I like to use Reverb Foundry’s M7 Link for the Bricasti M7 as it makes it so easy to sync different note values with my DAW and then fine tune it from there
I use predelay on snare drum a lot. If you have a smaller drum and you want it to sound larger use this trick but, the predelay and the reverb are going to be a lot shorter than on this vox
I really love how much Marc underlines the importance of having fun!! It’s so easy to fall Into the mentality of just going through the motions of what you’ve heard other mixers suggest rather than relying primarily on your ears and listening to how the music feels. He’s also talked in other videos about how breaking the rules is how one creates their own sound and i absolutely love that as well. There’s really no right or wrong way to make art since that’s exactly what we’re doing :)
Finally! Someone talking about the most important control on a reverb! I like to use a room reverb to send all my mix elements to, but I send each of them through a slightly different predelay and eq setting. This gives me a sense of where the individual elements are placed in my imaginary "room" (soundstage).
love it, almost like mixing wet/dry. Really gives the clean non-reverb signal a lot of strong presence. It "feels" really good when you turn up the pre-delay.
Great video! I think i wanna put this here for anyone interested still, If i remember the equation for Predelay correctly then its : 60,000 / BPM /4/4 = Predelay Time (Round up floating number) So you are taking the Milliseconds in one Second =60.000, Dividing that by you BPM to get how many MIlliseconds is in one Beat and then you divide it by 4 to get to a 16th note length and then again to get to a 164th of the second. So a song at 120 bpm would be 32ms (31.25 but we round up simply because it doesnt matter and is easier to remember). If i made any mistake i am sorry, its been a while since i learned this) I also wish to say that, I agree that Music is not a Mathematical problem, but I think the view described is ofcourse fine for keeping the Video simple, but increadiably reductionist to the Idea of there being no Wrong way to do Music. I think Math not being the right Tool for most people when it comes to Creative expression is fine but I think if someone is open to the idea it can become an amazing tool to solve "not getting the sound" the way that person wants. It can be frustrating to simply feel it out if one is not great at that. I hope i am making sense and i am saying this with no malice or ill will. I just figured if the Math is exactly what someone else may have looked for than providing it is the kindest thing to do. Anyhow thanks again, i did learn a lot as usual from your Videos.
Saw so many videos regarding this topic and ended up confused! Here comes Marc Daniel Nelson and fix this issue in his fantastic teaching style, thank you so much!!!
Oh, so _this_ is what it does. I wasn't able to make sense of it, partly because "pre _delay"_ sounds like pulling the delay _ahead_ of the dry signal to me; you know, "pre" as in "before". It seems I lumped together reverb and delay (as in "echo") there. Thanks for clearing that up.
This is what happens when pre-people pre-abuse the pre-prefix pre to pre-unnecessary pre-levels. Like pre-heating an oven. It becomes so meaningless that when people do need to use it, listeners are ill-equipped to decode what they are being said to.
If I could go back in time, I would get a job working with this guy. He's the best. He also seems to love the same music I do. I've learned so much since discovering his videos about 3 months ago.
Marc is one of the few presenters I don’t read the comments during the video because FOMO and having to waste time rewinding! Lol... the other presenter is Warren! You all have a very valuable channel. So great that I have gone back to watch more of your videos! All GOLD! Thank you
That sounds great. But where is the listener standing in said room? From the perspective of where your ears are placed, predelay actually does more to determine how far away, or close to the singer the listener is than how far away the singer is from the wall, or first reflection point.
@@replaceablehead yes, I did say the path of the reflections to your ears. The difference also relying on the distance between your ears the direct path to the original sound source. So if you’re in a huge cathedral at one end and the source is at the other end the earliest reflection won’t be separated that much from the direct sound (plus a lot of diffuse mush). If you assume a close recorded vocal - you know like most vocals are indeed recorded - I think the assumption is the listener is at the position of the microphone and thus the predelay operates as an analogue of the shorter reflection paths. That’s all very artificial so you’re correct in that it does indeed operate in a more complex way, because you can’t hear a source from two locations in real life. However I’m pretty sure the ‘shortest reflection path’ is what reverb algorithm designers were thinking of in adding this parameter. In a plate reverb, for example, it’s the distance from the transducer to the pickup (at the speed of sound in the plate, which will be much much faster than in air).
@@replaceablehead That example is describing situation you standing next to singer. Direct signal comes to your ears nearly same moment it was sung, reflected signal after 128 ms delay. When you move to the distance from singer difference between direct signal and reflected becomes smaller. And if you far away, then that delay is missing. So if you using same reverb for all instruments and playing with predelay you can move sources, bigger predelay moves closer, shorter predelay rises distance perception. The biggest predelay describes room overall, as was said 128 ms it is ~20 m to closest reflecting wall.
Great take on how to approach pre-delay. The biggest take away for me, and what is always my "north star" is, there are NO rules, it's about art. And to quote Warren: "if it sounds good, it is good". I truly believe in this. It is however good to understand how things work, to be able to achieve the goal you have. Cheers.
Thanks, Poindexter! Actually, the way I do it is set any delay to BPM, then turn the BPM off to see what the actual ms are. Sometimes I like them to be a little bit off of perfect, or set to .8th notes, or whatever.
Thanks B2. I'm not scared of the math or the feel methods....but I do like to know the mathematical basis for what I feel. Kinda like hitting a trap draw 8 iron in an 8 mph left to right cross wind to a pin tucked front right. Like Jethro said, you have to do some "cyphering" to square that circle.
Music isn't thinking, calculating, reading.... As you say, and demonstrate, it's about FEELING. It's tough enough to have to dissect a song idea into parts for recording, whilst trying to transcribe the feelings. Love your presentation style and the way you simplified this subject. 👍
What a great reminder to experiment with the predelay and really listen to how it creates different space or depth. Thanks again Warren and Marc for the knowledge!
