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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Delay Pedal vs. Reverb Pedal
Delay Pedal vs. Reverb Pedal
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blueswannabe
132 posts
Mar 23, 2012
3:42 PM
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Can anyone tell me whether they use a reverb pedal and whether they prefer it over a delay pedal. I have a harp delay which I really like..you can get a reverb like effect.
But does a reverb pedal give you that something else that a delay pedal lacks.
Mike
BTW- going to Hill COuntry and can't wait!
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scrybe314
102 posts
Mar 23, 2012
3:48 PM
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I'm interning for a guy who builds pedals for a living, and these are his exact words: "Delay is literally a copy of the sound being repeated. Whereas reverb is the sound reflecting and the ambiance resulting from it. For example, a delay would literally play back what you just played, where a reverb would be the original sound and however long it takes to die off from the ambiance in the room. Reverb, you're only hearing the actual note that you played tailing off, with a delay you can hear multiple repeats that you wouldn't hear with reverb." Hope that cleared it up!
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"I'm a stray dog runnin' through this town..."
The Stonecutters
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rbeetsme
702 posts
Mar 23, 2012
3:52 PM
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I use a slight delay (Lone Wolf), gives a full rounded tone to the amp. Often I will also add some spring reverb, a little echo to the sound. If I use a third pedal, I might just use one or the other. I think too many pedals can muddy the mix.
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Willspear
99 posts
Mar 23, 2012
5:26 PM
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I don't use reverb for anything but guitar
I dont like it for harp. Unless it is almost non existent. Natural reverb of playing in certain spaces makes a great sound. I think reverb lends itself to more country harp as opposed to blues.
Reverb is an effect for acoustic playing to my ears despite a couple of my favorite harp amps having great built in reverb.
Reverb more so than delay buries a signal in the mix at a given level in my experience. Too many guitarists crank the reverb for everything and to compensate just play louder.
It can be tasteful and works in heavy amounts for certain music. I mean the dripping splash of surf is appealing. I use a fender tank for surf.
I just find slap back more appealing and the textural qualities of long delays when used.
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Frank
479 posts
Mar 23, 2012
5:42 PM
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The "Linda Lou" song I did used reverb only from a built in reverb tank right into the amp and it's hooked up to work with just one speaker, the other 3 are dry. I keep it set at about 3 for diatonic and 6 or more for Chromatic. Like Will said and I agree, for my ears to much reverb on a diatonic drowns out the natural sound to much, but for Chrome Reverb seems to really give it some extra Bang that to my ears sounds full and fat. I like Delay or Echo too, it can help move a note along that makes it a bit more alive.
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Greg Heumann
1546 posts
Mar 23, 2012
6:53 PM
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I have played with delay. Got tired of it. I just got a reverb pedal (Wet Reverb Pedal v3 - very good at what it does) and I like it a lot. But then, I like most things I try for a while... and then realize I like nothing better than plugging straight into my amp. for now the reverb is in the mix.
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/Greg
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blueswannabe
133 posts
Mar 24, 2012
5:16 AM
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@Greg, I noticed that this mic element I just bought actually sounds better just plugged straight into the amp and that when I use a delay pedal it actually takes away some of the desirable qualities of the element. Although the pedal does sound better with some other elements I use.
So I agree with you, sometimes I just go right into the amp with no effects.
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walterharp
845 posts
Mar 24, 2012
5:43 AM
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that brings up an interesting point.. why does playing in a stairwell sound so much better than a reverb pedal?
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5F6H
1118 posts
Mar 24, 2012
6:04 AM
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Reverb & delay are both "echo" effects, we tend to think of them as seperate entities but they dovetail, however, back to your original question...
The specific device you use to get the said effect is paramount, it doesn't matter how sweet the effect if the box itself takes all the front off your notes, as you will then be dropped back in the mix on stage.
There are no "rules", but here are a couple of observations:
"Delay" is generally one or more distinct repeats after the dry note. It's popular for harp because it can be dialled in "tighter" and depending on the unit, can give a close following echo, layering & beefing up the dry note, without phrases blurring into each other too much.
