. The Time control offers a fine control ratio of 4:1 so that any desired delay time may be set up. The bottom range is probably best suited to the production of flange effects whilst the next range up is useful if you want to set up chorus sounds. The top three ranges are well suited to a wide range of ADT, delay and echo effects.

Modulation effects are set up using the choice of a suitable delay time in conjunction with the Depth and Speed controls, the latter having a wide range covering 0.1 Hz to 10Hz. Flanging requires slow speeds with high settings of the depth control whilst chorus effects demand a faster sweep combined with a shallower depth. Use of modulation times at long delay settings should be done cautiously as anything other than a very shallow setting will give an unusably deep slewing effect.

Feedback may be either in or out of phase, the centre position being off, and when the system is used to produce delay effects, this control determines how long the echoes take to die away. At shorter delay times and with the addition of modulation, the Feedback control allows the depth of flanging effects to be varied. The choice of in or out of phase gives two distinct types of colouration on flange effects but has little or no effect at longer delay times.

This section also incorporates the Hi-Cut switch which reduces the bandwidth of the delayed sound in order to produce softer echoes on those occasions when full bandwidth repeats would be too obtrusive.

Input - unbalanced jack accepting both instrument and line levels and duplicated on the rear panel. The gain is set conventionally by means of a rotary level control and the four section LED display enables accurate level settings for minimum noise and distortion.