Thank you, Marc! I use it to make sure my vocals (or whatever I'm reverberating...) are staying in front. I love the natural sound of this song! Great vocals/instrumentation.
Since my first digital reverbs my go to predelays are 55 ms on drums (rooms) and 111ms on vocals (plates and halls), and that was in the early eighties
Love this video. I've used pre delay for a long time and it makes all the difference. Simple math - 1000 ms in a second so it's just logical to not exceed your reverb time in pre delay, unless you're going for something specific. 👌 Well done guys I'm a huge fan! 🎶
Another wonderful video from Marc and the PALP crew! One of the things that I heard Jimmy Page say about mic-ing sources (drums especially)was simply: "Distance equals depth." Meaning, the further away the microphone is from the source, the more depth you will hear. That phenomenon can be replicated with reverb pre-delay, which is what happens with reverb in a natural space, say a concert hall stage: that source audio has to reach a surface of the hall's walls, floor and ceiling (and people) to reflect off of, and the period of time between the source's audio and the reverb reflection is the pre-delay time. It's reall all about adjusting timing to create the illusion of space.
Understanding and getting that depth with reverb and the predelay is always something that's been kind of over my head, and this is a great explanation and demonstration! Thank you Marc, and thank you Warren for giving us this video and channel! :)
Thanks for opening my mind up a bit on predelay. I've been using it only in the 3 - 20ms range for everything, but will now try 100 ms and above - on vocals first - and see what kind of effect it has. Great video. 👍
Oooooooooh! Snap! I won't just be twisting that knob without understanding what I'm hearing anymore. MDN continues to enlighten music producers by sharing his talent. MORE MAKE MINE MUSIC!
You had me at "I hate math"! I constantly tell my clients that and they can't believe it, probably because there really is a lot of math involved with recording and mixing. It's just not how my brain processes creative things.
it's so good to listen to _different_ guys all doing something great. one secret here, I think the reverb at the beginning is a bit strange, and the more the song develops with all those stereo guitars and their own effects and timings like the tremolo, the more things fall in place, and this is very satisfying to the listener, to enjoy the whole song to the end. I guess, that's the real instinct, to make this happen, like solving a puzzle, the listener hears how it gets solved during the song, but it explains itself not by math but by emotion and intuitive listening to the progress of the whole song.
the values of the predelay make no sense without all other instruments doing what they do. so this is what you did put together already. based on this you find the correct predelay so it fits together. this is what Warren calls the intent or the idea.
This dude is a great teacher and has a great ear. He's got that vibe about him. What a beautiful track to mix. That's marvelous that the multi-tracks are free to download. Thank you so much! Edit: ... except, I'm not seeing a link to the multitracks? Unless it's just for academy members only?
I had set up a complicated set of delays of 1ms, 2ms, 4ms, all the way up to 64ms. And it never sounded as good as what you just showed. Clearly, I wasn't adding enough predelay to make a difference. THANK YOU!
Also, I was thinking in terms of distance. Sound travels about one foot in 1ms, so if the singer is 30 feet away from me, 30 ms of predelay should be sufficient. I'm probably completely wrong in that thinking.
Pre-delay is an interesting concept because you can approach it in two ways, really depending on what your goal is. What Marc demonstrates here very nicely is the creative aspect of pre-delay. Basically the separation between source and reverb. Increasing pre-delay brings the source to the front and therefor creates this depth as Marc demonstrates. That works really nice as a way to feature both the source and the reverb. Hence that long pre-delays like 120 or 250 ms is interesting for vocals (or a solo element) where the arrangement has a lot of space and the tempo is slow to medium. Ballad vocals just love a good hall or longer plate setting with a good amount of pre-delay. But, pre-delay is a feature of the real world. When a source creates sound, that sound needs to travel through air before it can bounce off any surface to form reverb. That distance it needs to travel is actually the pre-delay. As sound travels around 33cm per milli-second, it means that in our own experience we are used to a certain range of pre-delay from just being in places (a room, a club, a concert hall, a church or cathedral). If you add a room reverb to a drumkit, using 120ms of pre-delay will make the reverb very unnatural (though it can still be cool, vibey, and creative). So if your goal is to enhance your sources by encapsulating them in real spaces, short pre-delay settings will probably better settings to achieve that. This is also why tempo synced pre-delay, delay, and reverb times have their merit: they help with tightening up your mix and emphasise the rhythmic aspect of the music.
Frankly, it should just be called delay, because that's what it does. Calling it a predelay is just adding unnecessary confusion, suggesting some additional quality over its function that isn't actually there. It delays the reverb. That's it.
@@WAZA___ There are no rules, there is only taste informed choices based on what kind of sound/effect you want to achieve in the context of the material you are working on. Some values work very well, others less. Set a value, listen, adjust, listen, and continue till you have something which you like. But as I pointed out: if you want to emphasise the rhythm.grid of the track then maybe it's good to tempo sync the pre-delay so that the reverb hits on the subdivision of the song (16ths maybe). I'm no EDM expert by any means (not my genre) but that's probably where I might start.