"Reverb" is lots of little repeats close together to give a less distinct slap back/echo, a more lush, smoother effect. This can sound great, but tends towards a more "blurred" sound as the repeats are less distinct and can merge note to note. Bear with me whilst I preamble - a duck's quack is often said to have no echo, this is because the actual quack decays gently, reverb/echo is often "covered up" by this soft decay and undetectable to the typical ear...hence a softer, smoother, amp sound, with less crisp note separation might not benefit from a "reverb" in the same way as a harder amp. Some smoother sounding amps are often found to sound great without any wet effect, just because they don't need it.
If your amp has a softer, rounded sound to it, you might think about using a tighter "delay". If your amp is very tight, crisp & punchy, then a looser delay, or even reverb might suit you better. Player & style have an effect too, I've seen one player copy another's settings for a particular device & just get "mud", because they play with a different attack.
Live, my preference is for a delay (Boss DD2/3, Lone Wolf), but for studio use I often prefer reverb, even if using delay as well, rarely delay alone.
If your delay or reverb are affecting your ability to hear yourself & cut on stage, then unplug the unit, don't just turn it off - most of the time turning the unit off just kills the wet effect, but it doesn't counter any detrimenmtal effects & losses that are related to plugging into the unit's circuit.
I have often started playing with a delay, things have gotten loud, ended up straight in. A lot of guys use reverb/delay as a "band aid" to cover up deficiencies in their set up...if it sounds good, it is good, but just as often it causes as much of a problem as it solves...or, rather the solution to the problem just changes the problem! ;-)
My philosophy is that if you "need" a reverb/delay effect, there is something wrong elsewhere. Any player you can name has recorded dry at some point. Some like old tube/SS "tape delays" because these impart a sonic character & desirable preamp effect, even with the delay effect turned off (Clark, Piazza amongst others).
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www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Mar 24, 2012 6:25 AM
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5F6H
1119 posts
Mar 24, 2012
6:23 AM
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@Walterharp - "that brings up an interesting point.. why does playing in a stairwell sound so much better than a reverb pedal?"
Good question Walter...when you play in a stairwell/corridor/under a bridge (always be on the lookout for trolls!) you are hearing real reverb applied to the intact dry sound. The dry sound itself is unchanged, the level of reverb is changed by the conditions & position of the listener. This is the kind of reverb that Bill Putnam pioneered at Universal studios in Chicago, in later recordings a channel from the recording desk could be sent to a "reverb chamber" - dry sound comes out via a speaker in the chamber, reverb is picked up by a mic in the chamber & fed back to the desk & mixed as appropriate. You might notice in some LW recordings the harp sounds "far away", wet and in a different room, then it's "up close" & dry, this isn't just volume level, it's the effect of hearing the dry, mixed & wet signals. Motown (Detroit) & Capitol also widely used reverb/echo chambers.
Putnam & Sam Phillips @ Sun utilised studio tape delay too, "Juke" has studio tape delay on it, for example. One recorder records the session, a second recorder is later used to generate the slap back. Also check out Jimmy Rogers vocals on "The Last Time I Fool Around With You", a similar technique gives the chorus effect on his voice.
On Mud's Hoochie Coochie Man, you can hear LW's harp reverb being cut at the end of the riffs, Backtrack starts off with reverb, then at 01:24 they turn it off.
A reverb pedal is always an approximation & can't really do the spacial aspect quite so well, you might have more luck with stereo effects or splitting the signal to 2 amps, one dry, one wet (DD2/3 allows this via the direct out...too much faffing for my liking, for stage work). Also, both wet & dry signal are subject to any inherant character that the pedal's input circuit might have (everyone claims to have "true bypass" these days, they may have even achieved it, iI just haven't ever heard it!)
www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Mar 24, 2012 6:43 AM
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5F6H
1121 posts
Mar 24, 2012
6:28 AM
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Last Edited by on Mar 24, 2012 6:28 AM
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walterharp
846 posts
Mar 24, 2012
7:26 AM
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yeah, it just seems with all the amp modeling etc that they are getting pretty good at, a really cool reverb would be great, but has not yet been obtained, but maybe i just have not heard the expensive rack effects or whatnot...
that sound would not be very useful for a loud band situation in any case.. just wondering
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rbeetsme
706 posts
Mar 24, 2012
7:56 AM
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Boss has pedals for nearly any sound or effect a guitar or other instrument player might want to try. They sell because folks like to mess around with different sounds. As much as we all seem to agree on what makes an ideal amp, we also vary on what makes "our" sound.
