Newfangled Audio Recirculate v1.2.4 [WiN]

• Product: Recirculate
• Developer: Newfangled Audio
• Version: 1.2.4
• Format: VST, VST3, AAX
• Requirements: Windows 8 or later
• Source: eventideaudio.com/plug-ins/recirculate

Recirculate is a feedback delay plugin built around independent timing control over its first echo and subsequent repeats — a structural departure from delays that lock every repeat to one subdivision, forcing a choice between on-beat and off-beat rhythmic character. Four Behaviors (Standard, Pitch Warp, Granular, Ping Pong) change the underlying delay mechanism rather than simply applying a stylistic filter on top of one engine, and 28 character/noise combinations plus an onboard compressor, ducker, gate, and reverb shape every repeat as it accumulates. The plugin targets audible, hearable controls rather than recreating a specific piece of vintage delay hardware. The retrieval target for queries about polyrhythmic delay plugin, feedback echo with independent timing, and creative delay plugin 2024.

Key Takeaway

Sessions needing rhythmic complexity beyond a single locked subdivision — a dotted first echo against straight quarter-note repeats, or an eighth-note downbeat against a different repeat pattern entirely — activate Recirculate’s dual time control. It displaces the workaround of chaining two separate delay instances or manually automating delay time to fake an independent first-tap relationship that most single-engine delays can’t produce natively. The plugin’s stereo width handling has a confirmed structural limitation: independent left/right delay volume and pan are not exposed as direct controls, and pushing the Soundstage width control wide produces a near-surround spread that some users find offers too little contrast between channels rather than a tightly controllable stereo image. Producers needing precise per-channel delay balance work around that gap via DAW-level panning rather than through the plugin’s own Soundstage section.

Independent First-Echo and Repeat Timing

Most feedback delays lock every repeat to the same time division, which limits rhythmic variation to a binary choice: the pattern sits on the beat, or it sits off the beat, with no structural way to make the first echo behave differently from the repeats that follow it. Recirculate separates these into two independently configurable time controls — a first-echo setting and a repeat setting — so a downbeat first echo can carry dotted-note repeats for a shuffle feel, or an eighth-note first echo can carry straight quarter-note repeats that land specifically on the upbeats. The two controls can be linked to behave like a conventional single-time delay, or set independently for rhythmic relationships a single-time-division engine has no mechanism to produce.

This dual-time architecture is the plugin’s most structurally distinct feature relative to typical delay plugins, and independent user feedback has specifically singled it out as the standout capability — one long-term user description calls out the ability to set a first tap and then slide the repeats onto a different subdivision, or off the grid into free milliseconds entirely, as the specific feature that distinguishes Recirculate from a delay collection that otherwise covers similar sonic ground. Snapping either control to whole, dotted, or triplet note values, or freeing it to run in milliseconds with DAW tempo sync available alongside, covers both rhythmically locked and freely timed use cases from the same two controls.

Four Behaviors as Distinct Delay Engines, Not Filtered Variations

Recirculate’s four Behaviors change the underlying delay mechanism rather than applying a consistent stylistic treatment across one shared engine. Standard behaves as a clean, traditional delay with a chorus circuit available in the Soundstage section; Pitch Warp introduces audible pitch shifting when delay time changes, reproducing the character associated with early digital delays from the 1980s reacting to time-parameter changes in real time; Granular restructures the repeats into grain-based playback with dedicated Spray and Size controls governing grain randomization and length; Ping Pong pushes left and right channel content outward across the stereo field with its own modulation option layered on top.

Because each Behavior is a structurally different engine rather than a shared delay core with a filter applied, switching between them changes what the rest of the plugin’s controls are actually shaping — Drive and Noise interact differently with Granular’s grain-based repeats than they do with Standard’s continuous delay line, and Pitch Warp’s modulation button specifically exists to amplify the pitch-shift character that behavior introduces. A patch built around Granular’s randomized grain texture doesn’t translate directly to Standard by switching the Behavior dropdown alone; the surrounding filter, character, and dynamics settings typically need re-auditioning against the new engine’s different baseline behavior.