@@cured_bacon647 No, I explained exactly why it's redundant. You see a necessity for overclarification. Like, what, in contrast to "a predelay", would be a delay that you'd need to distinguish from? As in, what practical application of a delay, as opposed to some complete arsepull of a hypothetical, impractical, and academic application of a delay that could possibly justify the existence of the dedicated term that is "predelay" to which you could desperately cling to at least feign to have a point in the argument? Anglophones seem to be obsessively infatuated with adding the prefix pre to literally anything that could possibly come before some other thing. "I preheated the oven, I predrilled the hole, I pretinned the leads." No, you didn't. You heated the oven. It's now hot. You drilled the hole. There is now a hole. (The only valid use of pre-drilling would be drilling with a smaller bit, or drilling not as deep, or both, or whatever, before going all the way, for whatever practical reasons, like if your drill was not powerful enough to use the large bit in the first place.) You tinned the leads. They are now tinned. That's what the English simple past means. It's something you did in the past. And in these cases in the immediate past before some other step. There is no justified purpose for adding the prefix pre in there. All it does is saying, "I want to sound smart so I pretentiously sprinkle my language with smart-sounding lingo, without giving a second thought as to whether that lingo is even applicable, in the hopes of looking smart in front of others." Surprise, you aren't. At least not to those who see through your bs.
Thanks Marc. Now I know why your reverbs sound so organic. I've always been a bit unsure about how to use pre-delay, you've just completely cleared that up. I'm not keen on the math either, but I kind of made myself understand it a bit. I know 120ms was always quoted as a bit of a 'magic number', I believe it's to do with the speed of consonant production, so 120ms and longer basically clears the reverb away from the part of the sound you need to understand the word being sung if that makes sense. It follows that you can use a shorter time if the delivery is more rapid, but on a song like this you can leave it longer. If you want to get mathematical relative to the bpm, you'll get a more precise, surgical effect, which might suit certain kinds of music, but as you've demonstrated really nicely here - if you want an organic effect, use your ears and intuition. Not only is music supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be emotional. You got it!
just awesome advice I don't think we hear enough. "that's what were doing having fun, so have fun with it and get the feeling and emotion right" im paraphrasing but that is so important to keep in mind.
I envision higher pre-delay settings bringing the listener closer to the source, as if you are in the center of a space and can hear what is bouncing around you. Conversely, if the pre-delay is set lower, it almost then seems as if you are back in the room and unable to distinguish the dry sound from the totality of the reverb.
Thank you Marc for covering this topic and making it easy to understand. I'm really looking forward to your new tutorials. Keep them coming. Thank you for sharing.
Awesome showcase of the use of pre-delay. Thank you, Marc and Warren. And you've chosen such a beautiful song to demonstrate it, Marc! Love it. I like to play with pre-delay to give sources in the mix depth and weight. I learned this back in the early 2000s from an audio engineer who worked for a German broadcast service. I was a little desperate. Most of the tracks from the recordings I worked with had been recorded individually in small, dead rooms and always sounded very direct and lifeless. Adding reverb seemed to be the solution, but it often sounded too washed out and artificial. I talked with him about this subject, and he advised me to try to solve it with setting the pre-delay and simply explained to me that the longer the pre-delay, the closer the signal sounds to the listener in the mix. I tried and experimented with it for a while and it just works great.
I never knew anything about it until now (I had noticed it on my DAW but ignored it) Just had a try out....instant improvement, unbelievable difference in the picture, you've given me a missing link THANK YOU!!
Nice song and mix. One of the best songs using tons of reverb on vocal is Beck “Morning.” A very thick, lound and long reverb and still letting his voice sit in front and having all instruments fit perfectly. Personally I think 120 is too much here because for some reason that specific reverb algorithm seems to have plenty of pre delay in itself without adding any. More like a slow attack. BTW you should consider if the amount of ads are making people stop watching? You probably have data on how many follow through to the end? Personally I often quit halfway in some of the most annoying ones.
Great series. Beautiful song. Thank you :) Combine this with Early Reflection and you got a killer space. I love the approach that doing music is feel and fun and not science. A thing so many people don't understand, for example on GS. Cheers
Thank you so much. I almost always use a preset in my reverb plugin on my vocals and then I struggle to find the right wet/dry mix. Now I know that I need to adjust my predelay, probably increase it a bit as the preset has a very short predelay setting.
I'm not sure if you've got cameras in my place but I was, for no reason, thinking about pre-delay a couple of days ago and I wasn't even in a 'musical environment'. Everything's connected, I guess. Pperfect timing!
Hello! A couple things I' like to say (in no particular order), if I may. First : that song (and performance) is simply awesome! Wow! Second : pre-delay is so important for depth and clarity in the mix. I really appreciate that you make a video about it. And I think it would need a couple more, lol! Three : as a long time follower (and academy member since July), I think It's great to have you on the PLAP team. Pretty darn good match, IMO. Four : it's also great to see you smile more and more. Actually, in the last videos, you sound funnier too! lol! Well... . I think I mostly wanna say thank you! And, as Warren would put it, have a wonderful day!!!!! :-D
What are the thoughts of pre-delay versus side chain on the reverb? Would the use of longer pre-delay to push the reverb back alleviate (or reduce) the “need” or effect of ducking on the reverb? Would be interested in feedback from others experience.
