FRCTL Audio DLAY: a 64-tap delay playground – update 1.1 and free Lite version

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FRCTL Audio DLAY is a new delay plugin for macOS, Linux, and Windows that lets you design your own delay using 64 fully customizable taps.

At the end of May/beginning of June, FRCTL Audio released DLAY, an exciting delay plugin that transports you to a delay playground.

The developers have now released version 1.1, which includes full DAW automation, sync feedback, and an optimized engine that is lighter on CPU. The highlight, however, is the new DLAY Lite, a stripped-down version that you can download for free.

Frctl Audio DLAY Lite

DLAY Lite

The new DLAY Lite is a free delay plugin for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It’s a straightforward delay with just a few controls. 

In the first row, you can adjust the delay rate, taps, feedback, and the smear parameter. One row below, you have wash and mix.

Wash lets you grow the tight, clear echoes into a big, lush, diffuse tail. Turn it up, and the echoes repeat longer, smearing into a smooth cloud. Mix is a classic dry/wet control. 

DLAY Lite ships with 12 ready-to-use presets, ranging from quick slapbacks to long washes. Of course, you can also create new ones and save them in the plugin. Two nice releases! 

The FRCTL Audio DLAY 1.1 is a free update for existing users. The DLAY Lite plugin is also a free download and runs on macOS (native Apple Silicon and Intel), Linux, and Windows.

More information FRCTL Audio

Update

Article from June 1, 2026

In early 2026, FRCTL Audio released GRN 2, an excellent free update to its hands-on granular plugin, featuring a full multi-FX processor.

The second plugin from the FRCTL Audio developers is DLAY, a delay plugin that lets users visually assemble all kinds of delays.

Frctl Audio DLAY

FRCTL Audio DLAY

DLAY for macOS, Linux, and Windows is not your average delay plugin. It’s more of a delay playground consisting of a single canvas with 64 fully customizable taps.

These taps can be easily dragged anywhere on a single timeline and modified at the per-tap level for volume, pitch, formant, filter, or saturation. You can also select a group and drag it, or zoom in on any moment in your delay timeline.

To make your delays more interesting, DLAY, FRCTL Audio also added a function that lets you create sweeps within the delays. With the ripples for the gain, filter, pan, formant, drive, and time, you can achieve various behaviors.

For example, the gain ripple drops volume off across the chain, so you get instant decay shapes from a gentle fade to a sharp tail. The pan ripple on the other side spreads alternating taps left and right.

With the formant, drive, and time ripples, you can paint cascading characters without touching a single tap individually.

FRCTL Audio DLAY

Grooves, Character & More

Like other delays, FRCTL Audio also includes various ways in DLAY to work with the delay’s tempo. You can go free in time with milliseconds or lock to your DAW tempo with note divisions from whole down to 1/64, plus dotted and triplet variants.

Alternatively, DLAY has twelve rhythm patterns built in: tresillo, clave, swing, polyrhythms, bouncing-ball decay, golden-ratio cascade, and more, giving you plenty of options to create custom delays. 

On top of that, you can layer humanize and shuffle to add more of an organic feel to them. To make it all even more interesting, you can choose from seven distinct delay characters: digital, tape, BBD, LoFi, space, vinyl, and radio.

The more unusual ones are vinyl and radio. Vinyl adds wow and crackle while radio compresses and band-limits like a broadcast. Additionally, you can drag the high-pass and low-pass curves directly on the visualization.

That’s not all, DLAY also offers a modulation section with ping-pong, drift, wobble, shuffle, humanize, and duck that infuses movement and life into the taps. 

First Impression

A very exciting delay from the creators of the GRN2 granular processor. The ability to design your own delays is certainly the highlight here. It shows how versatile and deep multi-tap delays can be.

FRCTL Audio DLAY is available now for $34,99. It runs as a VST3, AU, and CLAP plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux, and Windows.

More information FRCTL Audio

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