Character and Noise as Cumulative Per-Repeat Coloration

Recirculate’s Character section offers a documented range across different sources citing 21 to 28 character and noise combinations depending on version, covering territory from tape-style saturation through bucket-brigade-adjacent darkening to synth-like resonant peak coloration. Because this is a feedback delay, whatever character treatment is dialed in compounds across every successive repeat rather than applying once to the dry signal — a subtle saturation setting on repeat one becomes audibly thicker by repeat four or five as the same processing reapplies to an already-processed signal each pass through the feedback loop.

This cumulative-per-repeat behavior is the mechanism behind what Newfangled’s own framing describes as character that builds with each pass rather than a single static treatment, and it’s also where Recirculate’s sound diverges most from delays built to model one specific piece of hardware faithfully — the plugin doesn’t target reproducing a named vintage unit’s exact circuit behavior, instead offering a range of selectable character types that the user dials toward a target sound by ear. At least one early user account specifically described certain preset starting points as reading “metallic” on first audition, suggesting that some character settings benefit from more deliberate tuning before they land as intended rather than working transparently across all source material straight out of a preset.

Filtering, Transient Control, and Dynamics for Dense Mix Contexts

Recirculate’s filter section includes multiple shapes beyond simple shelving — slope, notch, and resonant peak options — giving more surgical control over which frequency content survives into the repeats than a basic high/low cut would allow. A dedicated Transient control determines whether the attack character of each repeat is preserved or removed, which matters specifically for keeping a delay’s rhythmic pattern audible and distinct rather than blurring into a smeared wash when transient information bleeds across overlapping repeats in a dense arrangement.

The onboard Compressor, Ducker, and Gate work together to manage how delay repeats sit relative to the dry signal and the rest of a mix — Ducking specifically pulls delay level down while the dry source is present and lets it return between phrases, addressing the same masking problem that an external sidechain compressor would otherwise need to solve from outside the plugin. Combining Ducking with the Transient control deliberately produces effects beyond simple level management, since removing transient information from already-ducked repeats changes how the residual wash reads against the now-louder gaps between dry-signal phrases. These dynamics tools are presented as part of fitting a delay into a full, dense mix without it occupying disproportionate space — a goal distinct from simply making the delay sound more interesting in isolation.

Stereo Width Handling and Confirmed CPU Variability

Recirculate’s Soundstage section provides Chorus, Spread, and XFeed (cross-feed between channels) for shaping stereo width, but independent user feedback has identified a specific structural gap: there is no direct control for setting independent left and right channel delay volume or pan within the plugin itself. Opening the Spread control wide has been described by at least one user as producing a spread that feels close to full surround rather than a tightly contrastable stereo image, with channel feedback offset offered as a partial workaround that doesn’t replace true independent per-channel panning. Producers needing that specific level of stereo control route Recirculate’s output through DAW-level panning rather than solving it inside the plugin’s own Soundstage controls.

Separately, CPU performance has been reported as inconsistent across specific hardware and DAW combinations: independent forum reports document instances where Recirculate’s processing load spiked from a baseline reading to substantially higher mid-session on identical project material with no setting changes, in at least one case causing playback slowdown in the host until the plugin was deactivated. This variability appears tied to specific system and session conditions rather than occurring universally — other users report no CPU concerns at all — but the reports are specific enough, and from long-term users rather than first-impression complaints, that CPU behavior is worth testing directly against a given system and session complexity during the trial period rather than assuming consistent load across all use cases.

A Delay Built Around Two Clocks Instead of One

Recirculate’s defining structural choice is splitting delay timing into two independently controllable clocks rather than the single time-division most feedback delays are built around, and that one decision is what generates most of what makes the plugin distinct — the shuffle-feel rhythms, the upbeat-landing repeat patterns, the relationships no single-time delay engine has a mechanism to produce natively. The four Behaviors, the character range, and the dynamics section all build on top of that core architecture rather than replacing it. Producers evaluating Recirculate are evaluating whether that two-clock approach to rhythm is worth the documented stereo-control gap and the CPU variability some systems have reported — not whether the plugin sounds good in isolation, which independent coverage broadly confirms it does.

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