mixmkr said:
I think I "might" see your reasoning, as having the predelays (even though not heard as a delay) being matched and NOT having the reverb tails spill over into the next "attack". However, that is way too strict a guidline to use for reverb settings in my opinion.
Bruce...
You are correct in predelay in helping to define a room size. We all know that...nothing really new there. It appears we just worded it differently and I just tried to make the point a bit more lucid.(not sure if trackrat knows it...he is old and grey!!)
However, making the pre-delay some fraction of the songs' bpm, is not necessarily a common practice. That's the part that I was disagreeing on. I guess for some engineers it is, but I haven't found that to really be true.... as I don't think it nec. blends it in more naturally. Authentic reverb parameters are never as predictable in real life situations, and hence make todays digital counterparts sound artificial, except in the best units available.
In my uses with real chambers and plates, this was also the case, when digital delays came in vogue to add predelay to the send. (instead of a tape machine). No math was being done to figure the predelay as compared to the song tempo. The effect was to "create" a different room size (which I am agreeing everyone seems to know). I think the "room size" effect created be using the predelay adjustment is MUCH more dominant a reason rather than trying to get the verb to blend more naturally. I think reverb duration and/or decay does much more to blend in "naturally"...instead of the predelay adjustment. I use the word
naturally as a replacement for "cleaner" or "better sounding" in this case..... purely subjective, of course. But..I'm NOT comparing parameters here now either. Just that I don't agree that the predelay being in relation to a songs tempo means anything. To those that can hear 10ms time differences, then I suppose it does. Maybe subconciously it does for some too. I don't know. I only have my set of ears to go by.
But..the decay...that is something different(as we all know)... potentially clouding up the attack of the next "note"
btw(on another subject)...I also find discrete echos on delays MUCH more creative when they just don't repeat in 1/4 ..1/8th note fashion. That's so typical nowadays, it almost borderlines on the Cher effect! Something just a little "off" seems to create much more interest...at least to my ears.
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PS...don't get me going on reverbs..! As I've said...I'd wash my clothes in it if I could!!