PAR T 13 The Delay BY ALEX CASE Part 1 of our look at having audio wait around a bit before hitting your ears Fir st some mus i c . Hum or sing Fig u r e 1 explains what’s going on a random delay time, dial in a mus i - along with me the tune at the console. Ho w do you set up cal delay time instead. Should it ‘C o m fo r t ab l y Numb’ from The Wall by the delay unit itself? Most delays repeat with a quarter note rhyt h m , Pink Floyd . You know the first line: ha ve avai l a ble the controls shown in an 8th note, a triplet,...? Hello (Hello...hello...hello). Is there Fig u r e 2: input and/or output level , One way to do this is simply by lis- any b o d y in there? de l a y time, and reg e n e r ation control . te n i n g . Typ i c a l l y, we use the snare to This is a classic use of a long delay. Input/output levels are self- ‘tune’ a delay—to set a musical delay The drea m y, di s t u r b e d , out of mind exp l a n a t o r y. De l a y time can be fixed ti m e . Ev en if you plan to add delay state of our friend Pink is enhanced or var i a ble—using the three modula- to the voc a l , the piano, or the guitar, by (the entire, brilliant roc k and rol l tion controls (rat e , depth and it is usually easiest to use the snare ar ra n g e m e n t , including) this rep e a t - shape)—as we’ll see in later exa m - for setting the delay time both in g , ge n t l y fading echo . pl e s . The Regeneration control , because it is a rhythm instrument How ’ s it done? Perhaps the sim- sometimes called the feedback con- and because it hits so often. So muc h plest way is to use a post fader aux tro l , sends the output of the delay of pop music has a back beat—the send from the vocal to the delay, ba c k into itself. That is, a delayed sn a r e falling reg u l a r ly on beat two wh i c h is returned on a separat e signal can be further delayed by run- and beat fou r . fader (see Fig u r e 1a). This sends the ning it back through the delay again. Send the snare to the delay and voi c e , with all its compression and This is how the delay is made to listen to the echo . Starting with a eq u a l i z a t i o n , to the delay. We have repeat more than once, as happens long delay time of about 250 mil- full control of the return from the to the wor d ‘h e l l o .’ li s e c o n d s , adjust the delay time until de l a y as it is on its own fad e r . As we’ll see throughout this and it falls onto a mus i c a l l y rel e van t Wel l , al m o s t . Pat c hing it up this ne xt month’s article, the simple con- be a t . This can be mighty confusing. way would add a delay to the entire tr ols of Fig u r e 2 empower the delay It may help at first to pan the snare vocal perfor m a n c e , not just the wor d to become a fan t a s t i c a l l y diver se sig- off to one side and the delay ret u r n ‘h e l l o .’ So we resort to an automated nal proc e s s o r . In the case of the long to the other. send as shown in Fig u r e 1b. No w we de l a y used by Pink Floyd , we need to It ’ s pretty jarring to hear a delay ha ve a fader and cut button dedicat- set the delay time to the approp r i a t e fall at a non-musical time interval . ed to the control of the send into the length of time and add enough reg e n - But when you adjust it into the time de l a y, not just the ret u r n . er ation to make the echo repeat a of the mus i c , you’ll instantly feel it. This echo send remains cut most fe w times. The other controls on the It is easiest to find a quarter note of the song. You briefly open it up de l a y aren ’ t necessary here. de l a y, but with practice and concen- for the wo rd ‘ h e l l o,’ and pre s t o — tra t i o n , you can dial in triplet and that single wo rd starts to ech o. How long is long? dotted rhythms too. Put this into automation and 99.9% of the time these echo e s Sometimes we ca l c u l a te a delay you’ll get the perfectly tailore d should be set to a time that makes time instead. Ho w is this calculated? d e l ay eve ry time. musical sense. That is, do n ’ t just pick Bear with me here, as some equations RECORDING JULY 2000 ar e about to appear. If you know the tempo of the song (we’ll call it T) in beats per minute (BPM) and you wan t to calculate the length of a quarter note delay in milliseconds (Q), do the fol l ow i n g : - First convert beats per minute into minutes per beat by taking the rec i p ro c a l : T beats per minute becomes 1/T minutes per beat. - Then convert from minutes to milliseconds: 1/T minutes per beat x 60 seconds per minute x 1,000 milliseconds per second. - The length of time of a quarter note in milliseconds per beat is: Q = (60 x 1,000)/T = 60,000/T For example, we know a song with 60 beats per minute ticks like a watch, with a quarter note occurring exactly once per second. Let’s try using the equation. T = 60: Q = 60,000/T = 60,000/60 = 1,000 msec (one second) per quarter note Double the tempo to 120 bpm. T = 120: Q = 60,000/T = 60,000/120 = 500 msec (half a second) per quarter note I use milliseconds because that is the measurement most delay units exp e c t . Kn o wing the quarter note de l a y makes it easy to then calculate the time value of an 8th note, a 16th no t e , dotted or triplet val u e s , et c . Some newer delay devi c e s , li k e the TC D-Two revi e wed elsewh e r e in this is s u e , let you display delay times in either milliseconds or bpm direc t l y, but remember that you need to know be fo r e you look at a bpm value if the Figure 1a) Constant Send - Use an Aux Send (literally an Echo Send) de l a y is calculating a quarter note or some other length. or Spare Track Bus to send the Vocal to the Delay In the ‘C o m fo r t ab l y Numb’ exa m - ple abo ve, th e y clever ly use a dotted The quarter note delay stron g l y The delay time they chose has the 8th note delay. It is worth tran s c r i b - em p h a s i z es the time of the song; it’s effect of inserting a 16th note rest in ing it for some production insight. ord e r ly and persi s t e n t . Sing it to be t w een each repeat of the word . The tune is drea m y and lazy in you r self as a quarter note delay: Hello is sung on the down b e a t . te m p o , mo ving at about 64 bpm. The Hello x x hello x x hello.. Thi s The echo never again falls on a tw o syllables of ‘hello’ are sung as would make it seem like Pink is do wn beat. Fir st it anticipates beat 16th notes. being nagged or pushed aro u n d .S i n g tw o by a 16th note, then it falls on To appreciate the perfection in the 8th note delay and you find the the “a n d ” of beat two. It then falls a Pink Floyd ’ s dotted 8th note delay repeats fall one after the other, wi t h 16th after beat three . Fin a l l y, it dis- ti m e , le t ’ s consider two other, mo r e no rest in between the wor ds: hello ap p e a r s as the next line is sung.