PRODUCTION: WHAT IS DELAY?
Hello, hello, hello, hello…
How, how, how, how
are, are, are, are
you, you, you, you??
I guess that is the simplest way to show what delay is. So what is delay?
Delay is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time. Another word for it is Echo
Delay is usually used to add space to an instrument so it won’t sound to dry or bland. In popular and electronic music, electric guitarists use delay to produce densely overlaid textures of notes with rhythms complementary to the music. Vocalists and instrumentalists use it to add a dense or ethereal quality to their singing or playing. Extremely long delays of 10 seconds or more are often used to create loops of a whole musical phrase.
You can make delay really fast or you can slow down the delay to where it almost sounds like you’re playing your instrument twice. Explore and see what sounds best. Just like anything in music, delay can either make you or break you. Be wise about how much delay you use. Usually you have three main aspects of a delay
TIME
MIX
FEEDBACK
The TIME means how fast you want the delay to be.
The MIX or volume just tells the delay how loud you want the delay to be. Do you want the delay signal to be as loud as the original or do you want it to be more in the background.
FEEDBACK is how much of the delay you want to allow to be heard. For example say you put the delay to 400ms (MiliSeconds) .. the mix to around 50% and feedback at 100… you’re going to get a delay that is behind the main instrument at a reasonably fast pace however the feedback will last a long time so when you go try to change to a different chord the delay from the previous chord will still be playing. This can be very bad. If you turn down the feedback, to around 30% you will get the delay to be heard but it will drop or lose volume rather quickly.
So it really depends on the type of sound you want. Experiment with your sounds and different delays to get the sound you’re looking for.