
One channel, for example, might have a delay time of 300ms and the other 600ms. Ping-pong delay is a dual delay effect that creates a call-and-response dynamic between the two taps of the delay. The idea here is to create an artificial double-track from one take or sound. Pretty much a slap-back delay with a shorter delay time and some processing on the wet signal. Blend the two together until it sounds good and musical. Listen to the way it complements your dry sound. Set your delay time to between 70ms and 120ms. This technique stretches way back in time! Made popular in the 50s and 60s and used often on vocals and guitars. See the images below for a basic mono delay feedback diagram and an example of a 50% delay feedback.Ĭlassic Must-Know Delay Techniques: Slap-Back Delay: A 50% feedback means each tap will be half the level of the tap before it until the taps fall into silence. Each delay is a bit lower in level until it drops into silence after the last delay.Ī feedback setting of 100% means each tap will be as loud as the next and will continue repeating until you lower the feedback setting. This allows you to set the length of your delay tail.

FeedbackĬontrols how many repeats will be played after the original sound. With sync turned off you can set the delay time in milliseconds, for example 111ms. Synced will allow to change the delay time to a musical note length for example 8th note or 16th note, dependent of course on your tempo setting. Most plugins allow you set this control to synced or not synced. This sets the time between the separate distinct successive repeats. Set it to 100% dry and you hear only the original signal. Set this to 100% wet and you hear only the delay signal. Sets the ratio between the dry original signal and the wet delayed signal. Many delay units or plugins allow you to tap in a tempo using a pad controller or your mouse button. You usually match the tempo of the DAW project but this is not law. Sets the tempo that the delay unit or plugin works at. Keep it and on to the next thing!īasic Delay Effects Parameters Explained: Tempo or BPM Which signal do you want to affect and where? Do you want to process what goes in to or what comes out of your delay? Try one way and then the other. In fact, this is a good way to think of any signal chain order for your effects. No reason to not do both if that works for you though! If you want the sound going into the delay to hit the delay more steadily then place your compressor before the delay. So, if you want to change the dynamics of the wet delay signal or delay tail then place it after.

Place it after and you'll affect what comes out the delay. Again, no hard and fast rules.ĭelay usually works better before reverb because when you feed reverb into a delay you're delaying your reverb which can get real messy real fast.Ĭompressor before or after the delay? Place it before and you affect the sound going into the delay. This depends on what you're trying to do. In terms of where to place delay relative to other effects in your chain: Of course there are times where you'll use delay as an insert but this simply means every plugin you insert after your delay will process your wet and dry signals together. It also opens up a whole world of processing possibilities as you can process your send channel separately to add modulation, distortion, EQ or compression to only your wet signal. This just gives you more control over the blend.
FABFILTER TIMELESS 2 VS H DALAY SERIES
That said, there are some standard practices which are standard for good reason.ĭelay, in most cases is best inserted as a send effect, in parallel with your dry signal, rather than in series as an insert.

Seriously, like most things in music production and mixing, there aren't any hard and fast rules with delay effects. Where do you put delay in a signal chain?
