My Top 5 VOCAL DELAY TRICKS for Radio-Ready Mixes

so we're going to talk about vocals today and especially vocal delay so i'm going to share with you my top five pro vocal delay tricks hey what's going on my friend chris lim here from mixdown online now before we start this one up i'm going to encourage you to download my free pdf guide on vocal delay tricks the link is down below now let's start this one up i'm going to start with the first trick that i want to share with you today and this one is to use a slap back delay so i'm going to show you what that is all about the slot back delay is essentially a short delay and a short dell is going to add some fullness some density and some space around the vocal and i love to use a stereo delay to work with a slot back delay so i'm going to jump in cubase put on my headphones and i'm going to just use a the stock plugin out of cubase the stereo delay so anyone can use that from your own dw and i'm actually having this delay on an effects channel track so as a send effect so it's not inserted on the vocal channel but it's inserted on the effects channel track and i'm sending the signal from my vocal channel to the um effects channel track this way it gives me way more flexibility and that's like for 90 of the time i'm gonna work this way when it comes to delays and reverbs all right so now i'm going to open this stereo delay and the idea is to create a super short delay without any repeats only like one repeat max okay so that's why the feedback is way down to zero percent if you increase the amount of feedback that will increase the amount of repeats and i don't want that in this case i'm going to use that later on but not for a slap back delay i just want to get that initial repeat and that's it and that was going to be enough to create a very nice space around the vocal and bring my vocal a bit more dense so um what i'm doing now in this case is to like instead of using the sync option which is going to sync to the tempo of my my project i'm just going to use the milliseconds as far as the delay time goes and as a starting point i'm gonna start at 125 milliseconds usually that will depend on the tempo of the song i'm mixing but i you know i can start up depending on if the it's a high tempo song or a low tempo song i can start at 80 milliseconds and up to 200 milliseconds and even 225 milliseconds if i want to so that will depend on the song i'm mixing like in general lower milliseconds will work better on faster songs and higher milliseconds on slower songs but you know that is only again a starting point alright so let's start this one with these parameters so on one side the left side i have 125 milliseconds and on the right side delay 2 i have 175 milliseconds the reason why i'm doing so is to create a difference between those two sides so i can end up with a stereo effect or else it's just going to cancel itself if i if i bring both delays to the same millisecond value it's going to cancel itself out and it's going to sound model and this is not what i want to do in this case and then my panning goes to the far left for delay one and to the far right for delay two so let's have a quick listen [Music] again it's a matter of balance [Music] okay so you get the idea you can hear that the vocal when i add the slap back delay will will sound a bit more dense um and that's the goal of of you know using a slab back delay to add a bit more density more space around the vocal and that works pretty well and again it's a matter of balance in some type of productions you want to hear a bit more of that slap back delay in other productions you want to bring it down and make it a bit more just like to feel that you're in the space more than hearing uh the delay itself now i just want to try something out here um i want to increase i'm going to add a bit more milliseconds here just to try it out so 175 on one side and 225 on the other so we'll listen if that one sounds better for this song [Music] oh let me bring that down to 150 and the one maybe 200 on this one [Music] [Music] now by using a stereo delay if you hear that your your slap back delay sounds a bit too wide you can actually narrow down the panning of that delay by bringing down that knob the pan knob from the left and also from the right [Music] you can also use a mono delay if you want that actually can sound very good so i'm going to bring my feedback down to zero and a good starting point as time delay goes 1 16 of a note can do the job pretty well [Music] which in many seconds is gonna go at around roughly one uh 180 milliseconds [Music] and the same idea you can just tweak that around to your own taste so this is the slot back delay try it out let me know how it goes now for the second trick is to use a 1 8 of a note delay to fill up the gaps of the vocals okay so let's try this one out and this goes on another effects channel that is right beside my slab delay channel and i'm going to use the same plug-in uh the stereo delay from cubase and this time around i'm going to set that one up to sync so it is synced to the tempo of the uh the mix i'm working on and i'm going to set that up to 1 8 of a note and that will actually add a longer delay than the slap delay that we used earlier and i'm going to add in this case more feedback you know so instead of having the feedback to zero i'm