XEN FX LAB

The experimental delay & multi-effects laboratory for Mac & PC.

Deep echoes. Warm saturation. Swaying springs. Beautiful sonic trouble.

XEN FX LAB takes the sound of Zen Delay Virtual into its next chapter. Its acclaimed sound quality has been carried over and further improved with an expanded playground for dub, experimental electronics, ambient textures and whatever strange creature is currently crawling out of your speakers.

Developed by Liquid Sky d-vices, with Matt Black (Coldcut) and Dr Walker (Air Liquide), co-inventors of the original Zen Delay.
and Benjamin Weiss - Nerk (TokTok / MID - Instrument Design Berlin).

FROM SUBTLE WARMTH TO BEAUTIFUL DAMAGE

Feed it drums, bass, synths, guitars, vocals, field recordings or an entire mix.

Add a little movement and colour. Send a snare into a cloud of echoes. Pull a loop through a resonant filter. Push the drive until the edges start glowing. Let the spring reverb rattle, splash and haunt the spaces between the notes.

XEN FX LAB can gently reshape a sound or become an instrument you play in its own right.

ECHOES WITH PERSONALITY

Move between warm tape echoes, precise digital repeats, wide stereo ping-pong and gritty vintage delay.

Sync the repeats to your track with straight, dotted and triplet timings, or explore freely shifting delay times. Switch the delay off to work with the filter, drive and spring reverb on their own.

FILTER. DRIVE. SPRING. DUB.

A resonant virtual analogue filter brings low-pass, band-pass and high-pass shaping. Tube-style saturation moves from gentle warmth to assertive distortion.

The physically modelled spring reverb adds its own metallic voice, with controls for mix, tension, tone, decay and regeneration. Strike the virtual tank for a percussive splash, or push its regeneration into sustained textures.

DUB mode cuts the incoming signal while existing echoes and reverb keep ringing. Catch a moment. Let it travel. Bring the world back in.

LET THE MACHINE WANDER

Two LFOs animate delay time and filter cutoff, with nine waveforms, tempo sync and cross-modulation through FM and AM.

In the digital delay modes, bit-depth reduction, sample-rate reduction and added noise open another door into rough textures and glorious digital debris.

Choose different feedback routings, including placing the filter inside the feedback loop, so the echoes change character with every return.

Slow drift. Nervous pulses. Unstable machinery. Your laboratory, your experiment.

BUILT FOR HANDS-ON EXPLORATION

Explore the factory presets, save your own discoveries and use MIDI learn to bring the controls onto your favourite controller.

From a restrained studio effect to a dub performance tool and a source of evolving soundscapes, XEN FX LAB invites you to follow the accidents.

MAKE SOME NOISE. FOLLOW THE ECHOES.

THE ZEN DELAY VIRTUAL LEGACY

XEN FX LAB continues and expands upon Zen Delay Virtual, carrying its acclaimed sound quality forward with further sonic improvements.

The press reviews below refer to Zen Delay Virtual, the predecessor to XEN FX LAB.

gearnews.de: zen delay virtual : "best plugins 2023"
musicradar: zen delay virtual : "best plugins 2023"

"..I can easily imagine Zen Delay Virtual becoming my go‑to delay plug‑in — or almost anyone else’s, so versatile is its sound..."
SoundOnSound mag

"...One of our favourite hardware effects gets a worthy plugin counterpart that’s great for creative sound shaping...."
MusicRadar

"...The Zen Delay Virtual sounds lively and analog, powerful and, if you want it to, really dirty. Depending on your taste, you will almost always find an atmospheric flavor. ..."
Bonedo.de

"...With the valve overdrive, analogue filter, noise and bit-crusher elements, it’s also a surprisingly versatile multi-effects unit that’s a lot of fun for creating experimental dub effects and spicing-up any sound...."
MusicTech mag