The Mystery of Predelay, SOLVED!

[Music] hello dudes and dudettes mark daniel nelson here with make my music i've been getting a handful of emails the last few weeks about one topic and i think it's just time to talk about it pre-delay what is pre-delay in reverb for me pre-delay is really simple it's when the reverb starts after the source you're giving it to so if you had the vocal and you put a 100 millisecond delay on that reverb send it would take 100 milliseconds for that reverb to start that means that you're creating a depth imagery in your stereo image which is causing the vocal to sound forward and the reverb behind it now if you kind of juice up the pre-delay and the higher you go the more the reverb sounds like it's kind of distancing itself now a lot of engineers like to use that as a trick to get kind of depth and size out of your vocal now the way i was taught was you do a mathematic equation to set your pre-delay against your bpm of the song and it was like a three-step division problem and at that moment i just completely lost interest because i hate math i don't reflect really well with numbers trying to explain creative things to me what i want to do today is showcase a vocal bring up the reverb and go around and kind of fuss around with the pre-delay and just kind of talk about what i'm hearing this is a song by laura lewis and the song is called old gray pine awesome song really impactful vocal a lot of depth a lot of space and by juicing up and down the pre-delay we're going to be able to see exactly what it does without the mathematics without any of that nonsense that you don't really need to understand music because it's supposed to be fun it's not supposed to be a math assignment i don't really touch that i just kind of go around two different areas 75-ish milliseconds and 120 milliseconds as a starting point those two kind of give me depending on the song a relative of a good place to start that gives that perfect kind of separation of the reverb and the vocal and the way it sits in the mix showcases that and i'm opening it in the new pro tools system in all black mode so bear with me i might not like this very much it's kind of new i don't know if i even enjoy it so bear with me with the pro tools coloring i'm going to try to see if i actually can work this way but i figured i'd give it a try today and in the meantime just listen to the way the vocal is in front of the reverb there's a depth there's a imagery thing that's happening where the vocal is leaning forward doesn't sound dry it just sounds separate from the reverb which is causing you to feel like it's three-dimensional [Music] she won't change for the seasons doesn't bring the desert shade but you should see her dance when the sunlight fades [Music] the old [Music] [Music] now the cool thing about this track is you can really hear how everything is in its own space so what you're trying to achieve is glue but not make it sound like everything is one dimensional slapped against the wall and by doing that you open up the pre-delay and you can shift the reverb to sit behind the vocal or in front now traditionally there's probably a really good accurate way to describe what pre-delay is really doing i have no idea other than it's separating the dry source with the wet source and how much time between that is your pre-delay for me when i first heard it it was like one of the biggest mind-opening kind of moments of like what the heck is going on this is incredible this is exactly what i hear when i hear depth and like everything i hear in a vocal and it was all based off of the delay of the reverb come on this is crazy so i don't know it was really big moment for me like 15 years ago really diving in and kind of understanding what i'm hearing and going there's your 3d right there it doesn't even matter if it's a crappy reverb it doesn't matter if it's a you know digital plug-in that comes with your program the pre-delay really does make it more expensive sounding and it makes it sound like a record so let's play around with the pre-delay on this vocal track on the verse going into the chorus now it's starting right now as you see it's starting at 122 milliseconds that's what i have it at you know some songs i will automate the pre-delay depending on what's happening and the verses versus the courses but this guy is just rolling at 122. let's take it off to hear the reverb it's kind of flat when the morning light comes she steadies her limb let's bring it in at 1 20 again you know it almost sounds less but what it's doing is making the instruments sound behind it as well it's really a cool trick i want to just solo the vocal and the guitar let's listen to just that and just go between 70 00 120 200. let's just be kind of radical and just fool around with a little bit and just really listen to the vocal kind of stretching and the reverbs kind of going behind and the guitar even changing which is weird because the guitar on purpose for this song is dry and you can tell just by changing the reverb of the vocal it's creating all of this depth she won't change for the seasons let's go all the way up bring the desert shade but you should see her dance when the sunlight fades now what that's doing obviously is it's almost making you seasick it's creating some kind of push and pull so there's got to be a kind of sweet spot to be able to sit let's just bring it around 250 and see what that sounds like she won't change for the seasons still feels a little aggressive doesn't bring the desert shade [Music] but you should see her dance when the sunlight let's go all the way back down to 28. she won't change for the seasons it sounds wetter and it sounds flatter it doesn't bring the desert shade [Music] but you should see her dance when the sunlight fades gonna kick it up to 370. so on the chorus it works pretty cool there'll come a time [Music] there'll come a time you'll see beauty pop this in the full mix with 360. [Music] that's cool now that would be a neat trick to actually have it at 1 20 on the whole song until the last chorus and maybe juice that up with an automated send on the pre-delay up to 350 and it creates almost like an echo there i don't know if i like it below 120 for this song because the shorter you go the more flat the vocal becomes because there's so much space on the drums the b3 is going and it's kind of a pad but that's the only thing that's really kind of creating any kind of sustain other than the electric guitars and the bass it just feels like it needs something to kind of create a little more sustaining depth so that's why i think at 120 it feels pretty good let me come down to 50 and try that [Music] it's not bad i just almost feel like it's not doing beauty you can hear just tickling and [Music] feathering [Music] now the thing to think about when you're using pre-delay is trying to remember that it's fun you don't have to like really dive in and make sure mathematically you're exact so if i'm saying 120 and it's 128 it's not the end of the universe there might be a little bit of wiggle room before it starts kind of going out but honestly just have fun with it that's what we're doing here we're making music we're not trying to like be mathematicians and kind of create these absolute perfect like delay times and reverb delay times that create a perfect timing thing sometimes that works to tap in things but for reverb you can be a little kind of radical and still have a movement to be able to get some kind of emotional connection to it without it being kind of desonate so that's my note for today real fast an overview again pre-delay is simple it's the delay that's between the dry signal and the reverb it's all it is it's not math you can't get it wrong it's all about feeling you'll know when you hit it it's weird it's like oh there it is that makes it sound better have fun mixing screw around put 5000 milliseconds of pre-delay on something just make sure that you guys are having fun because that's all this is about now before we go let's do one little test here i'm going to start this course at 120 and i'm going to slowly automate it up to 300 like we talked about earlier and see exactly what that will do by the end of the course because maybe you can have a change in automated pre-delay that will create kind of a movement at the very end and see what it does thanks for watching and don't forget to download the multi-tracks here and have fun [Music] come mixing time you'll see beauty in the old gray pine [Music] you

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 37,447

Rating: 4.9574847 out of 5

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio

Id: JDndYFhuqI8

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021