Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, I'm doing alright Jody. it's another episode of Inside the Recording Studio and I am Jody Whitesides. And with me, as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom. How are you today, Chris? Well, you know, it's kind of going in line with today's topic. How about you? You sound very chipper today. You're a little bit more melodic with the intro than usual.
Yeah. Enhancing vocals with delays and more specifically ones that are not always What are we talking about? [ in tempo, but we'll probably touch on some tempo stuff too. It can, it certainly can.
Sure, there's something that I think we all do to a certain degree, right? At least use delay on vocals. It always gives a nice big atmosphere, right? So, yeah, and I guess we should talk a little bit just briefly, gloss over. I think most people probably comfortable with but the type of processing that we generally do on vocals. And what's that? that we generally do on vocals. Well, I'm thinking obviously like EQ compression, then reverb and possibly some delay, right?
Sure. Not necessarily in that order, but that's a general thing. Mm-hmm. But we're focusing on the delay today. So most of the time I'm tempo syncing, are you? Mm. Sort of. Sort of. Most of the time when I use delays, they're not necessarily synced perfectly to the beat. (silence) (silence) So I'm a little bit different than you in that. Well, I think I know what you're getting out there. If you have slight offsets, like you might have a setting. Yes. Or you have your chart to do it for you.
So let's say that, for example, you end up with basically a quarter note repeat, and then you turn off the sync and then you tweak the millisecond value a little bit. Or if you're clever enough, or you've listened to that episode how to figure out the milliseconds, or you got a chart or you got your calculator. But anyways, you kind of offset that a little bit to make it possibly a little bit more pronounced. Uh huh.
Do you have a favorite where you kind of go to, is it generally like a quarter note? Is it your half note or do you go shorter or do you have a sort of like a starting point? 'Cause I know you probably have a sound in mind where you as your launching point, I guess. I'm ready. The answer to this is it is get ready to take a drink. Program dependent. Cheers. (laughs) Sure. Chairs exactly, it would take a little sip. Program dependent.
I will not always do a specific delay in terms of its repeat value, eighth note, 16th note, 30 second, quarter note. It really depends on the space that I'm thinking that it needs to fill. Yeah. That would be the simple answer on that. Now, in terms of enhancing the vocal with delay, The first thing that I might think of in terms of this is actually just I know that's something that you do way more than I do, but it can be very effective. beyond the concept of chorus and flange with a slap.
I do it a lot. I do it on almost every lead vocal. Well, see, I rest my case. Yes. (laughs) (indistinct) And the reason for that is I like to create that immediate intimacy (indistinct) followed by the space that it can create by having that slap before the any other effect really hits, if that makes any sense.
And it's enough of that difference beyond the chorusing value or flanging value that it gives you, to me, it gives me, I should say, a much more intimate effect on the vocal, even though there's gonna be substantially more space around it created by other effects. Right. Okay. So you're using... And that's why I tend to use the slap. So it's more of an ambience type of a thing where you're creating almost like a mood. Oh, no, no, no.
And I'm assuming you don't go with a whole bunch of repeats. This might be one or two. No, if is for the first thing in terms of with a delay with a slap, it's not a whole Right. bunch of delay. Right. It's literally one. It's like literally one. Now whether it's spread out stereo wise or not, that's a little bit different. So you're putting.. And if I'm spreading it stereo wise, yes, the milliseconds are going to be off. Mm-hm.
And is it going to be the exact value in milliseconds of say, at a song that I'm currently mixing right now is a beat tempo of 91, Mm-hm. where the 16th note would be 165 in milliseconds. And going with the 32nd note, Yeah. you're looking at about 82.5. Yeah. So do you have two questions when you bring that up? And that's really hard to kind of cut down into that. So I'll always make that a little bit longer if it's a 32 or a 32nd note slap.
But I will offset them if I'm trying to space it a little bit left right to get a little bit more width out of it. Mm-hmm. The first one is that when you say when you do it in stereo, how do you go like hard left and hard right? Yep. All right. hard, right? Or do you have them just sort of like nudging in with the vocal that I'm assuming sitting right at the center? That's my first question. So think about that for a second. The
other one would be like, how loud is this effect? How again, All right, the answer to number one is about 90% of the time it's hard left hard right. content dependent? I know. But do you have this relatively pronounced? Or is it more kind of like tucked in there to feel more than necessarily be super in your face? Okay. Yeah. Right. Sometimes it's not, but 90% of the time I would say it probably is.
