Best way to nudge tracks in analog

[leddy]

What is the most cost-effective bit of gear to get if you need to add a couple milliseconds of delay to a track without affecting the quality?

When I mix spot mics into a stereo pair I need to delay them a bit. ITB, I use UAD's Little Labs IBP. I don't need to adjust phase though, just delay.

 

[mixsit]

IBP at 400 bucks a pop.
But you knew that.
If the other option would seem to be converting to digi to delay anyway, would your daw be the goog quality/price option?

 

[FALKEN]

why are you delaying the mics? is this for an effect like steve albini? if you need to be precise msybe a digital unit like an alesis quad would work...ive seen those as low as $30. or you could do it with a tape deck like a tascam 32

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Fidelity is best preserved by a lossless straight wire.

Therefore, an insert cable of the exact length of 600 thousand meters/400 miles, will give you exactly 2ms of delay.

Cheers!

 

[leddy]

why are you delaying the mics?

I record with a main stereo pair and a couple of spot mics. The spot mics sound best to me with a couple ms of delay. The whole Haas effect thing.

 

[miroslav]

I record with a main stereo pair and a couple of spot mics. The spot mics sound best to me with a couple ms of delay. The whole Haas effect thing.

I'm going to assume that you must do some sort of mixdown after you are done tracking...so why don't you just apply the delay at that point in time to whatever tracks you like...?

No need to track with delay.



miroslav

 

[leddy]

I'm going to assume that you must do some sort of mixdown after you are done tracking...so why don't you just apply the delay at that point in time to whatever tracks you like...?

No need to track with delay.



miroslav

I'm not tracking with delay. I'm asking what the best way to add a few ms of delay to a track is during mixdown.

Mixsit understood the issue. The IBP would work, so would dumping the tracks into the PC. That's a step I was trying to see if could avoid, but I may have no choice unless I want to drop a lot of dough. I was wondering if there was any other solution I had not thought of.

 

[mixsit]

I record with a main stereo pair and a couple of spot mics. The spot mics sound best to me with a couple ms of delay. The whole Haas effect thing.

I'm curious about this and how you'd like to manipulate them.
The spots I'm presuming would be ahead in time(?), is delaying them in a way reducing their Hass affect, phase tone combined with the distant mics, maybe both?

 

[vostok88]

First off, what kind of recording gear are you using? (mixing board, recording deck, etc)

Second, if you're just using a basic, all-around 'mixing board' of some type - chances are, it probably has inserts on each (or at least some) of the channels.

Therefore, if you've already tracked your recordings - just 'insert' practically any type of a digital delay unit on that recorded track (like Falken said, 'digital for precision') and just dial in a couple of ms of delay for whatever track you're recording on.

As far as 'what' digital delay to use - you can find hundreds of various 'digital delay' units out there on Ebay for as low as $10 or so. For 'ms' of delay, they'll just about all sound the same anyway.

(I can't see where you would be forced to 'drop a whole lot of dough' for something as simple as this - unless I'm really 'missing' something here)

 

[miroslav]

I'm not tracking with delay. I'm asking what the best way to add a few ms of delay to a track is during mixdown.

Mixsit understood the issue. The IBP would work, so would dumping the tracks into the PC. That's a step I was trying to see if could avoid, but I may have no choice unless I want to drop a lot of dough. I was wondering if there was any other solution I had not thought of.

OK...maybe I'm not seeing the question….

I thought the IBP is something to mainly use on your mics during tracking…though I guess you can also apply it during mixdown.

When I record to tape...I’ll then mixdown through my console, and if I want delay on any tracks, that's the time I will apply it. Usually it will be done with a digital delay, but since it's applied with the console's Aux/FX Returns, the delay is separate from the dry, original...so it works fine that way, and it doesn’t mess up the original analog signal.

Have you tried that approach?

How do you apply reverb to any of your tracks…or other types of processing?



miroslav

 

[leddy]

I'm curious about this and how you'd like to manipulate them.
The spots I'm presuming would be ahead in time(?), is delaying them in a way reducing their Hass affect, phase tone combined with the distant mics, maybe both?

The spots are behind.

