5 Interesting Uses of Delay inside a Mix

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I really like the “sound design” component of mixing records. Crafting interesting tones and textures is like my form of as being a playing music performer. Certainly one of my personal favorite tools for doing it may be the Delay — a repeating the seem it’s put on. It’s amazing what you could create with simple things like a repeat of the seem.

1. Stereo-izing

One really awesome factor that you can do having a delay would be to turn a mono seem right into a stereo one. This functions by pulling up a mono seem on two channels, panning one hard left, one hard right, and placing a delay somewhere. Turn the wet/dry ratio to 100% wet, set the feedback to zero, and time the delay between 5 to 20ms. Magic stereo seem.

Usually, you’ll desire to use a transparent delay which has no specific seem of their own to get this done, but there isn’t any rule against utilizing a stylized delay to produce a unique seem.

An alternative choice to this method is by using three channels: one panned left, one panned right and something panned in the middle. Place your delay between 5 to 20ms somewhere, and between 15 to 30ms on the other hand, and make certain the occasions won’t be the same. Then pull the amount around the hard panned signals lower before you don’t really hear them much. This creates the consequence of mono instrument that spreads over the stereo field. Generally, this works more effectively on sounds that aren’t too transient heavy: guitars, keys and pads. With drums, this is often a bit challenging make work.

2. Modulating Delays

Place a delay on something perhaps a vocal — whatever. Now, hit playback so that as it’s playing start altering time constant. You won’t just hear the delay alternation in tempo, but you’ll hear the pitch shift up (if increased) or lower (if slowed lower). This effect works very well on triggered delays: delays which are established to hit only on a single word a treadmill note.

A very fun alternative is to setup a dual mono delay. If one makes micro alterations in the timing constant on a single delay going one of the ways, and go the alternative way alternatively delay, you will get some really awesome effects. If panned apart you receive a delay which has a “doubler” effect having a very wide seem. If panned together the delay really choruses, developing a awesome texture. And also the real fun is that if you perform a partial panning — like 50% left and 50% right, you can aquire a spread-chorus effect.

Because you need to make very small adjustments — like sine wave automation/LFO within 10-20ms time variations, you are able to really make use of this like a consistent delay with an element like vocals or guitar. The rhythm from the delay stays exactly the same — just the texture really changes.

3. Chorusing and Robo-Texture

Whenever we consider delays we usually consider spaced out echoes like 1/4 note returns on the vocal, or perhaps a slap back on the guitar. We don’t usually consider what goes on when we set the delay so quick it really modulates the waveform we send into it! A chuckle stuff begins to happen whenever we enter into the sub-30ms realm.

Certainly one of individuals effects is exactly what I call “Robo-Texture” because I’m bad at creating names for things. This occurs between about 5 to 10ms. The waveform modulation causes enharmonic dips and peaks through the frequency spectrum what sort of seems like speaking metal. A principal illustration of this is the drums from Busta Rhymes “Light Your Ass On Fire”.

Now, when we go even quicker than that people start getting a flanging effect which may be modified a couple of ways. We’re able to go straight flange when we setup the delay without any feedback or modulation. Or we can produce a chorusing effect by arriving the feedback — or we are able to create something such as a phaser using a delay having a modulation control and automating slight changes towards the timing (automating up and lower by just like a nanosecond).

4. Delayed Delays

What’s much better than one delay? Two Delays! By putting one delay consistent with another we are able to create very fun rhythmic signatures. For instance, we’re able to place a 1/eighth note multi-tap delay with two taps with no feedback following a 1/4 note delay with feedback and make up a 1/eighth note rhythm that accents around the quarter note.

Or, we are able to perform a 1/4 note delay without any feedback and follow that with a 1/16th note ping-pong delay. This produces the aftereffect of 1/4 note delay that scatters round the stereo field and sounds type of trippy … creates a fairly fun delay throw — or, you can vary this method using a dotted 1/eighth note without any feedback adopted with a 16th note ping-pong set to 100% wet. This could come with an ethereal quality of floating the stereo field just like a specter of the 1/4 note throw.

5. Feedback Delays

This involves a little bit of work but there’s a lot of options. A feedback delay happens when you switch the feedback as much as amplification instead of decay. This will cause each tap with the delay unit to get louder, instead of quieter. Consequently, this will cause whatever tone the delay unit is imparting around the seem to get exaggerated and finally make the amplifier to overload.

This is often a great effect for developing a moving texture or perhaps a unique riser in a transition point. The only real caveat is you need to ride the amount by hand otherwise your song will get overwhelmed with endless delay. Additionally you might have to ride the feedback up and lower to keep notes or words from just being held in the seem because the song progresses.

Different timings create different effects. Longer timings create discrete escalating returns, while faster timings begin to seem a lot more like swells.

Obviously — many of these options become magnified when you begin putting EQ, reverb, distortion, compression, side-chained compression, flangers, etc. in to the equation. After that you may create a nearly endless seem palette to experience with.

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