A perfect delay with no DSP load

Tips and advice for getting the most from Scope. No questions here please.

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peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

A perfect delay with no DSP load

Post by peksi »

This I came up years and years ago when I used Cakewalk for DOS and it sounded perfect. Well it's kinda perfect since it's the real thing... kinda. Best for me to just cut to the chase:

Firstly you have to be able to isolate your wish for delay effect to a MIDI track. Should work with audio too but never tested, may sound odd.

Now copy that track and paste into a new one with it's own MIDI channel / audio output, delay the channel events for example 500ms, pan it, turn the volume down a bit. Now paste it again to a new track, delay more, silence more. By now you should be getting the idea. The end result is playback-only 100% pure delay with minimal DSP load. That is unless you run out of polyphony - in which case the poor musician will start cutting notes from where they overlap too much.

I haven't tried and remembered that trick for years... should try it and see how it sounds.
hubird

Post by hubird »

you'll miss the damping factor, the stereo settings and the crossdelay possibility, but in case of emergency it works :-D
sometimes I do the trick on one specific note, where the mix eats the delays fast anyway, and to avoid the hassle of opening a new fx etc.
Mostly on drums, it's easy to make a few transitions smoother this way.
Old technics, from the time when it still was important to keep ghost midi parts as ghosts when possible, to spare memory.
peksi
Posts: 126
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:41 am

Post by peksi »

hubird wrote:you'll miss the damping factor, the stereo settings and the crossdelay possibility, but in case of emergency it works :-D
You'll have them if you do panning and eq on delayed tracks. You can do for example 1+5 tracks each with individual settings, pan bouncing from side to side while eq dampens the sound. That should be one heck of an echo :)
hubird

Post by hubird »

of course you can do all that...but would you ever (like to) do? :-D
dawman
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Post by dawman »

MIDI delays, ghost tracks,.......yeah.

I use to have this ancient sampled bass pedal that used chips for it's sounds.
It was called the MIDI Bass by 360 Systems. It has a moog, Oberheim, and velocity switched slap bass ( Jerry Seinfeld's segue's sound ).

To make it FAT. I would copy the track 3 times separately prior to remerging it, and clock shift left of 0 by percentages, then right w/ the same percentage. Too much would create a delay like the one you mentioned, and short amounts gave it a considerable thickness or chorusing effect, but it was MIDI'd FAT BASTARDS.

The QX-1 would replay the tracks and they were louder and polished. This worked with the glassy FM Electric Pianos on the TX816 also. ( 8 DX7's ).

When people started using QX-1's in the USA it was 1986. I brought mine from Japan in late '84. When auto-bands in Vegas started playing live w/ these they always wondered why the same gear yeilded different results. I told them I programmed it differently. I soon was doing the sequences for several bands along with my own, and was making quite a decent living considering the time and year.

Funny how I still use the same gear 23 years later !!

The MIDI delay sounds awesome especially when you actually push it's polyrhythm's through a Scope based sick ass delay. Picture a multi-tap Tape Simulator.


You are on the right path Brotha' Man peksi. I infuse old and new, DSP and hardware, and my results are the best of both worlds. There's nothing else like it.
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Janni
Posts: 389
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:00 pm
Location: Cologne - Germany

Post by Janni »

I think this method ist really a great example for "thinking simple" makes live
much more easy sometimes...
As I mostly mix commercials, I don't have the time to fiddle around with delay
parameters to get the right sound and the right content into it (Hmm, will I need an
aux or just an insert? etc.), it's faster and better sounding to create two new
tracks and use the described method!
And if you work with several people on the same project, it's visually much clearer
what happens and it's easier to edit several variations...
OLDSCHOOL RULEZ!!! :D
Cheers,
Jan
-/-
hubird

Post by hubird »

hm...that's again a bit too positive, to my feelings :-D

you should have your own presets organized and the routing ready when you do commercial work :-)
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Janni
Posts: 389
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 4:00 pm
Location: Cologne - Germany

Post by Janni »

Be shure, I have! :wink:
But I would bet I'm faster that way!
If you work with PT mix systems (the old ones...) and really often have to change sessions, you think twice of adding an additional delay bus to your standard projects...
And since I have to work in several studios, with different systems and plugins, I'm really a fan of reducing to the max.
"Oh shit, where's my usb stick with my presets? What, only version xy???" :D
-/-
dawman
Posts: 14368
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:00 pm
Location: PROJECT WINDOW

Post by dawman »

I love mixing in mono, and using as few tracks as possible. Then going to stereo makes the placement and summing so...........8 trackish.

Old and simple is my motto. Too bad I don't simplify my live rig.
I created a monster, but when I am busy mixing, changing FX on the fly and basically never doing the same thing twice, I have so much connection using my ears on the spot, and it keeps from chugging gallons of Jagermeister, like I am forced to do when playing shitty covers which I really don't enjoy. Haven't done anything I disliked since last June in the studio w/ a self appointed " Producer ". I had at least 3 trips to the shitter every hour,...dayamn.

I rather enjoy hearing everyone's tricks and ideas for mixing w/ Scope, Cubase, etc.
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