I remember watching a video with Bobby Owsinski. The video explained a formula and Bobby said, that was a good starting point with the calculation but you should try use your ears and feeling for the final setting of predelay. I think it went something like this. Divide your BPM by 60 and multiply the result by 1000 and that will give you in milliseconds your delay or reverb timing. Maybe I am wrong or picked it up wrong Anyway, cheers Marc for another great video
Just leaving a comment for the f... of it. Thanks for this, I just used pre-delay on reverb (latest song on my channel if anybodies interested) for the first time a couple weeks ago and it jives with everything Marc just said. It left me with the dry signal clean while allowing me to use nice big reverb to float everything. Worked great, I had just figured out what pre-delay meant for this (TSAR) reverb plug-in. But ... one of the reasons I'd hadn't messed with pre-delay before is from experimenting with it one time before on a different plug in where 'pre-delay' (this was a delay plug-in, I don't remember which one) seemed to me, that it started the delay effect in front of the dry signal. I found this useless for things that I do and assumed that pre-delay meant 'before'. But thanks Marc. From this day forward I will use the term 'pre-delay' to mean as you stated. (still to early to leave the couch after lunch so ...) further more, I find the business of timing delay and reverbs to music to be tiresome and not useful. Maybe it works great of EDM and some polkas but for me, I rely on reverb to add textured randomness to flesh things out. If I had to time it to the music to get it to clean up, I would think that it's merely way too much reverb. (still procrastinating going back to my shop) On the same theme, I played in a tavern act for many years where we used canned bass and drums (recorded into a fourtrack). With no bass player or drummer it just left two bodies in front of mics so, always felt like I needed to compensate for the lack of movement in such a tiny act. Our lighting rig had an audio input which one could hit with a signal to get light changes and it turned on and off with a foot switch. Tried it and it was horrible. Might work for some (would have been great for Moog Cook Book) but for us we were doing folk/country/rock with a classic rock set to close the bar. But what did work was this: I had two open channels on the fourtrack. So I just put kick samples In places (a signal no one would gear of course). Like in the first set when things where quite calm (like ... nobody there except maybe a bartender) I put a sample at a verse here or there and it felt like someone was changing the view angle. Never on a beat but just in odd places and it felt very comfortable. Then later at the end of the night I could do like a " kick kick kick x forever" for the blow out songs but it was never on a beat and really did have the feel of a bored soundman pushing a light control button. Pretty funny now that I think about it but in those lean years that is how I got work. (also, this was a dinky 8 can light rig and I could only ever run 2 cans at a time or it would blow a 15 amp breaker. These pubs didn't have a stove plug up on the stage) So, in the closing of this soliloquy I would like to make the argument that with regard to reverb and delay I feel there is a need to keep the reaction times of these textures off the beat of the flippin music. Unless your talking about EDM or other dance categories that I know nothing about. Ok ... off I go.
Very interesting topic, thanks :) I like to use 2 feeds to vocal reverb, the reverb itself is set to a moderate predelay of around 40 ms. First feed is direct to reverb, second feed to reverb is delayed by two beats (250 ms for a 120 bpm song), this delay is also mixed to taste in the master bus.
Love your videos. The change of angle does not make it look more pro and does not need to do, as listening to Marc talk is interesting enough. Keep em coming, love your content, always insightful, interesting and motivating. I can not thank you enough. All the best from a recording session in Spain.
What is your approach to predelay?
I like to use Reverb Foundry’s M7 Link for the Bricasti M7 as it makes it so easy to sync different note values with my DAW and then fine tune it from there
@Greg Elchert excellent tip. I have used reverb calculators but it just gets so tedious. Especially when wanting to change 1/8 to 1/4 for example
Like @Greg Elchert, but sometimes with multiple repeats, and often with tape delay, which also saturates and modulates.
I use it to get a head start on procrastination! Cheers Warren!!
I use predelay on snare drum a lot.
If you have a smaller drum and you want it to sound larger use this trick but, the predelay and the reverb are going to be a lot shorter than on this vox
Who is this guy? Doesn't he care if I'm doing Marvelously well or not?!
Haha I'm sure he does!
lol!
🤣
kkkkk
Funny 👍
this dude always seems to be mixing really great music!
That’s what I was thinking.
True, and it's nice not to see 'DJ' in his job description.
Also he has stories that date-back long enough to make me think Marc is like 65 years old.
always!
Agreed Dave!!
This is the most clear definition of pre-delay I've heard. I was never sure exactly what it meant. Thanks!
agree!
Between Marc and Gregory Scott I feel i've found my Mixing Yoda and Mr Miaghi... I can't get enough of these videos!!! LOVE IT!
I agree! I have learned a lot of ideas from Warren. Now, with Marc and Gregory Scott, I feel like I’m earning my degree in mixing.
Yup...The Troika. Scott, Nelson and Huart.
100%!
I really love how much Marc underlines the importance of having fun!! It’s so easy to fall
Into the mentality of just going through the motions of what you’ve heard other mixers suggest rather than relying primarily on your ears and listening to how the music feels. He’s also talked in other videos about how breaking the rules is how one creates their own sound and i absolutely love that as well. There’s really no right or wrong way to make art since that’s exactly what we’re doing :)
Finally! Someone talking about the most important control on a reverb! I like to use a room reverb to send all my mix elements to, but I send each of them through a slightly different predelay and eq setting. This gives me a sense of where the individual elements are placed in my imaginary "room" (soundstage).
love it, almost like mixing wet/dry. Really gives the clean non-reverb signal a lot of strong presence. It "feels" really good when you turn up the pre-delay.
Great video!
I think i wanna put this here for anyone interested still, If i remember the equation for Predelay correctly then its : 60,000 / BPM /4/4 = Predelay Time (Round up floating number)
So you are taking the Milliseconds in one Second =60.000, Dividing that by you BPM to get how many MIlliseconds is in one Beat and then you divide it by 4 to get to a 16th note length and then again to get to a 164th of the second. So a song at 120 bpm would be 32ms (31.25 but we round up simply because it doesnt matter and is easier to remember). If i made any mistake i am sorry, its been a while since i learned this)
I also wish to say that, I agree that Music is not a Mathematical problem, but I think the view described is ofcourse fine for keeping the Video simple, but increadiably reductionist to the Idea of there being no Wrong way to do Music. I think Math not being the right Tool for most people when it comes to Creative expression is fine but I think if someone is open to the idea it can become an amazing tool to solve "not getting the sound" the way that person wants. It can be frustrating to simply feel it out if one is not great at that.
I hope i am making sense and i am saying this with no malice or ill will. I just figured if the Math is exactly what someone else may have looked for than providing it is the kindest thing to do.
Anyhow thanks again, i did learn a lot as usual from your Videos.
