Delay over Reverb

M

Mox

New member
Help! I have had people say "instead of reverb, just set the delay to the BPM and call it a day."....and then walk away like I know what the F* that means, I can't find the big button that says "just click here" on it! I understand that delay will retain the attack that you lose with reverb, but everytime I mess with delay, it's either nothing, or a Pink Floyd concert. I use Sonar (XL) and have waves-n-shiznit plugins and I use reverb for snare (some overhead) and vocals...and I play rock...



post away!
 
I suppose you could use delay as a weak substitute for a reverb since a reverb effect is essentially a simluation of the infinite number of delays a sound wave encounters as it bounces around a room...but...

Setting the delay to some interger multiple or fraction of the Beats per Minute (BPM) or tempo of your song is common practice simply because it sounds very pleasant to the human ear. Guitarists like The Edge (U2) use this quite a bit.

I did a google search on BPM and delay (+BPM +delay) and got a bunch of hits. You'll find all the formulas you need plus a little bit of the science if you're interested.
 
Time cruncher

SOmeone here posted this and I use it now for quick refferencing... do a web search as im sorry, I dont have the link...
 
reverb and delay

I've heard of people using delay to 'fatten' up a track by using a very subtle amount of delay. When you use the delay in bpm, you will be getting an echo that stays in time with the song...but it will be more that...a repeating echo like yelling in the grand canyon. All delay plug-ins don't have this feature...its usually called a tempo delay because you can set the tempo in terms of bpm (beats per minute). Typically you'll just have a delay, or a multi-tap delay where you actually specify in ms the amount of time between the original sound, and the subsequent 'echos'. When people use this plug in to enrich a sound they might only use the delay a slight bit panned to one side...its just something to mess around with and practice. You can also control the volume level of each 'tap' or echo for interesting effects.
 
also, keep the dry level the same, but make sure the effect level is quite a few dB lower.......if you keep the effect level the same as the dry level it makes for a much different effect than when you turn it down........with it turned down, it can have a more reverbish effect
 
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