Apogee Electronics has announced the release of Clearmountain Dance, a plugin which "captures the unique stereo delay Bob Clearmountain created for the title track of David Bowie's album, 'Let's Dance.' What started as an accidental, chaotic delay became a defining element of the song's sound."
The internet is flooded with discussion threads and videos, with countless musicians trying to figure out how the "Let's Dance" delay was achieved, and how it can be replicated. This plugin aims to help.
Features of the plugin (directly from Apogee) are listed as:
- Cascading Ping Pong Delay: Create rhythmic stereo textures and entrancing, attention-grabbing patterns.
- Analog Tape Emulation: The plugin provides a rich, warm dual tape head delay character.
- Customizable Randomization: The Offset and Skew knobs offer options to vary stereo timing subtly or drastically from the standard grid timing.
- Analog Imperfections: The Degrade knob controls tape aging simulation, which can be used to soften harsh edges on repeats or lean into organic artifacts and variation. At extreme settings, wow and flutter characteristics can be heard.
Availability (also from Apogee)
Clearmountain Dance will be available for download starting September 18th, 2025. The plugin is priced at $30. It does not require a Pace iLok account or iLok License Manager to run.
It is compatible with:
- macOS 13.7.5 & Up
- Windows 11 and up
- Supports AAX Native, AU (Mac only), VST, and VST 3 host applications.