Can't imagine that you are teaching us those amazing techniques for free. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Thanks ever so much
Saw so many videos regarding this topic and ended up confused! Here comes Marc Daniel Nelson and fix this issue in his fantastic teaching style, thank you so much!!!
Oh, so _this_ is what it does. I wasn't able to make sense of it, partly because "pre _delay"_ sounds like pulling the delay _ahead_ of the dry signal to me; you know, "pre" as in "before". It seems I lumped together reverb and delay (as in "echo") there.
Thanks for clearing that up.
This is what happens when pre-people pre-abuse the pre-prefix pre to pre-unnecessary pre-levels. Like pre-heating an oven. It becomes so meaningless that when people do need to use it, listeners are ill-equipped to decode what they are being said to.
@@docdelete Please do not actually kick cats.
I thought exactly the same thing until this video cleared it up!
I could watch Marc mix and talk about this stuff all day. The definition of an incredible mixer who mixes very creatively!
If I could go back in time, I would get a job working with this guy. He's the best. He also seems to love the same music I do. I've learned so much since discovering his videos about 3 months ago.
Nothing to be proud of
Marc is one of the few presenters I don’t read the comments during the video because FOMO and having to waste time rewinding! Lol... the other presenter is Warren! You all have a very valuable channel. So great that I have gone back to watch more of your videos! All GOLD! Thank you
I think of pre delay as the distance the wall is away from the source. After the source hits the wall the reverb starts.
It hits the wall but must come back to you always. 128 ms it is 22 m distance to reflective wall.
that's exactly what it is. the shortest path of the reflections back to your ears.
That sounds great. But where is the listener standing in said room? From the perspective of where your ears are placed, predelay actually does more to determine how far away, or close to the singer the listener is than how far away the singer is from the wall, or first reflection point.
@@replaceablehead yes, I did say the path of the reflections to your ears. The difference also relying on the distance between your ears the direct path to the original sound source. So if you’re in a huge cathedral at one end and the source is at the other end the earliest reflection won’t be separated that much from the direct sound (plus a lot of diffuse mush).
If you assume a close recorded vocal - you know like most vocals are indeed recorded - I think the assumption is the listener is at the position of the microphone and thus the predelay operates as an analogue of the shorter reflection paths.
That’s all very artificial so you’re correct in that it does indeed operate in a more complex way, because you can’t hear a source from two locations in real life. However I’m pretty sure the ‘shortest reflection path’ is what reverb algorithm designers were thinking of in adding this parameter. In a plate reverb, for example, it’s the distance from the transducer to the pickup (at the speed of sound in the plate, which will be much much faster than in air).
@@replaceablehead That example is describing situation you standing next to singer. Direct signal comes to your ears nearly same moment it was sung, reflected signal after 128 ms delay. When you move to the distance from singer difference between direct signal and reflected becomes smaller. And if you far away, then that delay is missing. So if you using same reverb for all instruments and playing with predelay you can move sources, bigger predelay moves closer, shorter predelay rises distance perception. The biggest predelay describes room overall, as was said 128 ms it is ~20 m to closest reflecting wall.
Great take on how to approach pre-delay. The biggest take away for me, and what is always my "north star" is, there are NO rules, it's about art. And to quote Warren: "if it sounds good, it is good". I truly believe in this. It is however good to understand how things work, to be able to achieve the goal you have. Cheers.
Always love marc's approach...simple and fun. That's what music is about!!
For those who aren’t scared of simple math: 60,000 divided by your bpm gives you a quarter note. Half of that is your eighth note etc. 👍
Thanks, Poindexter!
Actually, the way I do it is set any delay to BPM, then turn the BPM off to see what the actual ms are. Sometimes I like them to be a little bit off of perfect, or set to .8th notes, or whatever.
Yes, "engineer" and all.
I think Marc Daniel's point is that, you should arrive at the best number on the feel of the track and not by something so absolute.
Thanks B2. I'm not scared of the math or the feel methods....but I do like to know the mathematical basis for what I feel. Kinda like hitting a trap draw 8 iron in an 8 mph left to right cross wind to a pin tucked front right. Like Jethro said, you have to do some "cyphering" to square that circle.
wat is dis matt you speak of and wat is the magic threrein?
Finally - this makes perfect sense. Just tested it on Valhalla with vocal track. What a difference. Thanks.
Music isn't thinking, calculating, reading.... As you say, and demonstrate, it's about FEELING. It's tough enough to have to dissect a song idea into parts for recording, whilst trying to transcribe the feelings. Love your presentation style and the way you simplified this subject. 👍
Just used this trick on a mix! Thanks again for another great tip, Marc.
Marvellous
What a great reminder to experiment with the predelay and really listen to how it creates different space or depth. Thanks again Warren and Marc for the knowledge!
Excellent explanation of pre delay. You made it crystal clear for me. Thanks Marc
Thank you, Marc! I use it to make sure my vocals (or whatever I'm reverberating...) are staying in front.
I love the natural sound of this song! Great vocals/instrumentation.
Marc Daniel Nelson really is the 🐐
It makes the reverb more apparent as well, it stands out more. Looking forward to experimenting with this
Since my first digital reverbs my go to predelays are 55 ms on drums (rooms) and 111ms on vocals (plates and halls), and that was in the early eighties
I really love the low end on that track. Fantastically done.
Who “thumb downed” this?!? This is and I am marvelous
Love this video. I've used pre delay for a long time and it makes all the difference. Simple math - 1000 ms in a second so it's just logical to not exceed your reverb time in pre delay, unless you're going for something specific. 👌 Well done guys I'm a huge fan! 🎶
Another wonderful video from Marc and the PALP crew!
One of the things that I heard Jimmy Page say about mic-ing sources (drums especially)was simply: "Distance equals depth." Meaning, the further away the microphone is from the source, the more depth you will hear.
