1. Overview
Cape Horn is an 8-band panoramic delay with a granular pitch-shift and reverse engine, inspired by the sound of classic 80s multi-band delay and pitch-shifting hardware. Each of the 8 bands is its own bandpass-filtered tap, with an independent delay time, level and stereo pan position.
The plug-in has three operating modes:
- Panoramic — the 8 bands behave as a classic multi-tap band delay: one shared feedback loop re-injects the combined tap pattern, and each band's own Feedback/Pitch/Reverse controls are inactive.
- Glacier Weave — each band's own Feedback becomes active, and a granular engine can pitch-shift and/or reverse the delayed signal per band, with a reverb tail filling the space between repeats.
- Hybrid — Panoramic's shared feedback loop and Glacier Weave's granular pitch/reverse/reverb engine run at the same time, so a band can carry both a rhythmic tap character and a pitched, reversed granular texture.
The interface is organized around the 8-band grid, with a tabbed area at its top (Delay, Freq / Q and Advanced), a preset browser, BPM Sync switch and Mode selector in the header, and the master knob row (HP/LP filter, Dry/Wet, Width, Output Gain, Freq Offset) in the footer. Delay times can be free milliseconds or tempo-synced note divisions.
2. System Requirements
| Platform | Formats Supported |
|---|---|
| Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) | Standalone application, VST3 |
| macOS 11 Big Sur or later (Apple Silicon & Intel) | Standalone application, Audio Unit (AU2), VST3 |
3. Installation
3.1 Windows
Standalone Application
- Run the Cape Horn installer (.exe).
- The installer places the app automatically into your system Program Files folder:
C:\Program Files\CapeHorn\ - Launch
CapeHorn.exedirectly — no host application is required. - On first launch, open Preferences to select your audio driver, input/output device and channel routing (see Section 4).
VST3
- The installer places the .vst3 file automatically into your system VST3 folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ - Restart your DAW, or trigger a plug-in rescan from its plug-in manager.
- Cape Horn will appear under the manufacturer name "Acodestics" in your VST3 plug-in list.
3.2 macOS
Standalone Application
- Open the Cape Horn installer package (.pkg).
- Launch the app from Launchpad, Spotlight, or /Applications. The first time you run it, macOS Gatekeeper may ask you to confirm that you trust the developer.
- Open Preferences to configure your CoreAudio driver, input/output device and channel routing (see Section 4).
Audio Unit (AU2)
- The installer places the component automatically in:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/CapeHorn.component - Restart your AU host (Logic Pro, GarageBand, MainStage, etc.) so it re-scans its plug-in cache.
- Find Cape Horn under Audio Units → Acodestics in your host's plug-in browser.
VST3
- The installer places the component automatically in:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/CapeHorn.vst3 - Restart your DAW or rescan plug-ins.
- Cape Horn will appear under "Acodestics" in your VST3 list.
4. Standalone Application: Audio & MIDI Setup
The Standalone build includes its own Preferences dialog (Audio Device Settings) where you choose:
- Driver Type (CoreAudio on macOS; DirectSound or ASIO® on Windows).
- Input Device and Output Device.
- Buffer Size and Sampling Rate.
- Input 1 (L) / Input 2 (R) and Output 1 (L) / Output 2 (R) channel mapping.
- Optional MIDI input/output device and channel.
5. License Activation
On first launch (in any format), Cape Horn displays an activation overlay until a valid license is confirmed:
- Enter your license key (serial) in the activation field.
- Click Activate.
- The plug-in contacts the license server to validate the key against this device. On success, the overlay closes and the full interface becomes available.
Once activated, the plug-in re-validates the license automatically on each launch, without requiring you to re-enter the key.
6. Interface Overview
The main window is organized into three areas: a header (logo, preset browser with Load/Save, BPM Sync switch and Mode selector), the 8-band grid (a tabbed area with the Delay, Freq / Q and Advanced tabs, followed by the Feedback, Pitch, Reverse, Phase, Mute, Bypass and Pan rows), and a footer (tagline and the master knob row).
