I often set up a bus with a ping pong delay, I soften it a bunch with eq, and the strip the center out with the waves center plugin. Sometimes Ill widen the imagine with ozone. I then send certain tracks to it when creating more spacey and ambient tracks. But I am huge sucker for delays and ambient treatments in general.
also my go to delays in plugins are EchoBoy Jr and H delay!!! pedal wise is the Korg SDD 3000 and Eventide H9 and if I hit two amps Ill do a lil staggered analog delay on of the amps...
Using Melda MComb as delay and varying the time is a lot of fun, great for fx sounds, and of course a side chained compressor after the delay can avoid clashing sounds, high pass the delay
In my first studio job in Nashville in 1978 the producer I was learning from used to say: “Just put some talent enhancer” on it. That meant crank up the EMT plate.
Depending on your intentions this doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are so many elements in music that are very hard to notice by themselves, but taken together have a huge effect on the listening experience.
you are the go to guy on youtubes for anything mix related. so clear concise, i find myself using alot of the things i seen in your videos and they work great. thanks for all the help!
I love the sidechaining tip! I’ve put delays on an aux channel and automated the send from a vocal or instrument to it at various points. But the side chain sounds brilliant!
Skip to 00:58 to start the list. 1.) Know when to use EQ in the delay. No need for double "Ts", or other pings. Perhaps add a desser to the chain. 2.) Know when to not use delay, and reverb instead. Try reverb after delay instead on additional delays. 3.) Know when delay should be in-time, or out of time. 4.) Panning delay: not every track needs to be in stereo. 5.) Use automation. 6.) Use side chaining.
Fantastic video Warren! Thanks for sharing. Would love to see you do a short video specifically on panning, when to pan, why, when to go extreme pan, when to leave mono, etc.
Great, as always Warren! The one (maybe obvious to others...) for me was to sidechain and compress the delay! That REALLY makes a lot of sense (and cleaning up a lot of mud). Cheers!
A good example of a song using delay techniques, I really admire the vocal mix of, is especially by The Interrupters - Get Down Moses (Joe Strummer cover) You've given me an insight of how I might go about achieving the same results. This song has bags of what you're talking about. Thank you for showing me how.
I don't remember who showed this trick to me where you take a vocal and send it to three different delay with each representing low, mids and highs its sounded pretty amazing.
I have the supertap in a bundle but never used it before, or had any idea how...was not expecting to see it in here, but wow, huge help! The EQ trick with a delay makes a lot of sense, I end up using the delays you can EQ within the plugin. This makes...sense..
When I finally start making some money off my music I'm going to have to write Warren a check for all the amazing mixing and recording tips I've gained. Really brother - thank you.
in the case, my only mistake was thinking that delays had to be on time, and that the younger me starting out that had no clue how to use delay was actually right since all i did was tweak it until it sounded good.
"You end up creating a lot of delays when you actually need a reverb." My favorite thing to do is to actually feed my delays into reverbs. I also really like to automate the panning of delays, as transitional effects.
The point about rolling off the highs is a really good one. I still like my old MXR analog delay and I think it's for that reason. Bucket brigade delays get muddier on evey repeat.
Warren - as a big-boy mix newbie, my next side chain will be my first. However, I think you’ve emboldened me with tip #6 to go ahead and finally break the ice; what a difference it made on that (now quite familiar) track. Thanks!
Mistakes we all make? How very dare you. 😁😁 I'll have you know I was messing up delay when you were knee-high to a grasshopper. 😁 Thanks for this Warren, I will use these tips for sure. Danny.
there's this plugin called propane that allows you to control the mid and sides of whatever you slap it to. you can use it to play with your reverbs and delays to really clean them up and fix them into their own space.
I have a LOT of trouble with what you said about feeling like I need to balance things out in the left and right to be symmetrical. Can you do a video about how to deal with that? I have a hard time really deciding when I do and don't need to make things perfectly symmetrical. Which is weird, because I personally love hearing the little details in a mix such as the things that are say: just in the background almost fully panned on one side etc. I love those creative details, but I find it very difficult to "allow" myself to do those kinds of things without feeling like I need to balance it out on the other side.