That phenomenon can be replicated with reverb pre-delay, which is what happens with reverb in a natural space, say a concert hall stage: that source audio has to reach a surface of the hall's walls, floor and ceiling (and people) to reflect off of, and the period of time between the source's audio and the reverb reflection is the pre-delay time.
It's reall all about adjusting timing to create the illusion of space.
Understanding and getting that depth with reverb and the predelay is always something that's been kind of over my head, and this is a great explanation and demonstration! Thank you Marc, and thank you Warren for giving us this video and channel! :)
Once again Marc Nails it. Simple, clear, and NO MATH lol
Thanks for opening my mind up a bit on predelay. I've been using it only in the 3 - 20ms range for everything, but will now try 100 ms and above - on vocals first - and see what kind of effect it has. Great video. 👍
Oooooooooh! Snap! I won't just be twisting that knob without understanding what I'm hearing anymore. MDN continues to enlighten music producers by sharing his talent. MORE MAKE MINE MUSIC!
Great coverage of the topic at hand and even better message about making music musical rather than scientific. I needed to hear that one, thanks dude!
So basically predelay was the one thing I needed to achieve the reverb sound I wanted! Thank you!
You had me at "I hate math"! I constantly tell my clients that and they can't believe it, probably because there really is a lot of math involved with recording and mixing. It's just not how my brain processes creative things.
Besides, what will you tell the client if it sounds bad? The math led me astray? Should be done with ears not pencils.
And when you write the bill you won't do the math but you just feel how much your client is prepared to pay?
I love MDN’s approach to mixing - he really emphasizes listening skills (and having fun). These videos are great. Cheers.
Thanks for this clear, easy explanation of predelay ! Really opened my ears !
Marc Daniel Nelson is such a great source of learning and inspiration. And his persona is equally as inspiring. Amazing content.
Member of the family ?
Warren, I am listening to you and your remarkable guests, and I UNDERSTAND!!! You guys, are really Marvelous!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thanks ever so much
Так держать, Люда!
Sounds great through my headphones. I realized good things :) Thank you!
I have never thought of playing with the pre=delay on the reverbs. Very cool
Marvellous!
Don't forget high passing also. Reverbed bass can get pretty yucky.
it's so good to listen to _different_ guys all doing something great.
one secret here, I think the reverb at the beginning is a bit strange, and the more the song develops with all those stereo guitars and their own effects and timings like the tremolo, the more things fall in place, and this is very satisfying to the listener, to enjoy the whole song to the end.
I guess, that's the real instinct, to make this happen, like solving a puzzle, the listener hears how it gets solved during the song, but it explains itself not by math but by emotion and intuitive listening to the progress of the whole song.
the values of the predelay make no sense without all other instruments doing what they do. so this is what you did put together already. based on this you find the correct predelay so it fits together. this is what Warren calls the intent or the idea.
What an excellent few minutes. Thank you.
This dude is a great teacher and has a great ear. He's got that vibe about him. What a beautiful track to mix. That's marvelous that the multi-tracks are free to download. Thank you so much!
Edit: ... except, I'm not seeing a link to the multitracks? Unless it's just for academy members only?
I had set up a complicated set of delays of 1ms, 2ms, 4ms, all the way up to 64ms. And it never sounded as good as what you just showed. Clearly, I wasn't adding enough predelay to make a difference. THANK YOU!
Also, I was thinking in terms of distance. Sound travels about one foot in 1ms, so if the singer is 30 feet away from me, 30 ms of predelay should be sufficient. I'm probably completely wrong in that thinking.
Pre-delay is an interesting concept because you can approach it in two ways, really depending on what your goal is.
What Marc demonstrates here very nicely is the creative aspect of pre-delay. Basically the separation between source and reverb. Increasing pre-delay brings the source to the front and therefor creates this depth as Marc demonstrates. That works really nice as a way to feature both the source and the reverb. Hence that long pre-delays like 120 or 250 ms is interesting for vocals (or a solo element) where the arrangement has a lot of space and the tempo is slow to medium. Ballad vocals just love a good hall or longer plate setting with a good amount of pre-delay.
But, pre-delay is a feature of the real world. When a source creates sound, that sound needs to travel through air before it can bounce off any surface to form reverb. That distance it needs to travel is actually the pre-delay. As sound travels around 33cm per milli-second, it means that in our own experience we are used to a certain range of pre-delay from just being in places (a room, a club, a concert hall, a church or cathedral). If you add a room reverb to a drumkit, using 120ms of pre-delay will make the reverb very unnatural (though it can still be cool, vibey, and creative). So if your goal is to enhance your sources by encapsulating them in real spaces, short pre-delay settings will probably better settings to achieve that.
This is also why tempo synced pre-delay, delay, and reverb times have their merit: they help with tightening up your mix and emphasise the rhythmic aspect of the music.
Frankly, it should just be called delay, because that's what it does. Calling it a predelay is just adding unnecessary confusion, suggesting some additional quality over its function that isn't actually there. It delays the reverb. That's it.
Thanks ever so much for sharing!
@@WAZA___ There are no rules, there is only taste informed choices based on what kind of sound/effect you want to achieve in the context of the material you are working on. Some values work very well, others less. Set a value, listen, adjust, listen, and continue till you have something which you like.
But as I pointed out: if you want to emphasise the rhythm.grid of the track then maybe it's good to tempo sync the pre-delay so that the reverb hits on the subdivision of the song (16ths maybe). I'm no EDM expert by any means (not my genre) but that's probably where I might start.