6.1 Header — Presets, BPM Sync & Mode
| Control | Function |
|---|---|
| Preset browser (< / >) | Previous / next factory preset. The centre button opens the full preset list and shows the current preset's name. |
| Load / Save | Loads or saves the plug-in's full state to a .capehorn file of your own, independent of the factory presets. |
| BPM SYNC | Toggle switch. When on, each band's Delay time follows the host tempo as a note division instead of free milliseconds. |
| MODE | Selects Panoramic, Glacier Weave, or Hybrid (see Section 7). |
6.2 Band Grid
Each of the 8 columns (Band 1–8) starts with a tabbed area at the top — Delay, Freq / Q or Advanced (the Advanced tab is described in Section 6.3) — followed by a fixed set of controls that stay visible no matter which tab is selected: Feedback, Pitch, Reverse, Phase, Mute, Bypass and Pan. Delay is the tab shown when the plug-in first opens.
Delay Tab
The Delay grid sets each band's delay time — free milliseconds (up to 4s) when BPM Sync is off, or a note division (1/64 to 2/1) when it's on. Drag across the grid to set several bands in one gesture.
Below each column, a small editor also lets you set that band's delay time precisely. It shows the current value between two caret buttons (▼ and ▲), and behaves according to the BPM Sync switch:
- Free time (BPM Sync off) — click the value and type a time in milliseconds (for example 250, 250ms or 1.5s), then press Enter. The ▼ and ▲ buttons move the delay in 1 ms steps; hold Shift for 10 ms steps or Alt (Option) for 0.1 ms steps. Values always land on whole multiples of the step, and holding a button down repeats it. The range is 1 ms to 4 s.
- Tempo Sync (BPM Sync on) — the value is one of eight note divisions (1/64 to 2/1), so it cannot be typed: the ▼ and ▲ buttons move to the previous or next division.
- Mouse wheel — scrolling over the value works like the buttons, one step per wheel notch, in both modes. The Shift modifier applies to the buttons only.
Freq / Q Tab
The Freq grid sets each band's bandpass filter center frequency, 20 Hz–20 kHz — drag across the grid to draw a curve across all 8 bands in one gesture. Below it, the Q row sets that band's bandpass filter resonance, 0.1–10.
Per-Band Controls
These stay visible below the tabs, in every mode and every tab:
| Row | Function |
|---|---|
| Feedback | That band's own feedback amount, 0–95%. Only active in Glacier Weave/Hybrid — dimmed in Panoramic, which uses the single shared Feedback control in the Advanced tab instead. |
| Pitch | Granular pitch shift for that band, −24 to +24 semitones. Only active in Glacier Weave/Hybrid. |
| Reverse | Toggles reverse playback of that band's granular engine. Only active in Glacier Weave/Hybrid. |
| Phase (ø) | Inverts that band's polarity before it's summed into the mix. |
| Mute (M) | Mutes that band entirely — it is skipped in processing, not just silenced. |
| Bypass | Bypasses that band's bandpass filter, sending the raw signal straight into its delay line. |
| Pan | Stereo position of that band, hard left to hard right, with a magnetic detent at center. |
6.3 Advanced Tab
The Advanced tab holds the parameters that only matter in specific modes, in two panels side by side (Panoramic on the left, Glacier Weave on the right), keeping the main band grid uncluttered. The panel that does not apply to the current mode is dimmed; in Hybrid mode both are active.
Panoramic panel
Enabled in Panoramic or Hybrid mode. In Panoramic mode, bands do not feed back individually — instead, the combined output of all 8 taps passes once through a single shared feedback loop, and these two controls shape that loop:
- Feedback (0–100%) — how much of the 8-tap mix re-enters the loop on each pass. At 0% each tap plays only once (a single one-shot echo per band); as it rises toward 100% the whole 8-tap pattern repeats over and over with very slow decay. This is the shared equivalent of the per-band Feedback knob that Glacier Weave/Hybrid bands use instead (see Section 6.2).