Could you (or have you already done) a video on panning to get a balanced stereo image? Eg. Intresting places to put B.V reverb or placing a stereo micd piano in a mix with out getting in the way of anything else? Thanks, hope you're marvellously well!
Great tips. I think I'm going to go and have a play with it this evening. I need to get my head around side chaining a compressor. Where and how to do it. I know what it does, need to know the specifics in Pro Tools. Thanks.
My favourite delay fail is cheap "stereo" delay pedals that feed the echo to one side and an invertion to the other. The guitarist gets very embarrassed when doing a mono check in the studio and they get instantly transformed from The Edge to the lesser half of the duelling banjos! Actually, it's not just cheap pedals, the Korg REMS effects from years ago had that fail.
@@Producelikeapro Killer! What about a video on sax/vocal reverbs and delays.? I use like 3 delays and 4 reverbs but have no real clue! But I am learning from you!
Great Video! I can watch your videos 27/4 :-) What delay mistakes I make? Well you name any, I do it one way or another :-) Thanks for this great Video
Delay into reverb for “real” sound Reverb into delay for “cloudy”, magical sound Flanger/chorus into delay to put it into a different space Pitch shift delays, especially stereo ones (eg, left -6 cents, right +6 cents) Put extra time on one side vs the other (eg, left 1/8 note, right 1/8 note plus 10 milliseconds)
Reverse a delayed sound can also be fun, you can of course reverse the sound first, then you will get a build up, but you can also achieve that other ways
Hey Warren! Love your videos, very educational and fun to watch. I have one question about the recording phase, when we track instruments on different days and have time in between to do any changes to the session. What is your take on the "rough mix" of, let's say, drums and bass before you track guitars? Are you doing only editing or are you applying any other techniques like compression or EQ to help you decide what kind of guitar or other instrument sound will you need in the final version of the song? Thank you again for all the tips and tricks, you're awesome! Maj
Wait - what was that last point? He sent a clean vocal to compressor side chain and the compressor was compressing the delay track? Was that it? I failed to understand that last one. Brilliant track - brilliant sound. Those drums & bass kinda totally stole my attention :D
Thank you Warren! Currently working on my own song (it's a bit country like with a Johnny Cash rhythm and slap delay) and especially the automation may work wonders. Like you said: it gets boring mixing only 1 verse/chorus and listen to the song. Despite instruments coming in and out, automation of delays can make it more interesting! I'm still in the recording phase, but it's good to think about these things. I assume this is production stuff or would you consider it mixing? Btw: I loooooove distorting delays, sidechained delays and delays that are not in time!!!
One thing we used to hear but is not done anymore is to have all the drums being hard panned to one side with all the reverb/delay of the drums being on the other side. I am sure this had to do with limited tracks where you had to bounce down tracks all the time?
Yes this was in the 60s, on some Beatles songs for example you can hear it that way, cause it was all recorded on 4 track in mono and later just panned + some fx maybe for stereo releases as far as I know
@@scottbaxendale323 yeah hard panned sounds are not common these days, and I also would avoid it - only if you really want to recreate that sound, but you can pan 75 percent to one side and use the haas effect by delaying just the quiter side max around 10 ms, the thing is that it's sounds totally different on headphones and speakers - that's really a downside (until you really want it)
Hey Warren🙂 Do you offer this song for download? Think it's really cool! 😉 that you can practice a little would like to mix the song yourself 😉 I think it's really cool what you do and how you show people how to improve the mixes! Good job where you do. Especially your joy where you have is really contagious! Thank you 🙏👍🕺 Greetings from switzerland
Warren has this song and lots of others for his Academy members! Some of the songs are available to anyone. I'm not sure on this one though. The name of the song is "Golden" by We Were Astronauts
At first glance, I thought the title said "Six Deadly Mistakes We All Make." Thought, "Wow, audio engineering is getting downright hazardous these days!"
Sometimes when a client asks me to add a delay with a short feedback all I do is add a reverb with an 1/8th note pre-decay or so. Then they think they showed me and everyone is happy...when I get paid that is LOL