If I record a jazz group, for example, the piano and drums are loud enough to get picked up in the stereo pair just fine, but the upright bass might need a little more presence with its own mic. If I add just a couple ms of delay to the bass track, it is much more natural sounding blending with the main pair.

The main pair governs the whole stereo image. If the spot mics are not delayed, they can create some wired effects if the image gets pulled to the spots (since the entire group will bleed a little into the spots). I record similar to the way a orchestra would be recorded, not a rock band.

 

[leddy]

First off, what kind of recording gear are you using? (mixing board, recording deck, etc)

Second, if you're just using a basic, all-around 'mixing board' of some type - chances are, it probably has inserts on each (or at least some) of the channels.

Therefore, if you've already tracked your recordings - just 'insert' practically any type of a digital delay unit on that recorded track (like Falken said, 'digital for precision') and just dial in a couple of ms of delay for whatever track you're recording on.

As far as 'what' digital delay to use - you can find hundreds of various 'digital delay' units out there on Ebay for as low as $10 or so. For 'ms' of delay, they'll just about all sound the same anyway.

(I can't see where you would be forced to 'drop a whole lot of dough' for something as simple as this - unless I'm really 'missing' something here)

Maybe I'm over-thinking. I was concerned some of the cheaper delay pedals and such would degrade the sound. I was looking for the best bang-for-buck delay solution. Maybe a cheap delay would work just fine.

Thanks for the help.

 

[FALKEN]

i think a cheap digi unit might degrade your sound, but if you re-read your first post you didnt ask "what is the best". or "best bang for the buck" you said "most cost effective"

 

[leddy]

i think a cheap digi unit might degrade your sound, but if you re-read your first post you didnt ask "what is the best". or "best bang for the buck" you said "most cost effective"

I said:

What is the most cost-effective bit of gear to get if you need to add a couple milliseconds of delay to a track without affecting the quality?

 

[FALKEN]

true

i dont think you are going to get anything lossless like a daw

 

[leddy]

i dont think you are going to get anything lossless like a daw

Then I need to look at better/more channels of converters instead of other hardware...

 

[mixsit]

The spots are behind.

If I record a jazz group, for example, the piano and drums are loud enough to get picked up in the stereo pair just fine, but the upright bass might need a little more presence with its own mic. If I add just a couple ms of delay to the bass track, it is much more natural sounding blending with the main pair.

The main pair governs the whole stereo image. If the spot mics are not delayed, they can create some wired effects if the image gets pulled to the spots (since the entire group will bleed a little into the spots). I record similar to the way a orchestra would be recorded, not a rock band.

That all makes sense (but for 'the spots are behind part.
I was wondering whether the IBP's phase rotation actually shows up as shift in time as well, and how it applied in your example.
-Guess I'll find out right quick enough as I'm finally about to get a UAD2 rig up and running. Yeah!
With decent conversion going for cheap these days wouldn't be surprised if that spilled down into clean modest price delay units.

 

[leddy]

That all makes sense (but for 'the spots are behind part.
I was wondering whether the IBP's phase rotation actually shows up as shift in time as well, and how it applied in your example.
-Guess I'll find out right quick enough as I'm finally about to get a UAD2 rig up and running. Yeah!
With decent conversion going for cheap these days wouldn't be surprised if that spilled down into clean modest price delay units.

If you hear the same sound from multiple sources, the one you hear first will be the direction from where your brain perceives it to be coming from (the Haas effect).

It makes sense that if you record an ensemble with one main stereo pair of mics, any spot mics have to be panned to coincide with where that instrument appears in the stereo mics.

Even when done right, you still can end up with some issues because that spot mic is likely picking up other instruments. The spot mic is probably closer to the ensemble than the main stereo pair as well. When you bring up the fader on that spot mic, you can sometimes hear the stereo image narrow as everything pulls towards it because you are hearing that spot mic first. Delaying it slightly behind the stereo pair usually makes it sit in the mix without hurting the stereo image.

As to the IBP, I only have the software version on my UAD card. In addition to the phase adjustment, it has up to ms of plain old delay you can use in addition to the phase knob.