Why Is Delay So Cool? - Nerd Talk

Delay is such a regular effect found on many guitarists pedalboards and effect racks. As well as the standard 'echo' effect, delay can be used to create a range of effects. By delaying a source signal by varying amounts and combining it with the unprocessed, dry signal you can hear these effects.

A typical digital delay unit sees a signal be delayed by a set time then fed back into the original signal. Most useful delays allow you to control the amount of the original signal there is in the final sound, also known as wet/dry controls.

Analogue delays are often favoured by guitarists for their warmth in tone due to the way the high frequencies die quicker than the lows. This effect can be emulated in digital delays by featuring a low pass filter in the feedback loop, removing more high frequencies each time they pass through.

Things start to get interesting when looking at crossover, also known as ping pong, delays. These feature a delay unit for each stereo channel, which each feedback into the other delay unit. This causes delays which jump between left and right channels, and can be used very effectively in stereo guitar rigs to create very large sounds.

The first effect created using delay which isn't an echo effect is chorus. Many people don't know that most modulation effects are created using delay, and the chorus is a good example of this. A simple chorus effect uses a delay time of 10-40 milliseconds (ms), which is then modulated using a low frequency oscillator. When this signal is summed with the original unprocessed signal, the effect created is chorus.

The flanger takes the basis of the chorus effect, except with a shorter delay time of 0-10ms, and introduces a feedback loop. This creates the signature "swoosh" sound of the flanger effect. By increasing the delay time in a flanger you decrease the pitch of the effect, and decreasing the delay time increases the pitch.

Typically the chorus uses the same design as the flanger but with different ranges. For example, a flanger uses delay times of 0-10ms where a chorus would use delay times from 10-40ms (these delay times are approximate). Chorus effects also generally feature no feedback, which means creating an effect which is both a chorus and a flanger is fairly simple, as they just use different delay times and one has a feedback loop in it.

I hope you enjoyed this little nerd talk about delay, chorus and flanger effects and how they all work. If you want to see more posts like this let me know in the comments or on one of my social media pages.