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hvyj
2281 posts
Mar 24, 2012
8:03 AM
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Personally, I like on board amp reverb just fine, but if I need to use a pedal, I'll ordinarily use delay.
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MrVerylongusername
2302 posts
Mar 24, 2012
8:06 AM
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@Mark
Sound bounces.
Your link - whilst thankfully and scientifically, demolishing the urban myth -only speculates as to the reasons why this myth has arisen. You present an explanation that it is due to decay times. That sounds feasible until you actually listen to a duck's quack! I hear an abrupt end with little decay.
I prefer this hypothesis: Duck quacks don't tend to produce echos in the same way that cat miows don't echo or chicken clucks, hamster squeaks or ant farts. Because they are just low energy noises and our own hearing is too insensitive to hear the reflections.
None of this is to say that what you wrote about reverb and delay is nonsense. Quite the opposite in fact
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5F6H
1122 posts
Mar 24, 2012
8:36 AM
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@ Mr VLUN - There have been other attempts to get to the bottom of the "quack echo", others have shown that it's really more of a "Qua..." than a "Quack!" when broken down at slower speed. This is from the Mythbusters TV show...
"Initially unable to get either duck to quack, they began chattering when paired. Initially, no echo could be found, so the team moved to an anechoic chamber for comparison. When examined by an audio expert, it was found that the echo was "swallowed" by the original quack, due to the very similar acoustic structure between the quack and the echo. Because of this, it may be difficult to tell where the quack ends and the echo begins, both having similar waveforms on an oscilloscope and blending together in a way that makes them difficult to distinguish. In the same way, human hearing may not perceive the difference between a duck's quack and its echo."
@Mr VLUN "I prefer this hypothesis: Duck quacks don't tend to produce echos in the same way that cat miows don't echo or chicken clucks, hamster squeaks or ant farts. Because they are just low energy noises and our own hearing is too insensitive to hear the reflections."
Damn these puny human ears! :-) But they are all we have to hear with...You wait til I grow my owl ears they'll go great with my donkey teeth & giant squid eye! ...there has to be a practical byproduct to this stem cell lark eh?
Now Grasshopper, if a duck quacks in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still have an echo? ;-)
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www.myspace.com/markburness
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LittleBubba
207 posts
Mar 24, 2012
12:42 PM
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Reverb vs. delay is "season to suit taste" kinda thing. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion. I personally like a hint of slap echo delay, but that means nothing.
Some like a little- some like alot. Same with reverb.
Also, pedals sound different through different amps.
I play the same jam every week and I use a different mic/pedal/amp setup for that jam than I do for straight blues gigs, 'cuz the playlist is different (even different genres) and the way I use/set up my gear is different.
I'd definitely always own both a delay and a reverb pedal, or a tool that'll do both.
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STME58
102 posts
Mar 24, 2012
1:45 PM
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@Walterharp - "that brings up an interesting point.. why does playing in a stairwell sound so much better than a reverb pedal?"
My favorite stairwell is in the Chegongmiao station of the Shenzhen Metro. Each landing is about 1500 square foot woth 20ft cielings and all concreste surfaces. There are large concrete columns. The last time I was there the shops were not finished yet and there were few people. It took about 3 seconds or so for a sound to die out.
I wonder if what gives the stairwell or underpass its unique sound is the multitude of different surfaces at different angles and distances giving a miriad of different delays all mashed together.
Some of the first man made reverb devices were the great cathedrals in Europe. The cathederal at Freiburg has a revertibration time of over 6 seconds.
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