Delay Mix Live vs Home

welshboyo

Gigs....remember them?

So, just had a bit of an epiphany moment (either that or I've had too much coffee) and I'm actually starting to wonder if my constant battling with how things feel under fingers live vs home is actually to do with my delay mixes.

I tend to use a pretty low mixed delay on my lead sounds to just fill the sound out (and cover up my bum notes!) - at home its fine and nice an easy, however, at gig levels I have always felt that my sounds are a bit dry and exposed (if that makes sense) - if I turn that delay off at home then that dry feeling returns - so I'm wondering of those delay mixes are too quiet at gig volume?

Now I know some of you will say practice without delay, but a lot of the stuff we tend to do (80's rock mainly) does lend itself to needing that type of gained up, delayed sound.

so, do you all run higher mixes in a live setting vs what you run at lower volume/home settings?

WiresDreamDisasters

I run my delay mixes quite high. And I have specific patches/presets for clean tones versus gain tones. If I'm going single pedals, then sometimes I even have dedicated pedals for clean and dirty, so I can dial them in to where I want them. I run everything up front.

Cirrus

It's about what else is happening.

At home, you can hear the delay even if the first echo is 1/4 the volume of the dry sound.

Once there's the rest of a band playing along and your guitar is set so that your dry sound can be heard but doesn't drown out the rest of the band, that first delay at 1/4 volume is totally lost in the mix in exactly the same way that your playing would be if you turned the amp's volume down 75%.

So, just turn the delay up until you hear what you want to hear. But then maybe turn the feedback down so it's not muddying things up.

FarleyUK

Great post. As I'm the only guitarist in the band - and run stereo - I tend to have my delay mix for solos fairly high (around 30%), with some ducking on it and the feedback set for just a couple of repeats. It's a real fine balance between a noisy mess and a nuanced delay though!

I find a high delay setting with the right ducking really helps to expand the sound and fill things nicely - especially with dual delays / circular delays in stereo.

welshboyo

FarleyUK said:

Great post. As I'm the only guitarist in the band - and run stereo - I tend to have my delay mix for solos fairly high (around 30%), with some ducking on it and the feedback set for just a couple of repeats. It's a real fine balance between a noisy mess and a nuanced delay though!

I find a high delay setting with the right ducking really helps to expand the sound and fill things nicely - especially with dual delays / circular delays in stereo.

Ok that’s very interesting and being a fellow Fractal user I can see where the ducking stuff could come into play - be interesting to know what your ducking thresholds and settings are as I’ve never actually got my head around them if I’m honest!!

FarleyUK

welshboyo said:

FarleyUK said:

Great post. As I'm the only guitarist in the band - and run stereo - I tend to have my delay mix for solos fairly high (around 30%), with some ducking on it and the feedback set for just a couple of repeats. It's a real fine balance between a noisy mess and a nuanced delay though!

I find a high delay setting with the right ducking really helps to expand the sound and fill things nicely - especially with dual delays / circular delays in stereo.

Ok that’s very interesting and being a fellow Fractal user I can see where the ducking stuff could come into play - be interesting to know what your ducking thresholds and settings are as I’ve never actually got my head around them if I’m honest!!

No worries! I'll take a look later and will let you know - but from memory, it's everything in the ducker section at default apart from the threshold set to around 8 I think.

I also tend to have the delays in parallel - the lead delay is 100% mix and -6db level.

EricTheWeary

When I saw Bumblefoot at the guitar show in isolation his guitar sound was bright and had a shed load of delay. He was demonstrating things and it made my teeth hurt. But it sat completely right when he put the backing tracks up. 
Having said that what isn't nice is hearing too much delay, that you've got a mate playing along slightly out of time thing. My impression is that's often just too much digital delay. Tiny amount of reverb can soften the trails as well 
Bumblefoot did a couple of tc toneprints at one point, if I ever suddenly start playing 80s rock they would be my starting place. There's a video of Paul Gilbert showing how he gets his 'ambience' from delay+reverb somewhere. I think he does use digital delay but reverb and often a bit of modulation softens it out. Again, quite often more delay than you'd think but it disappears to some extent in the band mix. 

Roland

Interesting discussion because my experience of a two guitar band, was that the other guitarist muddied up the band’s sound by using bedroom level effects. It also annoyed my ear when different players used different reverb settings. So I’ve used minimal delay and reverb settings.

What I’m drawing from this thread is that I should be using louder but shorter delay and reverb trains.