The answer to the second half of the question is more often than not, I bring it in enough that you feel it, not enough that you're really going to notice it. And the reason for that is because the more you bring it up in value and you're talking [silence] about a slap so it's not a very big delay, that ends up making the vocal louder and that's not necessarily where I'm trying to go with it. I'm just trying to create a sense of ambient space that gives that intimacy Got it, yeah.
on the vocal prior to any effects happening. [silence] So do I ever do it where you're noticing it? Sure. Did I do that a lot? No, probably only about 10% where it's noticeable. Yeah. Yeah, but that's also... So it's the exact opposite of like the spread is like 90% of the Yeah, it's a good trick there to do and we do that same thing where I do at least I think you do too time is hard left hard, right? In terms of the noticeability of it, it's probably 10%.
>> Mm-hmm. Yes. when you're trying to set a reverb in its level where you know you want it to be heard [ Silence ] but not so much that it takes over the track. So a good trick to do there is like, if you just have it to a level where if you mute it, you miss it, but it's not super prominent when it's engaged. Right. Yes. Yes. It is prime real estate, which is also why Now I'm guessing you're treating your slap very much in that kind of vein, right?
When it comes to the width though, does that depend on, and I'm assuming it does here, but I'm gonna be ignorant, depending on how dense the mix is, right? Right. So the more sparse the mix, the wider you can kind of go. Is that how you kind of treat it? Or because that's the space? I mean, that's prime real estate in the mix, like hard left and hard right. So okay. generally speaking, i.e. cue the delay of the slap to be not the same value of the lead vocal itself.
In other words, I'm going to do more of a high pass filter and a low pass filter. So I'm cutting Oh, so you go high. So how right. All right. down on the highs and the lows and I'm really kind of taking it in a just a sampling of it, not the whole spectrum. Generally speaking, do I do that a hundred percent of the time? No, sometimes I will leave a hundred percent of the vocal but more often than not I am Yeah.
taking more of the upper part again great get that error Right, so you're where are you talking you're talking about maybe like 2k now where you're no no no no I would probably doing a low pass filter down to around I don't going even higher from what you're leaving. know, maybe 2.4 K and a low pass filter that is probably around 5, 600. Okay, so you're leaving a dis?
So I'm leaving a bit of the mid to give the value that you feel it, but not so Right, so you're still leaving some weight in that as well when you get the mids there much that it's taking over and not so much that it is like the whole vocal. Yes. as well. You, you don't do a lot of slap, but when you do, are you doing the same thing or? Okay, all right. Interesting. Interesting. I don't use that.
Yeah, I mean, if I do, there's one reason why I might do a slap and that's just if I needed that same intimacy, right? Right. if I'm trying like different ambient type of reverbs to make it have a certain space like a small room Right. is what I do most of the time. But for whatever reason if that doesn't work and I want perhaps Uh-huh. Yeah, but that's not this episode.
a little bit more drastic of an effect I'd either play with the pre-delight on the reverb or I might try to try no no no no but that's what I'm saying I'd really do that or I'll try the slap and it's We're talking delay, dude. Sure. whatever works best for me. But generally when I'm doing vocals it because of the type of music I [BLANK_AUDIO] tend to mix most of the time it would be a longer repeat and longer delay time and whether that's Yes, yes.
more or less tempo synced right where it's like a quarter or you know sometimes even a dotted eighth that type of thing and a quarter just to make it really kind of smeary but then again you You got to play with that level so that it doesn't take over the track. Right? [BLANK_AUDIO] And of course, just like you, I work a lot with EQing the delay return so that again, it's not taking up too much space and it just sits there and does its job really.
That's aggressive when I just said I take it to five or six. So I will go down, I would say, Ks dependent, but probably down to like 3K that I'm cutting off and then bottom, I'm pretty aggressive there. would probably go up to, if it's on the vocal here, I would probably go up to 200 or something, maybe even higher perhaps. Yeah but I'm doing it as a Right. little bit more of a prominent kind of delay so when you're doing it for the
Right. Yeah. Very true. That's why you cut it out. That's right. slap effect of that I think that's a little different. So that's why I'm saying that I think that's pretty aggressive because again like if you have a lot of delays and stuff bouncing around to those lower frequencies you're you're gonna end up with a lot of mud down there. So that's not, so exactly, try to avoid that shit. That's right.