gonna bring that one up so i can create more repeats because i wanna fill up the gaps you know when there's pauses um in the in the melody on the vocal i wanna make sure that i get a bit more repeats just to fill up those empty gaps in case so let me check this out with um 40 at for the feedback again very important by the way to bring the mix knob to 100 wet because we are using this plug-in uh in parallel you know so it's on a uh on an effects channel track so that wet and dry needs to be at 100 that also goes for the slapback delay that we used earlier and also for any types of delays or reverbs okay so keep that in mind and again you know the panning will go uh to the far left and the far right on delay one and two and this is what i'm gonna end up with [Music] so the way it's set up right now 1 8 of a note on each side same parameters as you can tell it sounds mono so everything is in the center that might work for you so if it does you're good to go but in my case i want to just uh keep having that stereo image um a bit more wider you know so i'm going to do something pretty cool uh on this delay since i'm limited with the amount of options i'm going to unsync one of the delays and i'm going to calculate how much is 1 8 of a note out of my tempo which is 83 bpm in my case since i know that the 361 milliseconds is 1 8 of a note roughly i just brought that down to 350 milliseconds on one side and i kept the one eighth of a note on the second one and this is how it sounds like [Music] [Music] it way more stereo i can you know hear that the uh the repeats are surrounding my vocals so now let's listen to this effect in the context [Music] [Music] so again it's a matter of balance and the trick is to to you know to make sure you hear those repeats um like you know in a subtle way you know just to fill up those empty spaces from the vocal line without being too much and too present and that's the danger with delays you can end up adding way too much so in my case like in this situation anyways i want to keep it subtle maybe in some on some other mixes and other situations i would you know i would like to to have them a bit more present but in this case i'm just going to keep it a bit more subtle the ping pong delay is also a nice option to be used on a vocal um compared to the stereo delay the stereo delay will apply delay on each side the left and the right at the same time the ping pong delay will bounce from left to right in case of the the delay the right side delay and the left side delay will not play at the same time so let's have a listen [Music] so that can create a very cool rhythmic stereo effect but if that is a bit too wide you can bring down the spatial knob here which is going to reduce the image of that delay [Music] now for the third trick eq your delay so this is something honestly that helps a lot and let's go back to our slap back delay and there's a nicu straight on the plugin itself you can also use an eq plug-in and add that after the delay or even before the delay i'm going to show that to you right after but you know most of the time you know if i have some eq parameters straight on a delay it's going to be faster to reach out to those parameters than adding an extra plug-in but that depends on what you want to achieve but let's go and use those filters i'm going to filter out the top end and the bottom end of that delay to around 300 hertz and bring you know cutting up the the top down to 5.4 kilohertz and same for the second side you know numbers are not matching which i don't care much it doesn't matter but the goal here is to clean up the low end frequencies like the muddiness that i can get below 300 hertz i don't want that surrounding my vocal okay so that's why i'm cleaning that up and same for the top end you know by bringing that top end down out of the delay plug-in it's going to make the delay sound a bit more transparent okay and not that audible which is going to sound pretty good so let's check it out with the slap back delay [Music] okay i'm gonna turn off the filters [Music] [Music] okay so don't they sound like the delays sound a bit more darker which sounds more transparent and sits down way better in the mix [Music] all right so now let's check and do the same with the stereo delay [Music] [Music] sounds more darker you know less muddy uh so you know again more transparent and that sounds better in my opinion in the context of the mix [Music] and now for tip number four add a reverb on your delay now this is not something that i do all the time however it does happen that you know especially if i'm not using an actual reverb for the vocals but only a delay adding a reverb after the delay is actually pretty nice so let me check this out on the slap back delay uh so i'm gonna bypass my frequency eq because i don't want to use those on this mix and the serial delay is right here and i'm gonna add a plate a plate reverb right after my stereo delay so i'm going to solo the vocal and let's have a quick listening [Music] okay so now what i'm doing here is i'm not using a long reverb you know so it's uh not a super short one as well but something that fits well with the tempo of the song and the trick is to blend it to taste okay to make sure that you have the like the perfect balance between the dry and the wet signal and so in this case the blend um parameter