Delay
Delay is a great way of creating space and atmosphere in a track. Sometimes reverb isn’t right because it can blur the sound or cause mud. Of course this can also happen with delay, but when used properly, delay can maintain clarity while still creating a strong sense of depth and space.
Tips for using delay:
- Set time of your delay to the tempo of the song. When delays are off beat, it can muddy up a mix or cause a sense of uncomfortability. Check out this chart which shows delay times that are divisible by a given tempo:
http://www.sae.edu/reference_material/pages/Beatimes%20.htm
So if you have a song that is 90BPM and you want a quarter note delay, you would use a delay time of .666 milliseconds.
-Feedback. Also generally set feedback times depending on the tempo of the song, if it is a slower song a longer feedback can work, but with a faster song a longer feedback can jumble things up.
-Set up delays on a send track. Using a send for your delay allows you to send multiple instruments to the same delay which helps maintain a common space for the instruments to be in. (As well as to preserve CPU power) Another benifit of this is the ability to add EQ or other effects to the delay but not the dry track.
-Use effects on the delay. Probably the most common effect I use on delay is EQ. Sometimes sibilant sounds are over-emphesized with delay so I often use a low-pass filter to bring the high end down. Sometimes a little more EQ to give the delay the right tone. But EQ is not the only option, try any effect. Other favorite effects of mine to apply to a delay are distortion and reverb. Reverb is good for a little extra ambience, or to blur the delay so that it is more of a warm muffled tone, rather than a clear replication of the dry sound.
-Don’t over-do it. Just like with reverb, it’s easy to crank up the delay and say ‘Man, that sounds good!’ only to later decide that there is way too much. It’s usually better to be subtle with delay unless you are using it for a specific effect. Start with the fader down and slowly bring it up until you just begin to hear it.
Something else to consider is that you can use delays to create phasers and choruses. However, it’s kind of tricky and I usually get better results just using a phaser or chorus plugin.