Stratavarious

Yep, i crank the delay mix live and lower the reverb to make it more distinct.  Gets mush otherwise

chris45

Stratavarious said:

Yep, i crank the delay mix live and lower the reverb to make it more distinct.  Gets mush otherwise

Yes I play in a 2 guitar band and when I play a solo my Helix solo preset takes any reverb to practically zero and bumps the delay volume.  Typically I have my repeats set to 1/4 beat and with the first two repeats quite audible, after that barely there.
I find ducking delay very song dependent and I’ve made the mistake of setting the ducking amount too high such that the trails swelling back in is too noticable (when the rest of the band turn to look at you) and not in a good way.

kennedydream1980

I think there is a TPS episode with Steven Wilson where they touch on this subject. I’m sure he says in the episode that he lowers the mix levels of both his Delay and Reverb when playing live, compared to his home settings.

welshboyo

Thanks everyone for their replies, some tweaking to be done I think - I don’t actually use reverb as I find delay is enough so it looks like I might need to tweak the mix for that and possibly look at the ducking stuff that @FarleyUK mentioned which exists in many of the delays on 

Danny1969

Do you have anyone mixing your gigs ? Generally tap tempo'ed delay with rides on the return work really well with solo's .. basically the same as you would do for a vocal. All the iPad aps tend to have tap tempo buttons now so it's not a big money desk thing 
I like delay but if the delays out of time with the song it doesn't work as well and jars a bit 

Gassage

All depends on where you're playing too- small= more wet, big = less wet.

Cirrus

kennedydream1980 said:

I think there is a TPS episode with Steven Wilson where they touch on this subject. I’m sure he says in the episode that he lowers the mix levels of both his Delay and Reverb when playing live, compared to his home settings.

Iirc he runs his delays in front of a crunchy amp, with that all bets are off since there'll be loads of extra compression keeping the echoes up in volume

johnhe

I think this is a really useful question. The problem (IMO) is that everyone has a very different opinion on what “too much delay” is. 

I personally think that nothing ruins a guitarist’s live tone for me more than when I hear them using too much delay live - but that’s a very personal thing. I also often struggle for clarity in a live mix, and find that slightly less reverb and delay often works better for me in a live setting.

I think there is really no substitute to asking a friend to video you playing live - and try a couple of different delay effects levels. Even if the video quality is not great, you should be able to get a decent idea of what the best level is for the sound in your head.

Dan_Halen

I grew up listening to 80s rock and that’s the sort of lead sound I gravitate to as well.

I’d tend to have the mix as high as I could get it sensibly but with a darker delay or one that lets you roll the top off. It kind of gives you that wash behind the guitar whilst still allowing clarity for your playing. Same for the verb.

JMP220478

Try using an expression pedal to vary delay level according to taste / song / solo etc - ala Andy Timmons - if you using an axe fx - you can also easily  play with positioning in signal chain for best sound / compression etc ...

BTW - which of your guitar idols has the best delay sounds you like ?  And would they fit your band style / material ?

Kebabkid

JMP220478 said:

Try using an expression pedal to vary delay level according to taste / song / solo etc - ala Andy Timmons - if you using an axe fx - you can also easily  play with positioning in signal chain for best sound / compression etc ...

BTW - which of your guitar idols has the best delay sounds you like ?  And would they fit your band style / material ?

this and Steve Morse does this, too

Us 80s boys can't do without our delay

welshboyo

JMP220478 said:

Try using an expression pedal to vary delay level according to taste / song / solo etc - ala Andy Timmons - if you using an axe fx - you can also easily  play with positioning in signal chain for best sound / compression etc ...

BTW - which of your guitar idols has the best delay sounds you like ?  And would they fit your band style / material ?

This is a very good idea actually and I was fiddling with this yesterday, it does mean another EXP pedal on my board but wahey an excuse to buy something else!!

Massive Lukather/Schon fan here and I suppose that’s the type of thing I gravitate to and it does fit in with 80% of the material we cover - the other stuff I do ease back on the fx to suit the song instead of making an 80’s guitar sound full of pitch detune, circular delays and gain fit into Brown Eyed Girl (I ‘kin hate that song…)

and yes Cos @Kebabkid we 80’s kids definitely can’t do without a bit of delay…:-)

FarleyUK

welshboyo said:

JMP220478 said:

Try using an expression pedal to vary delay level according to taste / song / solo etc - ala Andy Timmons - if you using an axe fx - you can also easily  play with positioning in signal chain for best sound / compression etc ...

BTW - which of your guitar idols has the best delay sounds you like ?  And would they fit your band style / material ?

This is a very good idea actually and I was fiddling with this yesterday, it does mean another EXP pedal on my board but wahey an excuse to buy something else!!

Massive Lukather/Schon fan here and I suppose that’s the type of thing I gravitate to and it does fit in with 80% of the material we cover - the other stuff I do ease back on the fox to suit the song instead of making an 80’s guitar sound full of pitch detune, circular delays and gain fit into Brown Eyed Girl (I ‘kin hate that song…)

and yes Cos @Kebabkid we 80’s kids definitely can’t do without a bit of delay…:-)

Yeah, I've always used a pedal to control delay mix (in parallel) on the AFX3. I've actually got a second EXP pedal just sitting around, as I have no real need to use it - which is rather annoying!