@@Anvilshock then what, call it pre-delay on a delay? Nah. Pre-delay exp;Ian’s perfectly at what its describing and is universal
@@cured_bacon647 No, I explained exactly why it's redundant. You see a necessity for overclarification. Like, what, in contrast to "a predelay", would be a delay that you'd need to distinguish from? As in, what practical application of a delay, as opposed to some complete arsepull of a hypothetical, impractical, and academic application of a delay that could possibly justify the existence of the dedicated term that is "predelay" to which you could desperately cling to at least feign to have a point in the argument? Anglophones seem to be obsessively infatuated with adding the prefix pre to literally anything that could possibly come before some other thing. "I preheated the oven, I predrilled the hole, I pretinned the leads." No, you didn't. You heated the oven. It's now hot. You drilled the hole. There is now a hole. (The only valid use of pre-drilling would be drilling with a smaller bit, or drilling not as deep, or both, or whatever, before going all the way, for whatever practical reasons, like if your drill was not powerful enough to use the large bit in the first place.) You tinned the leads. They are now tinned. That's what the English simple past means. It's something you did in the past. And in these cases in the immediate past before some other step. There is no justified purpose for adding the prefix pre in there. All it does is saying, "I want to sound smart so I pretentiously sprinkle my language with smart-sounding lingo, without giving a second thought as to whether that lingo is even applicable, in the hopes of looking smart in front of others." Surprise, you aren't. At least not to those who see through your bs.
I've been staring at that knob - thanks for sharing this!
Thanks Marc. Now I know why your reverbs sound so organic. I've always been a bit unsure about how to use pre-delay, you've just completely cleared that up. I'm not keen on the math either, but I kind of made myself understand it a bit. I know 120ms was always quoted as a bit of a 'magic number', I believe it's to do with the speed of consonant production, so 120ms and longer basically clears the reverb away from the part of the sound you need to understand the word being sung if that makes sense. It follows that you can use a shorter time if the delivery is more rapid, but on a song like this you can leave it longer. If you want to get mathematical relative to the bpm, you'll get a more precise, surgical effect, which might suit certain kinds of music, but as you've demonstrated really nicely here - if you want an organic effect, use your ears and intuition. Not only is music supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be emotional. You got it!
hahaha,bravo Marc,u've done it again,now i get it,now i can hear 3D,it's not just muddy or sharp,now i hear depth and space around the vokal...wow
Really wonderful video! Love Marc's videos! Thank you so much Warren for inviting Marc on your channel! Really marvelous stuff!
just awesome advice I don't think we hear enough. "that's what were doing having fun, so have fun with it and get the feeling and emotion right" im paraphrasing but that is so important to keep in mind.
Thank you Marc , for such an informative session
This video opened my mind and the way expained helped me to understand it better.
That’s great to hear!!
I envision higher pre-delay settings bringing the listener closer to the source, as if you are in the center of a space and can hear what is bouncing around you. Conversely, if the pre-delay is set lower, it almost then seems as if you are back in the room and unable to distinguish the dry sound from the totality of the reverb.
nice
Thank you Marc for covering this topic and making it easy to understand. I'm really looking forward to your new tutorials. Keep them coming. Thank you for sharing.
Awesome showcase of the use of pre-delay. Thank you, Marc and Warren. And you've chosen such a beautiful song to demonstrate it, Marc! Love it.
I like to play with pre-delay to give sources in the mix depth and weight. I learned this back in the early 2000s from an audio engineer who worked for a German broadcast service. I was a little desperate. Most of the tracks from the recordings I worked with had been recorded individually in small, dead rooms and always sounded very direct and lifeless. Adding reverb seemed to be the solution, but it often sounded too washed out and artificial. I talked with him about this subject, and he advised me to try to solve it with setting the pre-delay and simply explained to me that the longer the pre-delay, the closer the signal sounds to the listener in the mix. I tried and experimented with it for a while and it just works great.
Love this. Been scared of pre delay so been keying the vox into a compressor on the verb track. But now, I'm gonna look at pd again. Cheers!
Thank you so much, never new what pre delay was. I was always searching for something in the vocals and I think this is it.
OH MY GOD! This is exactly the kind of video I’ve been looking for from PLAP. Just really sinking into an advanced topic.
Fantastic!!
It took me a day but I watched it all. It is the perfect lesson!
Fantastic!!
Also, thanks to the intro to Laura T Lewis... loving the voice, love the song!
I never knew anything about it until now (I had noticed it on my DAW but ignored it) Just had a try out....instant improvement, unbelievable difference in the picture, you've given me a missing link THANK YOU!!
This is excellent. A great demo of creativity and feel focusing on the pre-delay function and the emotional effect it creates
Mystery of the pre-delay, SOLVED!
Marc: "I have no idea"
God I love this channel! You guys are great!
Wonderful video! Awesome demonstration!
Nice song and mix.
One of the best songs using tons of reverb on vocal is Beck “Morning.” A very thick, lound and long reverb and still letting his voice sit in front and having all instruments fit perfectly.
Personally I think 120 is too much here because for some reason that specific reverb algorithm seems to have plenty of pre delay in itself without adding any. More like a slow attack.
BTW you should consider if the amount of ads are making people stop watching? You probably have data on how many follow through to the end? Personally I often quit halfway in some of the most annoying ones.
Thanks for your videos Marc. Really enjoyable to watch.
Best explanation I found about pre delay 👏👏👏 Thank you!!
"It´s not the end of the universe" - LOVE IT!! Another GREAT episode!! Thanx ...
Thanks ever so much!!
Awesome video. Concise, to the point, and transparent with your approach.
Great series. Beautiful song. Thank you :)
Combine this with Early Reflection and you got a killer space.
I love the approach that doing music is feel and fun and not science. A thing so many people don't understand, for example on GS. Cheers
Marc is great, I really like his approach to mixing and listening!
you can change this new pro tools version to the "old" white mode in the preferences! great video!
