Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Things You’ll Need:
- DAW
- Delay (digital or analog)
Step1
It's important to understand that delays are time based. Most delays can be synched to the tempo of the music so that the residual echo is "in time" with the rest of the song. If you add a delay to a recorded track and do not adjust the delay time with the tempo it will sound messy and erratic.
Step2
The most obvious use of delay is on a lead vocal. It is often used to extend the length of a vocal phrase. It can also add depth and dimension.
Let's say we have a vocal to which we want to apply a bit of echo. We'll assume the music is being performed in an eighth note fashion. Let's adjust the delay time to create a delay of a sixteenth note. At this point we have an echo after the note sung. This is only the beginning. We can now manipulate this echo to sound more realistic.
If you ever stood on a mountain and shouted, you may recall your voice being echoed. Another thing you may recall is how the voice gradually decayed lower in volume. What you may also remember is the way the voice became "darker" as it decayed. This is because the farther away something is, the duller it sounds--it's not focused. We can emulate this phenomenon by adding a high-pass filter to the delay. This will create the illusion of the vocal getting darker and darker as it decays.
Step3
I tend to use very short delays on most any instrument. I often prefer it over the density of reverbs in a large mix. Too much reverb and your mix can get cloudy and unfocused.
Step4
Try applying a 16ms delay to a single guitar track panned hard left. Now place a delay send on the track and pan it hard right, slowly bringing up the delay to match the guitar's level on the left. This is another psycho-acoustic phenomenon. It brings the single guitar into a more stereo-ized dimension.
