Delay
Delay is a simple effect similar to an echo. It simply records and repeats whatever you are playing, delayed by a time setting. The "magic" of highly regarded delay units vs. budget units are the extras - these may be additional controls, desirable artifacts left by the delay mechanism (or simulations of them), or the delay's use in combination with other gear, such as other delays or a reverb.
Contents
Common Controls
Delay effects typically come with the following controls:
- Time/Rate - Sets how long to wait before replaying the input signal.
- Feedback - The volume at which the delayed signal is fed back into the delay unit. This determines how many echoes you hear. 0% = 1 repeat. 100% = infinite repeats. 50% = many repeats, but 50% as loud for each iteration.
- Mix - The volume of the delayed signal relative to the input signal. For some delays, 100% mix means an equal mix of the input signal and the delayed signal. For others, 100% mix means muting the input signal and only playing the delayed signal. Some units will specify the volume of the dry and wet signals. Most that feature 100% wet/0% dry will have most of their range dedicated to 100% dry and variable wetness, with the smaller remainder used to diminish the dry signal while the wet is at 100%. For example, ~40% would be 50% wet/100% dry, ~80% would be 100% wet/100% dry, and 90% would be 100% wet/50% dry.
Additional Features
Tap Tempo
Many delays allow you to tap a switch 2 or more times in order to determine a tempo. Rather than define Time/Rate in terms of ms, it's specified in terms of note duration. For example, rather than say 500 ms, we could say 1 quarter note, which equals 500 ms when playing in 4/4 at 120 bpm.
The advantage of tap tempo is that you can align your delays to occur on the beat, leading to a more coherent-sounding rhythm, without knowing exactly what the tempo will be. This is essential for live situations where there is no click track or other device to make sure everyone is playing exactly at the desired tempo. For instance, if the drummer pushes the beat by just 1 bpm, eventually your delays would be far off the beat. Tap tempo prevents this, allowing you to adjust the delay's timing on the fly.
Modulation
Some delays can apply a chorus-like modulation to the delayed signal, making it more distinguished from the original signal. This can make for a bigger sound, without hurting the clarity of your real-time playing.
Tone
Whether it's implemented as a dampening control, more traditional bass/mids/treble, or even a fully parametric EQ, some delays allow you to adjust the tone of the delayed signal. This also helps distinguish your current playing from your delays. I find I prefer my delays to be darker than my original signal, which makes them sound more like real echoes - the farther the distance sound travels, the more highs it loses. But you can also get some interesting cave or room-like sounds by focusing in the midrange or upper midrange area.
Many tone controls simply apply to the output of the unit, so all your delay trails sound equally dark/bright. Some units incorporate tone-shaping (or it is inherent from the delay mechanism) that really affects the feedback loop vs. the final output. This allows the tone of the delay trails to change over time.
Stereo Delay
Some delays function like 2 delays in one, outputting two different signals, each with their own delay settings. This significantly widens the stereo spectrum, without impacting your real-time playing like some choruses or similar effects would. You can do interesting things like use one really short delay (100-200 ms) to thicken up the sound like a quasi-reverb, while adding the more spacy echo sound on the other side (~600-700 ms).
Some delays only give you a ratio between the stereo delays, rather than independent time controls. This means the delays will sync up and "collide", giving a metallic, ringing sound. For longer delays, this can actually sound quite nice, but for shorter delays it tends to sound a bit weird. To avoid this as much as possible, choose ratios that have high least common multipliers and count how many delays the shorter delay will make before "colliding" with the other delay. For instance, a ratio of 3:5 has a LCM of 15, with 5 delays on the short one before colliding. 3:7 has an LCM of 21, with 7 delays before collision. A 6:7 ratio has an LCM of 42 with 7 delays before collision. These are all pretty good. On the other hand, 1:2 has an LCM of 2 with only 2 delays before collision.
Tape/Bucket Brigade Mode
Most delays are digital units, capable of buffering the input audio without any loss or impact to tone. Earlier analog delay units used tape or bucket brigade technology to create delays, and these had significant impact on tone. Many players associated these units with a certain warmth or vintage quality that was missing in the digital units. Thus, many delays now have switches for analog/tape/bucket brigade operation, simulating the tonal impact these mediums had on the tone.
In addition to simple frequency changes, these could provide certain artifacts like tape crackle or slight distortion. And multi-head tape delays could add some reverb-like "smearing" to the delays, making them a bit softer, allowing them to fill the mix without having too much chaotic direct echoes.
Advice/Tricks
Fake Double Track
If you want to get a double-tracked-like sound but have to do it live with one guitar, you can use a low-feedback, very short delay. You want like 5-20 ms of delay, 0% feedback, and like 80% wet to 100% dry mix. Obviously, it's not as good as the real deal - a real double track (that's well-done) has essentially random comb filters, while a fixed delay has a fixed comb filter. That's gonna leave some nulls and can hurt your high end presence. Personally, I'd rather use some reverb, compression, or more distortion to thicken up the sound.
Stereo Delays
Here's some cool ways to set up a stereo delay:
- Ping-Pong - Some delays have a ping-pong mode where the delay will repeat every X ms, but it will alternate between L to R each time, sounding like the delay is bouncing back and forth. This is more difficult to program without a specific mode. Say you want 100 ms. So the L is 100, 300, 500... while the R is 200, 400, 600... The R can be done with a simple 200 ms delay, but the L needs a 200 ms delay, with 100% dry/100% wet mix, run through another 100 ms delay with no feedback and fully wet (100% wet/0% dry).
- Even Ratio - Setting your delays to nice, even (or small) integer ratios, and then using tap tempo to get them to all line up on the beat can thicken up the guitar tone without being obviously there.
- Poorly Synced Ratios - if a stereo delay allows independent timing (or you can just use two mono delays), use values that rarely sync up to get a very ambient, spacy sound. If it only allows a set number of ratios, use the ones that have a high least common multiple, which should mean most repeats will be out-of-sync.
- One Short, One Long - You can use a short delay with higher feedback, in combination with a longer delay with lower feedback to get both a reverb-like sound as well as an echo sound.
Nice Echoes
I find around 600-700 ms is a good range for a distinct echo. A good setting with a low feedback to get maybe 2-3 repeats. To get a more realistic sound, I find you should darken the tone slightly - this is similar to a real echo that has to travel a far distance. The highs tend to weaken over distance more than other frequencies.
Pitch Effects via Rate Changes
A neat trick is changing the rate/time with an expression pedal for pitch effects that mimic the chipmunks sound. If you can program to cap the ranges of the expression pedal, you can program purposeful whammy jumps on your delays.
100% Feedback
Using 100% feedback means anything you play will never go away. At first it just sounds like a looper, but as you add more and more to it, you are eventually overwhelmed as it becomes a chaotic, noisy mess. You can then toggle it off and back on and start over.
Building Chords
Some players set their delay to their tempo with a very high mix and play single note arpeggios, such that the current playing and delays line up to make intervals and chords. This works best with a digital delay to sound like truly layered guitars.
Staccato Playing
Similar to building chords above, we can use a digital delay to combine current and past playing; however, here we can play melodies that have repeated notes in a regular pattern, having our delays line up between the staccato notes we play, so that it sounds like you are playing twice as fast. See Extreme's He-Man Woman Hater intro, where Nuno does Flight of the Bumblebee.