From the course: Audio Foundations: Delay and Modulation

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Overview of short, medium, and long delays

Overview of short, medium, and long delays

From the course: Audio Foundations: Delay and Modulation

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Overview of short, medium, and long delays

Delay isn't one effect, it's several families of effects, and it's driven largely by the length of the delay time setting. Long delays lead to echoes, medium delays create chorus and doubling, and short delays lead to flanging and comb filtering. So any discussion of delay effects needs to begin by identifying which of the three classes of delay we're using; long, medium, or short. It's like we're ordering food at a fast food restaurant, do you want large, medium, or small? Here's how it breaks down. Long delay effects use delay times greater than about 50-60 milliseconds, while medium delays live between about 20 and 50 milliseconds, and short delays are less than about 20 milliseconds. The long delay is unique, in that the delayed sound happens so long after the source sound, we hear it as a separate event, it echoes. Just how long does the delay have to be before we hear it as an echo? Well, it depends. Our ability to hear an echo depends on the type of signal we're processing, but…

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