Understanding the basics of delay is very important as its one of the most commonly used effects. Once you've got the basics nailed you can start to create your own sounds and techniques. In this tutorial i'll cover the basic parameters that are commonly found on delay plugins. The plugin i use in this tutorial is the Kjaerhus audio classic delay which i think is very good. If you want to know more i have written an article on it here.

What is delay?

Delay is a an time based effect, which means it creates its effect by manipulating the way the sound behaves over time. What delay actually does is take the audio signal that's fed into it and repeats it over time. The resulting sound is like an echo of the original sound, just like if you shouted into a big cave your voice echo's back at you. This was first achieved with tape delay where there was a loop of tape and different record and playback heads which would record and playback the signal as it went round the tape loop. Usually the sound gets quieter everytime its repeated and some times deteriates tonally (this is what old tape delays did). There are different types of delays like tape delay, analog and digital which all have different tonal characteristics. In this tutorial were focusing on software plugins that usually emulate the different sounds.

Parameters

Understanding what each parameter does is important to being able to use delay properly and also gives you the power to manipulate it to create your own sounds. The actual names displayed here may differ from plugin to plugin but they all do the same thing.

Time

The time parameter is probably the most obvious. Time changes how long the delay time is, in other words how long between each delay is heard. Time is usually displayed in milli seconds but more and more plugins sync to the tempo of the sequencer or host, so it might be displayed in fractions of a beat like 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 meaning the higher the second number the faster the delay.

Feedback

The feedback or repeat parameter controls how many of the delay repeats are heard, almost like the decay of the delay. For example if feedback is set to 100% the delay will be never ending. What the feedback parameter actually does is feed the delay signal back into the plugin to create more delays, hence the name.

Low & high cut filters

Not all plugin delays will have this parameter but many good ones do. Basically they allow you to filter out any low or high frequencies. I really like these controls as they allow you to mimic old tape and analog delays which had high pass filters and naturally filtered out frequencies.

Mix

The mix parameter controls the mix between the dry (uneffected signal) and wet (effected signal) signals. This parameter is useful when you use the delay as an insert on a audio track as you can control how much of the original signal is heard. If you are using the delay as an effects send you should have the mix parameter set so only the wet signal is heard as you hear the dry signal from the original track.

Gain

Very simply put it allows you add extra gain to the effect if its too quiet. Not all plugins will have this parameter.

Conclusion

So now you the basic principles and parameters of delay you can go and make your own presets and sounds. Once you've mastered these you can go on the the intermediate and advanced techniques of using delay. The name of the game with delay is to experiment and see what you can get out of it. Check out the related tutorials below to get more information on techniques and the different types of delay.

Zander

Akai MPK25 review

Published: 15. 05. 2008     10 comments

We take a look at the Akai MPK25 midi controller, the smallest of the Akai MPK series of midi controller/keyboard/MPC drum pad/trigger. This is a feature packed controller and promises a lot but does it live up to it's creators repretation?