Related:
Using separate reverbs on each instrument in a DAW recording gives a
richer mix that just a single reverb on the master channel.
Back in the analog days, you'd use the multitrack tape and mixer
to do multiple passes through the best reverb in the studio.
In the early DAW days, you'd have to do the same (because of
limited CPU power and the overhead of a good reverb plug-in).
Replacing some of the reverbs with delays gave the same result,
adding a little bit of space around each instrument that didn't
build up into a mess.
A well programmed delay would be 2nd on my list of desert island
plug-ins after a good reverb.
I think the delays are still used on music you hear on the radio,
but it's dialed back in subtlety.
---
Tom.
On 7/20/2015 9:43 AM, Theo Verelst wrote:
Hi all,
No theoretical dumbfounding or deep searching incantations from me this
Monday, but just something I've through about and that somehow has since
long been a part of music and analog and digital productions.
I recall when I was doing some computer audio experiments say in the
early 80s that there was this tantalizing effect that outside of special
tape based machines hadn't really existed as an effect for using with
random audio sources: the digital delay. I recall I was happy when I'd
used (low fidelity) AD and DA converters and a early home computer with
64 kilobytes of memory to achieve an echo effect. It was fun. For
musical purposes, a bit later I used various digital effect units that
optionally could act as a delay line, and with a feedback control, as an
echo unit.
It seems however that with time, the charm of the effect wore off. Just
like nowadays some people occupy themselves with (arguably desirable)
reverb reduction, it seems that using a delay isn't very cool anymore,
doesn't necessarily make your audio workstation output prettier waves
when playing a nice solo, and even it makes samples sound uglier when a
digital delay effect is used on them, now that everybody with a computer
and a sound card can do some audio processing, in a way that's a shame.
Some of the early charm must have been that the effect was featured in
popular music, and wasn't easy enough to get for a hobbyist in the 70s,
and possibly that the grungy and loose feel of the low bit depth and the
jittery or modulated AD/DA converter clock signals was only fun while it
lasted. Maybe instruments aren't designed to sound good with a delay
effect either, or there's a conflict with audio system's internal
processing, and as last suggestion, the studio "delay" effect does a
little bit more than just delaying that makes it so addictive...
T.
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