So yeah, so then I guess the question we should go into, (laughing) [Silence] so if we do temple synced most of the time, right? When don't you, why would you go sort of, and I'm not talking about nudging values here, like, oh, it would take away five milliseconds here and there to create some more spread. I'm not talking about that, why would you do like drastic things that are just set by the millisecond value and not have any sort of rhythmic relation, if you will, to the track?
Well, I was wondering, what are some of those cases where you go I'll get to that right after this word from our sponsors. And we're back. What's the question again, Chris, that you were just trying to get me to answer? Well, there's all kinds of things wrong with me. off the board, so to speak, with delay times. And it's not based on any rhythmic value of the track that you happen to be working on. And it's just a pure millisecond value type of thing. Why would
you do that? And what's wrong with you? - No. (laughs) Yeah. There's no simple answer to that one. The answer to the idea of going to a millisecond value, and I tend to work primarily on milliseconds 'cause it's a lot easier to control. And because I don't generally, as I mentioned earlier, fall into straight tempo synced delays. It's never been my thing to do that. Okay. Okay. Now, do I do it on occasion? Sure. Do I do it a lot? Not exactly.
The reason for that is, and maybe it just has to do with the way I run to the beat of a different drummer, so to speak, is that I tend to like whatever's about to happen to get the attention. And whatever has been delayed Okay. Okay. Yeah. should be coming just after that, which is why I tend to almost always run my delays longer than tempo synced.
And it's not by a drastic amount, but it is enough that the next thing coming in the song that's actually a recorded instrument is going to hit before the delay of whatever it is that I'm already played. That makes sense. Does that answer that portion of the question? it does but I have follow-ups so now when you mentioned your slap here in the Okay, follow. (laughs) I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
beginning you mentioned 30 second and 16th notes 16th note depending on the I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. tempo that's pretty heavy yeah that that's pretty long do you find that I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It's pretty heavy slap.
Yeah. But first off, when you're using a longer slap time that you know, no, I know, but but I have a question when it goes back to that because I will, I will try to make sense of Well, I wasn't thinking slap in general, Mm hmm. this in a second. [BLANK_AUDIO] But when you're doing that, do you first find yourself that you have to do that at a lower level? Or does it become too prominent?
Or is that a deciding factor where you might make something a little tighter, going into like 30 second note depending on the time of the track obviously or the tempo of the track I should say. Is that your starting point then because I'm assuming that when you're doing these like slaps here this is where I'm trying to make sense of this is that do you have sort of like the timing Yes, that is the exact answer right there. of the 30 second note and then offset that or do you have norm okay.
I get the tempo synced version and then I extend it just a little bit to feel. Okay, so I answered my own questions, where you're saying. You did. All right, okay, no, but that's interesting because sometimes, you know, we, we hear and we all have like, (laughs) - Yep. plugins where it's like bolt loader presets and this and there were arguably something called slap in there. And it would always be set to a certain value, right? Obviously, because it's a Yes.
preset. But you end up changing that's where you're saying for every song because it's not always Well, if every song I actually did was at say tempo 91 going to be. Well, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. that I mentioned earlier with the song currently working on, then it would be the same. However, because every tempo is different, I'd go tempo oriented based on the actual song itself. I'd like to deal with the rhythm based off the actual timing of the rhythm, not to just be entirely willy nilly.
Right. Okay, so you again, you go back to the rhythmic division, and then tweak from there. Yes. Then tweak from there. Exactly. Gotcha. All right. And what do you think that that adds then as opposed to just having a set Well, we're talking also vocals and vocals to me generally are very rhythmic. sort of like millisecond value on let's we're talking slap here. So that that's right. All right. Mm-hmm.
Now, slap as it would occur for, say, a snare drum or a kick drum is going to be very different because those are very short bursts. Vocals are not the same thing as very short bursts, (silence) unless of course you're doing some kind of weird rapping that's Gotcha. all chopped up or something. To me, the vocal needs to have its own world inside the song. And to create that world, I do a variety of different things. But we're talking about the delay
aspect of that right now. So to me, that's my first line of offense, so to speak, is working with that delay. If that makes any sense. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. No, I'm with you. I don't use a whole lot of slap in my productions and mixes. So
it's a little bit of a different world for me. But one thing that I tend to do is, you know, if I'm using out of time delays, which happens, for me, it's more of a drastic effect, where I And that's that's that's essentially the next aspect to what we're getting into with this might Yeah. is beyond the slap because we've kind of beat that to death at this point,
Right. Yeah. It could be. Yeah, it could be that with where is talking about the way we would do other delays to enhance a vocal as well. And what you're talking about is kind of like having a ping pong effect in a sense, which is one way. >> Right.
it's sort of bouncing all over the place, but I might do it where it's sometimes I'll do a tempo sync, of course, but if I have like a vocal throw that just going out and it's just I I want that to really grab the attention of the listener where the echoes go on and I might do those two as straight, just millisecond value to whatever that sounds good. Right. Well, it certainly makes it stick out when it's not specifically in time. And if it's not tempo sync thing, then so be it.
