Add Depth to Your Instruments Using a Delay Effect

A delay is a powerful tool you can use to give your instruments and recordings more depth and dimension. A repeating delayed signal after the initial sound from your recording creates a sense of space and movement. The following tutorial will show you how to add depth to your instruments using a delay effect.

As usual, we'll begin by listening to the short sequence created in our SoundBridge: DAW, which contains most of the whole mix's elements, including a few instrument tracks like an el. Piano and trumpet.

~Full Mix - Instruments (Unprocessed)

Let's Get Started!

As we can hear, the instruments sound pretty dry. We made them this way to allow us to add depth to our instruments using a delay effect. Let us start with the el—piano sound.

~El. Piano - Solo (Unprocessed)

Within our SoundBridge: DAW, we will add a new instance of the delay effect to the el. Piano channel. In this case, we used Timeless 3 by FabFilter, but you can use any other delay effect plugin you like. This effect has a lot of options, as you can see and hear in the image and audio example below. In our case, we have set the delay time to 1/8 none, increased the feedback time and blurred the delay signal slightly by increasing the lo-fi and diffuse parameters in the interface's center. This particular setting worked well for this el. Piano sequence, but remember that it might not be suitable for other instruments, so feel free to experiment. To emphasize the delay signal, apply a multiband compressor effect right after the delay effect, as we did.

~El. Piano - Solo (Processed With Delay & Compressor)

Add Depth to Other Instruments Using Similar Delay Settings

Moving forward, we'll repeat the process for the trumpet channels, but this time, we'll avoid processing it with additional lo-fi, diffuse, or compressor because it sounds better without them. Let us hear it.

~Trumpet - Solo (Unprocessed)

~Trumpet - Solo (Processed With Delay)

Finally, let us hear the whole mix with processed instruments.

~Full Mix - Instruments (Processed With Delay)

If you liked this article on audio processing, here are some more on the same subject:

• Put The Kick Drum in Front of Your Mix
• Make Your Vocals Sound Unique
• Take Control of Your Sub Frequencies
• Make Your Bass Wider