Reverb>Delay or Delay>Reverb?

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

When using two f/x units, which should come first? Reverb or Delay? For what reason?

Also, do you have any preferred delay settings? It seems to me that anything less than 300ms just muddies up the reverb.

What about repeats?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Lee, from South Texas

John Daugherty · From: Rolla, Missouri, USA

Lee, FX units I have used that showed me the delay time, were set at ~150ms to sound good to me. Any sound delayed longer than that, will come back to haunt you on the next note. I never used a "so called" electronic reverb,which is a very short time delay. I thought the "reverb" FX "muddied" my sound. Although I have tried a lot of FX units, there are a lot of them I haven't tried.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I read, years ago, to have the reverb as the last thing in the chain.

My T.C. Electronic "G-Major" effects processor has the reverb as the last thing in the factory programs.

If you use effects, such as a delay, with an amp and use the reverb in the amp, then it too has the reverb as the last thing in the string.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

One of our Forumites has lots of ProFex settings on his web site. Lots of different delay settings, some going out over 400 ms. Jack, when you read the chain of f/x from left to right, is that the order they are in the chain?

Click Here

Lee

[This message was edited by Lee Baucum on 13 August 2005 at 01:47 PM.]

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Lee, Yes how they are displayed is the way the chain is hooked together.

However, you have to see if it is in series or parallel. That can make a difference. If they have a "Right Arrow" between the effects then they are in series.

John Rickard · From: Phoenix (It's A Dry Heave) AZ

Reverb Last. Experiment with delay times and levels, thats half the fun!

JR

[This message was edited by John Rickard on 14 August 2005 at 03:45 AM.]

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

A lot of it depends if you want the input of your delay to be from the reverb ie if you put the reverb first the delays will actually have a reverb tail on them and if you have the delay first then the actual delayed note will be without any effects.

If that is as clear as mud I'm sorry but it's kind of hard to explain it without confusing people. It would be easier to draw a picture to explain it. If anyone is that interested I'll draw a little diagram and it will become clear.

Bob

Larry Bell · From: Englewood, Florida

Regardless how attached steel players are to their reverb, it is a fact that reverb adds MUD to the sound. Don't get me wrong, I like reverb and use it most all the time, but too much reverb is a common sign of a novice steel player who will try to use reverb to make up for bad technique. I've seen and heard it often.

Delay, on the other hand, can be used to tastefully enhance the reverb without adding as much mud. It is really important to avoid overusing delay as well, but a good mixture of 2 or 3 delay repeats with just a hint of reverb can clean up your sound, compared to using a bunch of reverb.

For settings (assuming both your reverb and delay allow you to tweak the parameters), I like to use shorter delay with fewer repeats on uptempo tunes and longer delay time and 3 or maybe 4 repeats on slow songs. A spring reverb only has one control -- use less for fast songs and a bit more for slower songs. If you have an electronic reverb that allows more 'tweaking', make the room size smaller with less pre-delay on fast songs and more of a 'hall' room size on slower ones, perhaps with more pre-delay.

The objective is to turn a dry, one dimensional sound into a spacious sound -- less on fast tunes; more on slow tunes.

And, yes, reverb AFTER delay (and everything else). Think about it, do you want delay on your reverb tail (I don't)?

Use effects as a TOOL -- play THEM -- don't let them play YOU.

My two centavos, in any case.

------------------
Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

In the natural environment, echos come off walls and then are blended into the ambient reverb of the room.

Reverberation is a blending of many echoes of various times,
with different frequncy related decay times.

Big Bob said it well too.
A reverb feeding a delay will add a reverb decay off EACH echo repeat.

A delay into the reverb will cause a natural decay from each repeat decending in level,
into the revreb space.

MOST of the time it is delay into reverb to simulate nature.
But if you like you can do the other for an effect.

As too Mud : No reverb at all can sound unatural, since most all environments have some.

It is a question of how far up in the mix to put the reverb.

Very low, but there, will likely add a sence of space to your sound,
too much will become clutter or MUD.

Now there are pre-delays on most reverb units, this is like the distance to the first wall that bounces the sound. Roughly aproximated in miliseconds.
This means the reverb will not sound until after that 1st wall is hit.

But a delay unit into a reverb unit is adding repeats of the original sound,
that then are reverberated.
This reverb still could have a pre-delay also,
It would be best on the shorter side in this usage.

Hope this helps.
DD

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 14 August 2005 at 01:51 PM.]

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

I have two f/x units in my rack. I use one for delays and the other for reverbs. To my ears, it most certainly sounds the best to have the reverb last. I use a Lex MPX-100 for reverb. I have 3 reverbs saved in the user presets, small hall, medium hall , and large hall. On the other unit I have saved 3 delays, 200ms, 250ms, and 300ms. I like to have one very subtle repeat near the end of the reverb tail. I keep the repeat way down in the mix, so that it doesn't trigger another reverb tail and muddy things up. Of course, different bandstands and venues call for different mixes.

I suppose another way to run things would be in parallel, out to the two inputs of the amp. I wonder how that would work.

Lee

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