How do you use tape delays and reverbs (plugins) when mixing?
 

I record simple song demos at home with vocals, guitars, harmonica and maybe a little percussion. When mixing I seldom go further than a little compression, eq, and reverb. Recently been thinkin' about getting into using delays more often for variety.

Please share your favorite tips for using delays on vocals and acoustic guitar. When do you prefer reverb? When do you prefer a delay? When do you combine them? How do you combine them? What are your favorite tape delay plugins?

I like reverb to, in the words of Lebowski, 'tie the room together.' Rather than use it as an effect, I use it as an illusion (yes, everyone was playing together in a room or space). For the most part, I use FAR less reverb than 20-30 years ago. I'm finding that as I play parts better, I can get away with less reverb. I realize I used to use reverb to smooth over choppy or inconsistent performance.

I find I like delays on a single line track such as a solo. It can help create a special space without using more reverb.

Similar with vocals. I find that a little delay goes a long way and need to watch so I don't overdo it.

Longer delays seem to work better for me. I'm not a fan of slap-back as that tends to remind me of poor acoustical environments more than a desirable vibe. I like multi-tap delay as it doesn't sound as mechanical.

Whenever there are two similar parts (lead and harmony vocal, or two acoustic guitars), I like to apply EQ and effects to differentiate them. e.g. I might have a little delay and low mids-rolloff on a lead and then mid bump and tiny bit of chorus on the backing guitar.

In fact, my mixing approach is to find something unique and specific about each instrument and enhance that. My motto is 'if it's not contributing, it is taking something away' so each part had better 'do it's job.'

There is quite a bit of possible info with the multi question. But here goes

While some people prefer a go to delay over reverb, for adding just a bit of "thickening" or ambience and claim it is less defuse than reverb

I tend to like my go to reverb , especially on vocal , but I am lucky and got an outstanding Bricasti M7 hardware unit when they were quite a bit lower priced than currently. I do however add about 60ms of pre delay to let more unprocessed air through

So I tend to use delay only occasionally ( for as you say variety) and for an actual audible echo effect. Usually synced to the BPM of the song
I like the Waves H Delay and have used some of the bundled Digi delays in Pro Tools I really have not tried any Tape Delays (yet)

Thanks for the info Kev. The Waves H Delay is on sale this weekend and I've had my eye on it...

I tend to go with a delay on voice when the voice is in a dense mix because it adds less mud to the overall mix. The exception is when a reverb will match the mood, say on a Celtic type or progressive piece. If I use reverb on the voice I in a big, dense mix I have to manage the rest of the items' reverbs so that the mix doesn't turn to mush.

Like Gordon, I tend to prefer to place the performance in space, and that is how I use reverb.

I've done some really interesting things with reverb on guitar. Guitar is percussive and a lead guitar moves around. Just floating the guitar in a sea of reverb can add too much harmonic content and just the mix to mud. Here is an example where I mixed a lap steel performance and voice with a synth background in the intro to a song. In the guitar solo I was moving the slide a lot so it tended to excite a long, spacey reverb too much. The answer was to create two reverbs, one long and the other short. The lap steel guitar was sent quietly to the short reverb all the time. I then automated the send to the long reverb, ducking it when I was moving the lap steel's slide and then bringing it up to sustain just the last note of each line. Thus I made the guitar swim when I wanted it to and dryed it up when the long reverb would be a complication to the mix.

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Just to give you an idea of what is possible.

Bob

Nice Bob! Listening to your example reminded me of something. This is as far out as I've gone with reverb so far. I used an Eventide Blackhole on my acoustic guitar lead part.

Usually I go for an old school Woody Guthrie/Ramblin Jack/Bob Dylan vibe on my own recordings but this track is a demo by local singer songwriter named Gary Vigil. I recorded Gary singing and playing into a single microphone (UM17R) and then overdubbed the second guitar part using the same mic and guitar. During the mix he kept asking for more reverb. Gary is one of those guys that loves reverb. So I went with the Eventide reverb for the lead guitar part. The whole session was unplanned but somehow it worked OK.

There's a voice and two acoustic guitars here. The other weird sounds come from the Eventide reverb plugin.

Or maybe he's one of those guys that doesn't much love his own voice. The record's really good, though.

I guess my only real "tip" is to play around with the delay's low-pass filter, and don't be afraid to pull it down really low. When you get it right, it can make something seem like it has more "back and sides" without being detectable as a distinct delay.

Yes much better explanation than my vague "thickening"

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement. I did pull the trigger on purchasing the Waves H Delay while it was on sale this weekend. Been experimenting with it this afternoon and it's good for believable Sam Phillips tape delays. Looking forward to exploring the plugin further when I have time to see what else it can do.

Been really liking the Waves H-Reverb recently. I also like McDSP Revolver reverb & the SoundToys new Plate (forget exactly what it's called).

My big thing with reverb is that I aggressively high-pass & low-pass to minimize the amount of focus they draw (I've high-passed as high as 400Hz and low-passed as low as 4kHz). I also duck my reverbs to keep them out of the way. I sometimes also compress just before the plugin on the aux to reduce the signal going into the effect (so it would be EQ > Comp > Reverb > Comp (sidechained for ducking)). But I only find that necessary on very dynamic tracks that might hit the 'verb too hard in a couple places, but not enough in all the other places when turned down. And I always add some pre-delay. Typically timed to the bpm of the song.

As far as delays - I have been using the McDSP EC-300 pretty exclusively lately. Really great plugin for classic delay sound. Again I find it helps a lot to EQ & Duck them as I do the reverbs.

The nice thing about the H-Reverb & The EC-300 is that they have ducking compressors built into the plugin functionality. A big time & resource saver for me.

For me I see them as a dimensional thing. I add a small reverbs to things that need to have more depth. Bigger reverbs to things that need to get pushed back. Delays tend to be more "widening" than dimensional. They just add width & fatness.

I often use both on a lead vocal (very subtly)...but maybe unmuting the delay only in the chorus, for instance.

I also use reverbs to add balance. For instance, if I have a guitar panned hard left, I might add a very short reverb and pan it hard right to spread out the guitar & balance the soundfield without having to move it closer to center. I'm pretty fanatical about leaving the center for lead (vocals or lead instrument), kick, snare & bass. Everything else is panned...usually hard, except for maybe the rest of the drums which stay closer to center (but not too close).

Oh, and speaking of drums, I always add a reverb to my snare & sometimes to the toms (if they have a "bigger than life" part to play in the mix).

This is a super valuable tip. The digital delays we have available do not roll off high frequencies in the same manner as analog delays, therefore you can struggle with getting a delay 'tucked in' properly if you don't pay attention to this.

I use both a low pass and a high pass on most of the reverbs I build. The high pass for voice and instruments and voice is usually somewhere between 350 and 450hz and the low pass is adjusted to taste. I find the high pass to be far more important to me, preventing mud in the mix and tightening up the reverb.

Bob

Forum member Midwinter sat down with me one day while I was mixing his first CD, and he and I discussed this exact thing in length. The high pass is the most important in keeping the low end in the reverb from running away into useless mud:)

I use the 'Abbey Road trick' - high pass @ 600Hz, Low pass @ 10k, 3-4 dB notch at 2k.