Creating depth with delay

Delays are very versatile in music production. Many people can be put off using them because they are afraid of the complexities they seem to involve.

Delays can start ping-ponging all over the place as soon as you turn on a pedal. But delays can also be very useful if you know how to control the chaos.

There's not a lot to them. They essentially work by repeating the notes of the phrase or instrument chosen.

Since it is a time based effect, it works best by sending the source sound to an auxiliary bus so you can control the original(dry) sound and effected(wet) sound separately. Don't use them as inserts on the source channel, since it's better to have the versatility to modify both the dry and delayed sound separately.

See the picture here below where I have the vocal and delay separated.

Basic parameters

delay send The general idea of a delay unit is to only repeat the phrase sent to the delay, by an amount of time in milliseconds you determine. So the basic parameters are these two:

Feedback : The amount of times you want the note, or phrase to repeat. Sometiems called repeats.
Delay : The amount in milliseconds you want to delay the signal.

Of course there are other parameters in the general software plugin, but they essentially work around these two.

Sometimes you don't really want a delayed sound. You might have a guitar part that's not thick enough, or needs some kind of depth. Instead of trying to emulate depth with a reverb generator, you can use delay to thicken up a part, giving it depth.

Examples for depth

We use delays to thicken up sounds sometimes. The amount in milliseconds is the amount in which we delay the original sound.

Then by playing with the feedback and volume of the delay, we control how dominating the delay is over the original sound.

Here below I have three different variations of delay. 20ms, 100ms and 500ms. Let's hear the difference between these three settings.

All of the examples below have the same feedback time of 35%. Since I just want to demonstrate how you can create depth with delay we'll be saving the ping-pong effect of too much feedback for later.

20ms

Short delays like this are usually used for the so called A.D.T. or Automatic Double Tracking. By delaying a vocal for such a short time we get a doubling effect. Like the singer had gone in and sung the vocal part again. We can use delays like this in conjunction with chorus to get an even better doubling effect.

100ms

Delays can often come in place of reverbs. For a less clouded vocal sound, where you don't want a big reverb trail you can use delays instead. Delays also don't cloud up the attack of the vocal like you could have happen if you have a reverb with a really fast attack response.

500ms

Now we're getting more into effect territory. Since this delay is fairly long, we can hear the delay more clearly as it gets separated by the main vocal track. For sustained notes, like the example above, it's a pretty cool effect. But beware of using long delays for short rhythmic singing, since there's a chance you will clutter up the mix pretty fast.

summing up

Next time you want a little depth for your tracks, consider using subtle delays. They can lift up your instrument parts and give them a little dimension without cluttering up your mix. They can be used as an alternative to reverb as well as for the typical delay effect.

Play around with your millisecond slider and try to find a good effect that's suitable to what you are working on. Use these guidelines above for an estimated sound and then just go nuts and experiment.

If you want reverb instead of delay, check out these reverb tips

If you are delaying many tracks, simplify your routing with this tip

For different tips on effects, check out my 5 tips on distortion