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The delay effect lets us sum the original signal with the copies of said signal, but copies having a bit lower energy and delayed by a certain amount of time. This value is usually not larger then 20ms, because below that the sounds are not distinguishable and are usually heard as one, enhanced signal.

We will discuss two types of delays – simple delay and multi-tap delay. Both are characterized by delay time (from a few milliseconds to however big a value we want to put in here). While the human ear cannot distinguish two sounds with a difference of less than 20ms even such small time differences can cause a timbre change.

For example, let us assume, that we want to add a short delay to an original signal, but a much quieter one. In such a situation we do not want the delay to be clearly audible, we only want to add an impression of recording in a large room. If we do it in a really subtle way the effect will not be noticeable but will bring the desired result – it will increase the credibility of the recording. If, on the other hand, the the reflections are easily noticeable, we might have overdid it.

Without delay

With delay

A nice impression that we can create is a so called ‘ping-pong delay’. To achieve it we must use two effects on a single track. The first delay appears on the left channel, delayed by a ‘ping’ value of time, the second one appears on the second channel, delayed by two ‘ping’ values (a ‘pong’ value). For example, if we set the delay time on 250ms on the left channel we must set it to 500ms on the second one – we will first hear the delay from the first channel and then, after the same time interval we will hear it from the second one.