Delay instead of reverb.

[ryst]

One effect that I haven't really had much luck with is delay. I read a lot where engineers use delays instead of reverb to add "depth" to there mixes. But I don't know where to begin or what kind of delays I could use to enhance certain elements in my mixes. Can anyone provide some good tips? Could someone also explain the "Hass" effect" and how it's executed?

[Dylan]

Unfortunately, I do not have much to offer in advise for delay, delay, delay.....

[KenElevenShadows]

If using a delay, I use either the TC Electronic M300 delay (hardware unit) or a Moog Analog Delay plug-in. For some vocals, if I think maybe a delay might help, I patch it in and try and get it rhythmically working with the rest of the track. With the M300, this is easy because it has a Tap Function. If it sounds halfway decent, I'll mess around the sound and the volume and feedback (amount of repeats) and see if it's helping the track at all. It's all a matter of whether it sounds good.

 

Sometimes the delay sounds great in certain parts of the songs and not others. Maybe it might only sound good in the chorus, or maybe highlighting certain phrases. Other times, it may sound good through the whole thing. Sometimes, it sounds good with a hint of reverb with it. Sometimes it allows me to back off the reverb more. It just depends.

 

DAW: A third way that I sometimes add delay is by copying a vocal track and then sliding the copied track around until it sounds good. Then I'll EQ it, usually dulling the track or doing something to it to make it sound different from the original vocal track.

[not coaster MODERATOR]

the one verb-like effect i like with delay is the nightclub effect with a 50ms delay panned hard L/R and one good slap on the effected side

 

get busy now,,,,don't delay!

[theblue1]

Delay is often 'built into' a lot of reverb patches (or dialable in, anyhow). Natural reverb, of course, does not start until the sound waves bump off of something. If it's a 'clean' bounce off a smooth surface, the sound returned to the auditor is more on the 'echo' side of things. But to the extent the sound is refracted and bounces off of multiple surfaces, the result is more what we tend to call reverb.

 

The Haas Effect refers to the fact that relative left-right volume is only one of the factors that goes into formation of pyschoacoustic perceptions about directionality.

 

You can experiment with the Haas Effect yourself.

 

Take two idential mono tracks and pan them hard left and right.

 

When you listen to them, you should hear the sound localized in the middle of the stereo soundstage.

 

Now, delay one side by varying amounts, starting with 2 or 3 milliseconds and increasing the delay.

 

As the delay increases you will probably perceive that the sound seems to come increasingly from the non-delayed side -- even though the volume of each side is identical.

 

At a certain point, as the delay increases, you will begin to perceive the two sounds as two discrete sounds. For most folks, that's probably in the 8-15 ms range. (Of course, the ease of that perception changes with the nature of the sound. Sounds with sharp transients are much easier to pick out as distincly separeate sounds.

 

 

Anyhow, one of the paradoxical things about using delay to augment reverb and 'shape' the psychoacoustic perception of your sounds is that, while straight reverb tends to make the brain think the sound is farther away (in the 'back' of the psychoacoustic sound field, as it were), echo can be used to create the illusion that the subject sound is actually far forward of the perceived 'back wall.' Of course, combining reverb with echo -- and EQ (closer sounds have more high frequency detail as a rule in the natural world) -- in different ways can help you place your sound in different areas in that psychoacoustic soundstage.

[Billster]

Another use for delay is to add an early reflections component to reverb.

 

Reverb, as stated, won't begin until the sound bounces around and starts diffusing. Delay (or echo) is more direct and discrete.

 

So if you want to simulate a cavernous reverberant space, the reverb won't start for a good 50+ milliseconds, and you fill that space with multiple close slapback delays to create the "early reflections" of the direct sound bouncing off the surfaces closest to the listening position before the diffuse "reverb" builds enough energy.

[Wooden]

The best delay effect that i have heard, was some vocals that seems to triger the delay only in loud parts, and the voice seems unaffected in the quiet parts. What plug in, processor is this?

[theblue1]

Route a send from the vocal to an expander (noise gate -- often found as part of compressors). Set the threshold so that only the peaks get through and most of the sound is gated. Send that to your reverb effect and fold the reverb return back into your mix (where the original vocal channel is, of course, also routed).

 

Bingo. A classic effect.

[aeon]

Could be any, just set with a threshold trigger.

 

When I am using delay to add depth and fullness I tend to go for colored delays that have warble, drive, and character-laden frequency-shaping. I love using this on simple analog synths to add organic richness and fullness.

 

When I am trying to enhance the psychoacoustic "space" by means of something other than reverb, I like to use a delay that is more a diffuse tap, and then I like to cascade these, or run a couple in parallel.

 

I also like using these diffuse multi-tap cascades as sends to reverbs.

 

t.c. FireworX OS 2.0 has some nice "spaces" that are nothing more than dual 6-tap delays with some filtering.

 

 

cheers,

aeon

[Wooden]

Thanks guys, it was so simple that I am ashamed i did not figure it out before

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by aeon:

When I am using delay to add depth and fullness I tend to go for colored delays that have warble, drive, and character-laden frequency-shaping. I love using this on simple analog synths to add organic richness and fullness.

Oh, yes, that stuff is fun to do. It's amazing how people will also swear that you have a reverb of some sort of kind, or perceive far more "space" than there actually is, and it's just this sort of delay.

[DC]

I'm old enough to remember when digital reverb was just way too expensive, so we saved up for a delay. Used it both live and recording. In time delay is still one of my fav effects. Also love a hardware unit with infinite repeat button. What fun!

[theblue1]

I actually owned a "studio quality" spring reverb. It was awful, to be sure. About the only thing it was really good for was slugging for "dub effects"... but that and my ancient Echoplex were all the FX I could afford in the mid 80s. The Echoplex, otoh, I loved... possibly for all the wrong reasons.

[John Sayers]

Here\'s a delay chart relative to tempo.

 

I usually have two delays one set at 8s and one at 16ths. All your predelays for reverb should also be in time. It makes a huge difference to spacial depth IMHO.

 

cheers

john

[Billster]

Generally, I agree with synchronizing delays to some tempo related interval, but there's something to be said for a little randomness too.

[Lee Knight]

For a lead vocal that needs an invisible ambience...

 

This uses reverb along with delay but I keep the verb very low.

 

Mono delay on an aux track, lowpass filter as low as 4k, timed to track (60,000 / bpm) I'll divide the time by 2 until I get a delay in the 200 to 400ms range

 

Dark plate on another aux track, timed by ear to the snare, dying out after a quarter note usually.

 

DO NOT send any vocal to the plate, only send the vocal delay to the plate.

 

This softens the delay and lets it naturally blend into the track giving the vocal a nice cushy bed to sit.

 

If it needs to be totally invisible, I'll mute the delay send at all stops where it might be heard.

 

Option: put a clean or dirty guitar amp (Amplitube/Trash/etc.) before the delay on the same aux.