here is going to help a lot and that will determine how much reverb you want to get on your delay [Music] that's pretty cool [Music] so that's pretty cool so i kind of like how that sounds like it's just going to add a bit more space around you know that slap back delay which is quite nice i'm going to try the same on the stereo delay the one eighth of a note delay [Music] okay if i blend that in the context of the mix and also with the slab back delay [Music] foreign [Music] number five is to use a vocal throws and this is something very cool to work with i actually made a video on vocal throws if you want to watch it there's because there are several ways you can set that up in cubase i'm gonna leave the link on top and down below so for the vocal trolls i'm using the echo boy and this one is set up to uh one quarter of a note so it's a longer delay with a lot of feedback but what i'm doing is that i am automating the delay when the delay comes in and comes out because i'm only adding that delay on specific lines okay of the vocal and this is how it looks like straight from the project window and i'm automating the send level going into that that delay channel those are the automation that i have and this is how it sounds like [Music] foreign [Music] all right let's solo the lead vocals [Music] so vocal froze will be used for stylist type effects um so this is why i use always use automation when working with throws because you just want to focus on like some specific words or just one specific word out of a vocal line to emphasize on that word and make it repeat which adds a very nice effect and a very good emotion also now i'm gonna share with you one last tip because i'm going to go to tip number six okay and this one is about using different tones and delay styles okay i'm going to show that to you right away and actually if we stick to our delay throw channel if i look at the echoboy that i'm using i'm actually adding a lot of low cut to the signal and also a lot of high cut to the signal so i actually end up with a kind of a radio type tone and i'm also using a dm2 style and this is the cool thing about the echoboy delay which is one of my favorite delays it has different styles like the dm2 is what i'm using there's also a master tape studio tape and so on you know so this is why i ended up with this um this different type of tone for that delay so let's just listen to it briefly [Music] okay now let's try it out on the stereo delay this time and i'm gonna use the echo boy solo the vocal okay so that is you know a similar effect that i had with the um with the stereo delay 1 8 of a note a bit of feedback and now i'm going to add a bit more low cut and a bit of high cut filters and there's the offset and that is the uh the option that i have on echo boy to just to to make the right side and left side different so it's going to just offset the left and right with this parameter so instead of changing the values manually i can just turn up that knob and keep my my delay mode to single echo [Music] all right so what i'm going to do here is instead of using a digital delay sound which is the one we are hearing right now i'm going to try the dm2 [Music] sounds way more darker let's go with space echo [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so that's pretty cool and i can even add some saturation if i want to [Music] all right so let's blend that in the context of the mix [Music] me [Music] that's pretty cool that sounds actually pretty good so what i like about using delay styles like this one is just to add a bit more color to the delay a bit more character also and it also blends well in the mix and makes that delay more transparent colorful also and you can even end up adding a bit more delay without being too distractive you know and this is something that i like to do but sometimes a digital delay that is pretty clean is going to work well but a lot of times i'm going to reach out for a different style of delay or just eq the delay itself adding saturation myself with on with the use of another plug-in so it depends on uh with which plug-in i'm working with if you don't have a plug-in like the echo boy and the only delay you work with is a stuck plug-in delay you can just mess around with eq saturation on the effects channel track and create your own delay tone and that will work as well so there you go my friend those are my top five vocal delay tricks that you can use in your mixes again you don't need to use them all at once but it gives you different possibilities to work with on your next mix if you have any comments or questions you can leave everything down below don't forget to share to like to subscribe to this channel and also to download the free pdf guide on the pro vocal delay tricks until next time take care and see

Channel: Chris Selim - Mixdown Online

Views: 49,264

Keywords: audio mixing, chris selim, cubase, cubase pro, home recording, home studio, home studios, mixdown, mixdown online, mixing, mixing audio, mixing tip, mixing tutorials, music, recording audio, steinberg, the recording revolution, tips, tutorial, My Top 5 VOCAL DELAY TRICKS for Radio-Ready Mixes, mixing vocal, vocal delay, vocal delay tricks, vocal delay tutorial, vocal delay effect, vocal delay fl studio

Id: yx4epSN-EE0

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021