Super explanation. Thank you
Great Song!
Thanks for this. The predelay demonstration was excellent!
Instantly went and bought this track. Loved it.
Thank you so much. I almost always use a preset in my reverb plugin on my vocals and then I struggle to find the right wet/dry mix. Now I know that I need to adjust my predelay, probably increase it a bit as the preset has a very short predelay setting.
Now I know， my pre-delay time is too short。 Thanks， Marc。
Marvellous
You are the best that explains how is this music and mixing, just listen. And with a very important technical preparation. Congrats.
I'm not sure if you've got cameras in my place but I was, for no reason, thinking about pre-delay a couple of days ago and I wasn't even in a 'musical environment'. Everything's connected, I guess. Pperfect timing!
Haha is big brother watching? Just a wonderful coincidence
@@Producelikeapro Funny you should mention that. I'm just finishing the book '1984' (cue 'Twilight Zone theme...)
Hello! A couple things I' like to say (in no particular order), if I may. First : that song (and performance) is simply awesome! Wow! Second : pre-delay is so important for depth and clarity in the mix. I really appreciate that you make a video about it. And I think it would need a couple more, lol! Three : as a long time follower (and academy member since July), I think It's great to have you on the PLAP team. Pretty darn good match, IMO. Four : it's also great to see you smile more and more. Actually, in the last videos, you sound funnier too! lol! Well... . I think I mostly wanna say thank you! And, as Warren would put it, have a wonderful day!!!!! :-D
UA-cam university student ? By the way , there's about million same mediocre songs
Lovely track Marc !!! Loving the tutorial as well
Love to automate the predelay depends on the section of the song on vocals, guitars or strings. And as always Marc nail it!!!
What are the thoughts of pre-delay versus side chain on the reverb? Would the use of longer pre-delay to push the reverb back alleviate (or reduce) the “need” or effect of ducking on the reverb? Would be interested in feedback from others experience.
That was a very timely video for me. Thanks guys.
Thanks For your insight those vocals sound amazing
Marc Daniel Nelson is definitely a FORCE! More contents on reverb please !!!!
I remember watching a video with Bobby Owsinski. The video explained a formula and Bobby said, that was a good starting point with the calculation but you should try use your ears and feeling for the final setting of predelay. I think it went something like this. Divide your BPM by 60 and multiply the result by 1000 and that will give you in milliseconds your delay or reverb timing. Maybe I am wrong or picked it up wrong Anyway, cheers Marc for another great video
Love the videos he makes. Would love watching him work for few days.
Just leaving a comment for the f... of it. Thanks for this, I just used pre-delay on reverb (latest song on my channel if anybodies interested) for the first time a couple weeks ago and it jives with everything Marc just said. It left me with the dry signal clean while allowing me to use nice big reverb to float everything. Worked great, I had just figured out what pre-delay meant for this (TSAR) reverb plug-in.
But ... one of the reasons I'd hadn't messed with pre-delay before is from experimenting with it one time before on a different plug in where 'pre-delay' (this was a delay plug-in, I don't remember which one) seemed to me, that it started the delay effect in front of the dry signal. I found this useless for things that I do and assumed that pre-delay meant 'before'.
But thanks Marc. From this day forward I will use the term 'pre-delay' to mean as you stated.
(still to early to leave the couch after lunch so ...) further more, I find the business of timing delay and reverbs to music to be tiresome and not useful. Maybe it works great of EDM and some polkas but for me, I rely on reverb to add textured randomness to flesh things out. If I had to time it to the music to get it to clean up, I would think that it's merely way too much reverb.
(still procrastinating going back to my shop)
On the same theme, I played in a tavern act for many years where we used canned bass and drums (recorded into a fourtrack). With no bass player or drummer it just left two bodies in front of mics so, always felt like I needed to compensate for the lack of movement in such a tiny act. Our lighting rig had an audio input which one could hit with a signal to get light changes and it turned on and off with a foot switch. Tried it and it was horrible. Might work for some (would have been great for Moog Cook Book) but for us we were doing folk/country/rock with a classic rock set to close the bar.
But what did work was this: I had two open channels on the fourtrack. So I just put kick samples In places (a signal no one would gear of course). Like in the first set when things where quite calm (like ... nobody there except maybe a bartender) I put a sample at a verse here or there and it felt like someone was changing the view angle. Never on a beat but just in odd places and it felt very comfortable. Then later at the end of the night I could do like a " kick kick kick x forever" for the blow out songs but it was never on a beat and really did have the feel of a bored soundman pushing a light control button. Pretty funny now that I think about it but in those lean years that is how I got work. (also, this was a dinky 8 can light rig and I could only ever run 2 cans at a time or it would blow a 15 amp breaker. These pubs didn't have a stove plug up on the stage)
So, in the closing of this soliloquy I would like to make the argument that with regard to reverb and delay I feel there is a need to keep the reaction times of these textures off the beat of the flippin music. Unless your talking about EDM or other dance categories that I know nothing about.
Ok ... off I go.
Thank's for great video. I personally use pre delay 135 ms (VOX) instead of comping the verb bus.
Very interesting topic, thanks :)
I like to use 2 feeds to vocal reverb, the reverb itself is set to a moderate predelay of around 40 ms. First feed is direct to reverb, second feed to reverb is delayed by two beats (250 ms for a 120 bpm song), this delay is also mixed to taste in the master bus.
Thanks Marc, Warren.
the song is sooooo soothing
Marc Daniel Nelson is the one!
Yes, indeed David!
Love your videos. The change of angle does not make it look more pro and does not need to do, as listening to Marc talk is interesting enough. Keep em coming, love your content, always insightful, interesting and motivating. I can not thank you enough. All the best from a recording session in Spain.