- FB Delay (1–4000 ms) — how long the loop waits before re-injecting the tap pattern, independent of any individual band's own Delay time. A short FB Delay makes the whole pattern re-trigger quickly, for a dense, rhythmic cascade; a long one spaces the repeats of the entire pattern far apart. Because this is one shared time rather than a per-band one, it sets the rhythm of the whole pattern repeating, not any single band's own echo spacing.
Glacier Weave panel
Enabled in Glacier Weave or Hybrid mode. These shape the granular pitch/reverse engine that runs on top of each band's own Feedback in these modes:
- Grain Size (0.1–2.0x) — a multiplier on each band's own Delay time, not a fixed millisecond value: at 1.0x (default) a band's grains last exactly as long as that band's own delay time, so a short-delay band naturally gets short grains and a long-delay band gets long ones. Below 1.0x, grains become shorter than the delay time for a choppier, more granular texture; above 1.0x they overlap more and blend into a smoother, more continuous texture. One knob scales all 8 bands together, each relative to its own delay time.
- Verb Mix (0–100%) — how much of the reverb tail is blended into the output; 0% is fully dry (no reverb), 100% is fully wet.
- Verb Decay (0.1–10 seconds) — the reverb tail's own decay time: how long it takes the diffuse tail to die away once Verb Mix lets it through. Short values give a tight, small-room-like tail; long values give a huge, cathedral-like wash that can linger for many seconds after a repeat.
- Rev Voices (1–4) — how many overlapping grains play at once for bands with Reverse enabled (Forward bands always use a fixed, unaffected 2-voice overlap). More voices means more grains crossfading into each other at once, which smooths the regular, clicky retrigger a reversed grain stream produces at low voice counts — raising it trades a more clearly pulsed reverse texture for a denser, smoother one.
- Rev Jitter (0–0.5) — randomizes the timing of each new reverse grain instead of spawning them on a perfectly regular clock. At 0 (default) grains retrigger at a fixed interval, which can read as a mechanical, clicky pulse; raising Rev Jitter scatters that timing so the reverse texture feels more organic and less like a metronome. Only affects Reverse-enabled bands.
- Rev Flat Top (0–0.9) — reshapes each reverse grain's fade envelope. At 0 (default) grains use a pure Hann (smooth cosine bell) window that fades in and out gradually; raising it holds the grain at full volume across a wider flat plateau in the middle and only tapers the very edges, closer to the sound of the granular hardware that inspired this engine. Only affects Reverse-enabled bands — Forward bands always use the pure Hann shape regardless of this setting.
The preset browser (with Load/Save for your own .capehorn files) is in the header, next to the logo; see Section 8 for the factory presets.
6.4 Footer — Master Controls
The footer holds three things, left to right: the tagline, the ACTIVE button, and the master knob row.
ACTIVE — master on/off for the whole effect, centred between the tagline and the knob row. Unlike a DAW's own bypass, this works identically in every format, including the Standalone application, which has no bypass of its own.
Turning it off passes the input straight through, unprocessed, and instantly clears every delay, feedback, reverb and grain buffer — so any decaying tail cuts immediately, the same abrupt cut as flipping a DAW's own bypass. Turning it back on always starts from silence: there is never a stale tail left over from before it was switched off.
| Control | Function |
|---|---|
| HP / LP | High-pass and low-pass filters applied to the master mix, ahead of the dry/wet blend. |
| MIX (Dry/Wet) | Balance between the unprocessed (dry) and delayed (wet) signal, 0–100%. |
| Width | Stereo width of the processed signal, 0–200% (100% = unchanged). |
| Out (Output Gain) | Master output level, −24 dB to +12 dB. |
| Offset (Freq Offset) | A master semitone transpose applied to all 8 bands' center frequencies together, −128 to +128 semitones. |
7. Modes — In Depth
7.1 Panoramic
Each band is an independent, one-shot bandpass-filtered tap: its own Freq, Q, Delay time and Pan, summed directly into the mix. Instead of each band feeding back on its own, a single shared feedback loop (Feedback / FB Delay, in the Panoramic panel of the Advanced tab) re-injects the entire 8-tap pattern as a whole after its own delay time — the same topology used by classic hardware band-delay units. Per-band Feedback, Pitch and Reverse have no effect in this mode.
