Packed with all the controls you need to craft some huge delay sounds, Baby Audio Comeback Kid is definitely an impressive package, but with so many brilliant Delay Apps already available on iOS should you consider adding it to your effect app arsenal?
Baby Audio’s attention to detail when it comes to the design of their plugins is second to none and everything here from the skeuomorphic design of the knobs and buttons to the overall layout of the controls looks great.
Speaking of those controls, Baby Audio gives you a lot to tinker with here. There are 15 knobs and 4 switches spread over 5 main sections, but don’t dispair if that leaves you feeling a little overwhelmed.
Comeback Kid comes with 60 presets to get you started and they are a great way to immediately get an idea of what Comeback kid is capable of.
Controls and Interface
If you prefer to get your hands dirty and sculp your sound from scratch, Comeback Kid’s suite of controls makes it really easy.
Right in the middle of the UI are basic delay controls. There are straight, dotted, triplet and free BPM sync modes as well as time, feedback and ping pong controls.
The shaper section in the top left allows you to add lo and or hi-cut filters as well as adjustable attack and sustain ratios.
The flavour controls are where things start to get really interesting. The Cheap switch degrades your delays with a custom 11-bit signal path modeled after vintage digital units. It’s great for adding a bit of gritty character.
There are also tape saturation, Swirl -which adds a phaser effect – and Sauce controls, which adds a touch of algorithmic reverb.
The stereo controls allow you to play with wider, richer and pan knobs as well as a mono toggle switch.
The output controls in the bottom right Includes the destiny switch, which enables a subtle randomization algorithm. There is a a ducker knob, which lowers the level of the delay effect when the dry signal is playing. Finally there are Dry out and Wet out knobs here too.
iOS Issues
On a 12.9” iPad Pro, the knobs and switches are just about big enough to use without issue. On an iPhone however, it can be quite hard to make out the labels under certain controls and the switches in particular can be hard to tap. This is a common issue with Baby Audio’s iOS ports of their desktop plugins. It isn’t a massive issue here however – more a minor annoyance on smaller screens .
In my testing, ComeBack Kid works perfectly when loaded as an AUv3 plugin in GarageBand for iOS and is completely functional in Logic Pro for iPad, though does have have that weird re-sizing bug that other Baby Audio Apps suffer from.
Worth It?
No doubt Comeback Kid is a fantastic delay plugin with some really eccentric, unique and usable tricks up its sleeve, but does it do enough to stand out from other iOS Delay options?
I think so.
Not only does Comeback Kid wow with its distinctive and quirky controls, it also does the basics really really well too.
Just like Baby Audio’s Super VHS has become my go-to for adding glorious synth-wave tinged chorus effects to tracks, I think Comeback Kid will become my go-to app for big wide colourful delay effects too.
Comeback Kid is available for the intro price of $9.99/£9.99 (usual price $19.99/£19.99) from the iOS App Store.