It can almost be more of a drastic effect, I think, if you're not synced to the tempo. I suppose I could argue that it's easier to get the desired result if you're not in that case. So that's one. Exactly. It's like, Oh, what was that? That was kind of weird. And that sort of goes to Um, sure. why I will rarely do that on, let's say, like a lead vocal or backing vocal, you know, because
you don't want that to necessarily go, Oh, what was that? That was weird. The way the return caught there, you know, but as a, uh, if it's just a reply to a line that I wanted to go just freak out thing, right? I'll do that. And that goes for, you know, if it's a guitar lick or bass slide, it Yeah, but we're talking vocals, so stay focused, sir. would. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. In terms of that, and I agree with you on taking a line or even just a word of a vocal and throwing an effect on it.
Mm hmm. And you were just kind of describing a situation of ping ponging, which isn't >> Right. Yeah. quite tapping, which is another form of delay, delay taps, where you can choose very specific times for something to delay and how many of those that you want. And then we call that a tap delay.
And I do that a fair amount with certain vocal lines or certain words within a vocal, I will automate ascend to a single delay that does something for just that word to create an effect around that word in various ways. [ Pause ] And I've done it where it might carry the delay out and it might hit left and then it might hit center and then right at slightly off from the tempo effect.
And I know I've done it in one song where not only did I take the delay and it was close to tempo, but it was falling just behind the beat as it did each repeat of the word called gravity. I not only did a delay of the word, but I also took the pitch down every single time ( ( 0.9) ( 0.9) ( it came back. 0.9) So it sounded like gravity was literally pulling it down away from you. ( 0.9) ( 0.9) Pitch wise too. ( 0.9) There's a, I did do it in delay designer. ( 0.9) ( 0.9) ( Yes.
0.9) ( Yeah. 0.9) ( Yeah. 0.9) Right, and there's other ways to get around it too ( 0.9) ( 0.9) ( Sure. if you don't have delay designer. Yeah. And with taps, you can also do crazy effects depending on how many taps the delay effect can do. Where you can make it almost like the Haas effect. Mm-hmm. Where you could have it start out Yeah.
with a couple of minimal space delays and as it keeps going, it starts to speed up and go off and do something else as it goes through the quote unquote Haas effects. Right and that's something with delay design that does that really really Yeah. well where you can for the experimentation of it that where you can Right.
actually speed up certain repeats like you're describing but you can then slow them down so it's not like you have to set like okay this is going to be a 30 millisecond repeat or whatever right you can then have that okay well we're gonna [BLANK_AUDIO] start out with 30 milliseconds and then it's gonna be a hundred and then it's going to go to 150 and then we're going to have four that are going to be 25 again or
something. So you can get some really, really crazy effects with that. And that's just effectively Yes, now there's another effect that I've done that when I did it, the use of delay. So And Okay. it was a lot more difficult. And even today, to recreate it the same way is harder to do it digitally than it is to do it analog wise. This is for a song that was very esoteric.
What I did with the backing vocals is I ran them through a delay, recorded it, took it and reversed the signal so that the delays that were very quiet Okay. are now the beginning. And then I offset this audio with the actual start of the vocal. So that what you get is like this weird pulsing effect of the vocals coming in, but they're not backwards. It's like delaying forward. So it's almost like you're getting this weird echo, almost like a Haas effect, but in reverse.
I'm not really explaining that correctly, I don't think. But yeah, essentially it's delaying forward, I have a hard time wrapping my head around it, yeah. So it's... but each delay gets louder until it gets to the volume of the actual vocal that was sung. So it gives like this smeary vibe that's coming in. It sounds like you're almost... the end result is almost like a fade in on the delay that goes into the vocal.
It's almost like ghost like, 'cause I was trying to make it like a ghost was singing this, but it was hitting you in the face from a distance and it's coming in and then getting right in your face kind of thing. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yeah, there's for all of those sort of almost like sound design things that we can do to bring attention to certain parts that can be really, really effective. Yeah, well, it gives a very eerie effect and the song required that and it came out pretty Obviously, with...