7.2 Glacier Weave
Per-band Feedback becomes active, so each band can regenerate independently. A granular engine can additionally pitch-shift (Pitch) and/or reverse (Reverse) each band's repeats, and a reverb (Verb Mix/Decay) fills the space between discrete repeats with a diffuse tail. Grain Size, Rev Voices, Rev Jitter and Rev Flat Top (Glacier Weave panel of the Advanced tab) shape the grain scheduling that produces the reverse/pitch-shifted texture, particularly for bands with Reverse enabled.
7.3 Hybrid
Panoramic's shared feedback loop and Glacier Weave's per-band granular pitch/reverse/reverb engine both run at once. A band can carry a rhythmic, tap-delay character from the shared loop while its own granular engine simultaneously pitch-shifts and/or reverses its repeats into the reverb tail. Both panels of the Advanced tab are active together in this mode.
8. Factory Presets
Cape Horn ships with twenty-one factory presets (plus the default Init state), accessible from the preset navigator in the header:
| Preset | Mode | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Drake Passage | Panoramic | An 8-tap classic multi-band delay in the character of a classic 80s band-delay unit, wide stereo fan. |
| Perito Moreno | Glacier Weave | A 2-voice reverse pitch-shift shimmer — a dual-voice "Crystals"-style texture. |
| Beagle Channel | Panoramic | Tempo-synced, tight rhythmic 8-tap groove with a syncopated 1/8–1/4–1/2 cascade. |
| Torres del Paine | Panoramic | Free-time epic wide wash, long spread of taps and a huge trailing decay. |
| Ushuaia Nights | Panoramic | Tempo-synced, dark and warm tape-echo character, low-passed and narrower pan spread. |
| Patagonian Wind | Panoramic | Free-time, tight resonant slap-back with hard-panned ping-pong repeats. |
| Straits of Magellan | Panoramic | Tempo-synced polyrhythmic cascade — every band lands on a different note division. |
| Diego Ramirez | Panoramic | Free-time, dense and chaotic cascade with resonant bands and near-maximum feedback. |
| Frozen Cathedral | Glacier Weave | Huge ambient wash — 4 forward (non-reverse), unpitched voices feeding a long reverb tail. |
| Ice Crystals | Glacier Weave | Bright reverse-pitch shimmer — 4 voices reversed and pitched up an octave. |
| Calving Glacier | Glacier Weave | Dramatic pitch-drop reverse — 2 voices an octave down, with a long dark reverb tail. |
| Aurora Austral | Glacier Weave | Subtle shimmer pad — 2 voices reversed a fifth up, with gentle jitter for organic movement. |
| Cabo de Hornos | Hybrid | Flagship preset combining tempo-synced rhythmic taps with a pitched-up reverse shimmer tail. |
| Tierra del Fuego | Hybrid | Driving rhythmic layer plus a fifth-up reversed shimmer riding over it. |
| Midnight Fjord | Hybrid | Slow, dark, cavernous atmosphere with a pitch-down reverse tail and long reverb. |
| Cordillera Inversa | Panoramic | Tempo-synced zigzag — Freq and note-division alternate high/low across the 8 bands. |
| Archipiélago | Panoramic | Free-time, fully scattered — Freq, delay, Q and pan independently shuffled per band. |
| Niebla Austral | Glacier Weave | Diffuse fog pad — 4 non-adjacent voices (bands 1, 4, 6, 8), forward and unpitched. |
| Deriva de Hielo | Glacier Weave | Asymmetric drift — 2 non-adjacent reversed voices (bands 3 & 7) with different pitch intervals. |
| Vientos Cruzados | Hybrid | Rhythmic and shimmer roles interleaved across all 8 bands instead of split in half. |
| Laberinto de Canales | Hybrid | Scrambled free-time taps plus 3 reverse shimmer voices scattered at bands 2, 5 and 7. |
Use Save to store your own patterns as .capehorn files, and Load to recall them later — useful for backing up custom patterns or sharing them between projects.