That's cool. Very good. wild. So, yeah. Any other ideas that you could have in terms of like doing weird delays on vocals? Well, it's a beautiful world so we can do just about anything at this point, right? Yes, we can. [BLANK_AUDIO] But the one thing that I tend to do a fair bit actually is one thing that you touched on there where you'll have just a delay on a certain word. Yes, with a send. And you mentioned automating that. So frequent, yeah, with the send. [BLANK_AUDIO]
I tend to do that as well sometimes, but I also will frequently duplicate that track Uh-huh. and cut out that one single word. Because with the sends it can be a little bit trickier in my experience to kind of get the effect that I want. So I will have that on a separate track and process that separately. And then again, you know, man, well, not necessarily the delay, but if I have that just on one word Manual delay, man. Manual delay. Oh, okay.
where I want it to be a throw, I'll have like the delay on that other track. So I will have that. And then I have a little bit more control of the processing Mm-hmm. Yes. You used to do it, you don't do it anymore? that might be going on on that delay as well. You mentioned the pitch shifting. That was something that I used to do as well, where there was another. Not so much, because I think I kind of overdid it. How disappointing. Oh. And it was one of those things. [Laughter]
I OK, yeah, kind of tired of that now. Mm. You exhausted the pitch shift delay. I think I used up all that effect. It was all dry now. I couldn't use it anymore. Now, but that was to use a... Yeah, it was empty. But it was using a format filter on the delay as well and have that Mm. But are you doing that tempo wise or are you doing that off tempo? just go down drastically, just pitch that down, automated. And that would... tempo because we're thinking off tempo here.
Well, yeah, that was more like going from point A to point B. Gotcha. And I would more, it was one of those things where I wanted it to end on a certain beat because it was very drastic effect. And it almost had the idea or the feel of a tape slow down type of a thing Right. Okay. Those are fun. where you have that, yeah, like I said, I think I overdid them a little Ah. bit too much at one point. Uh-huh.
So it's like, okay, but it is a cool effect when you have that you can do it [silence] easier now with different plugins, but automating the pitch shift like that. And you can obviously go the other way around, like the fade in thing they Uh-huh. [silence] talked about with the delays there and the reverse delays. And yeah, I mean, there's so many different things that we can do with those, but fun with delays, man. Fun with the delays. With that, let's move on to our Friday Fines.
So, well, speaking of all the delays and smearing effects that we've talked Chris, what have you got today? Mm-hmm. Okay. about today, I discovered or came across a plugin, at least this week from Audio Thing, and it's called Frostbite, now version 2, and what that is, it's a You plugin that has three different modules in it, but it's a freeze plugin, basically.
So it takes the audio that you can tweak and has a couple of different algorithms in it where you can make it really granular, but you take in audio and you All right. essentially process the crap out of it to get some really really cool spaced out results. So it's great for sound effects, that type of thing, and works in all sorts of instruments. And I thought that sounded and looked really really interesting. So my Friday find is Frostbite 2 audio thing. And what about you
sir? What do you got? I'm going with something that Native Instruments just announced. It's called Lunar Echoes. Okay, very topical. That sounds like that would be... Yes, how very topical. Mm-hmm. It sounds like it would be a delay unit, however it is not. Okay. It is one of their construction kits, I guess, would be a good way of saying it, for techno creators and dub step type stuff. And it features melodic tech lines Okay. Cool? and it features dub chords and bass lines.
And it also has some classic gear recreations. And it's good for doing modern type of EDM, dub, that kind of stuff. Lunar Echoes, the name is very topical. Not so much. The content, slightly off topic. (laughs) Fair enough! While we've got your attention, we ask that you go to insidetherecordingstudio.com [ Pause ] and sign up for our mailing list.
Doing so will get you a little gift from Chris and I, and you'll get weekly reminders about the Tuesday tips when they come out, and we'll make sure that you don't miss any future episodes of the podcast. Send us an email at goldstar, G-O-L-D-S-T-A-R at insidetherecordingstudio.com with the words, vocal delay, and you'll get something cool back in your inbox. Do you have a topic of suggestion for Chris and I to talk about in a future episode?
Have a good one, Jody. Thanks for listening, everybody. If the answer is yes, you go to the contact page at our website and you send us the request and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode. With that, I'll say, see you next week. for