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Suggested Fix |
|---|---|
| Plug-in does not appear in my DAW. | Confirm the file is in the correct folder for your OS/format (Section 3), then rescan plug-ins in your DAW. |
| Standalone only outputs to one side (L or R) when only one input is connected. | The Standalone app does not auto-sum a single input the way a DAW's mono track does. Either route the same signal physically into both interface inputs, or use Input 1 (L)/Input 2 (R) channel mapping in Preferences with both channels fed from the same source. |
| Feedback/Pitch/Reverse knobs on a band appear dimmed and don't respond. | These are only active in Glacier Weave or Hybrid mode. In Panoramic mode, use the single shared Feedback/FB Delay controls in the Panoramic panel of the Advanced tab instead. |
| Reverse-band grain artifacts sound uneven or clicky. | Try adjusting Rev Voices, Rev Jitter and Rev Flat Top in the Glacier Weave panel of the Advanced tab — these shape the grain scheduling specifically for Reverse-enabled bands. |
| Windows Standalone: no sound, or no devices listed, after selecting ASIO. | ASIO needs a driver from your audio interface manufacturer, and most ASIO drivers can only be used by one application at a time. Close any other program using the interface (for example your DAW), or switch Driver Type back to DirectSound in Preferences. |
| Activation overlay reappears after restarting the plug-in. | Verify you have an active internet connection during the first launch on a given device, and confirm your license key was entered exactly as provided. |
10. Support
For licensing issues, bug reports, or general questions, contact:
11. Changelog
Version 1.1.0 — October 2026
- Added
- ASIO® support in the Windows Standalone: select ASIO in Preferences (Driver Type) to use your audio interface's ASIO driver. DirectSound remains the default. Plug-in formats are unaffected.
- Changed
- About box (Windows Standalone): now shows the ASIO Compatible logo and Steinberg's trademark attribution.
Version 1.0.0 — Initial Release
- First public release of Cape Horn.
- 21 factory presets covering all three modes, plus user preset Save/Load (.capehorn files).
12. Legal & Acknowledgements
Cape Horn © 2026 Acodestics. All rights reserved.
Trademarks
VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
ASIO is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
Audio Units, Logic Pro and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Third-Party Software
Cape Horn is built with the following third-party software. Each component remains the property of its respective copyright holders and is used under its own license.
| Component | Author | License |
|---|---|---|
| iPlug2 | the iPlug 2 Developers; based on WDL-OL/iPlug by Oli Larkin and iPlug by Cockos | zlib-like |
| Cockos WDL | Cockos Incorporated | zlib-like |
| VST® 3 SDK | Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH | MIT |
| ASIO® SDK (Windows Standalone) | Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH | Steinberg ASIO SDK Licensing Agreement |
| NanoVG / NanoSVG | Mikko Mononen | zlib |
| MetalNanoVG | Ollix | MIT |
| RtAudio / RtMidi | Gary P. Scavone | MIT |
| stb_image / stb_truetype | Sean Barrett | Public domain |
| glad | David Herberth (generator); Khronos Group (khrplatform.h) | Public domain / MIT-style |
| fontaudio | Michelangelo Nottoli (fefanto) | SIL OFL 1.1 / MIT |
| Roboto | Apache 2.0 |
Full license texts are available in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt, included with your Cape Horn download.