Moving reverb and delays to second path

[catalano]

Hi All, 

At some point I saw a tips tutorial that suggested moving your reverbs and delays down to a parallel path. I can't remember the exact reasoning why it was suggested. I've tried it on a few of my patches and it seems to increase the volume quite a bit in some cases. Does anyone know why this would be suggested?

[rd2rk]

Two reasons I know of.

Some folks like to be able to control the mix of a "dry" signal with a "wet" signal.

If you run a delay in parallel with a reverb it allows you to control how "wet" the delays are.

The volume discrepancy is a result of the effect of "Pan Law". Search for it here or google it.

[Schmalle]

Why that suggestion? I don't know. If it was delay into reverb in a parallel path that might sound a little different because in that case there is more reverb on the delayed signal leading to a different decay behaviour. Just a guess.

[somebodyelse]

Only reason I would do it would be if I wanted to separate my delay & reverb from the dry signal, ie. run the delays and reverb 100% wet, so the reverb is only applied to the delays and not the dry signal, and then adjust their levels on the blocks. I'd actually be more inclined to keep the delayed signal in series, and have the reverb parallel with the delay, so the reverb wasn't applied to the delay.

 

Why is your signal louder?

My guess, you're not sending 'half the signal' in to each branch of the signal chain; you're sending two lots of '100%'. If you're not using a 100% mix through the delay or reverb, then you're sending dry signal out of the parallel loop, and it'll sum up when it returns causing it to gain in level. Depending on the latency caused by the DSP demands of some effects you might use on a parallel chain, you can also get a phasing/chorus effect from running a %age of dry signal out of the parallel loop back in to a dry path.

[theElevators]

Just to be clear, you can have a parallel path, and you can add delays to the top or the bottom. Or both. But to set up a parallels path you need to have at least one block on the bottom, it can even be a dummy block. 
 

so why do it…
 

If you have delay effects, you have the dry signal mixed to it from the get-go because it’s in parallel.  You always hear both: the dry and the delay, even if you set the mix of the delay to be at 100%. 
 

I have one preset where I needed a specific delay sound.   So I only play one note, and it is dry in the middle. This note is then repeated on the left with specific delay pattern and rhen on the right exactly once with the same delay pattern. 
So it’s double delay with stereo panning where the initial note is heard on both sides. 
 

The only way to accomplish this afaik is with the parallel path.  Otherwise with ping pong delay you don’t have the initial note attack in the middle, it would be on the left.  I tried all different options and this is the only way that I got what I needed. 
 

I did this parallel path by a mistake initially. But then I discovered another benefit to this setup: you don’t need to mess with level and mix parameter as much. Because you have more dry signal, it just seems to be easier to dial in your sounds without any volume drops.  Now all my presets always have a delay in parallel like that. Even if it’s bypassed, it’s still there for consistency and to have the same preset volume as the other presets.  I use a preset-per-song approach and keep my main core sound setup the same between presets. 
 

So in summary, it just seems more musical to have this setup, basically it’s easier to dial in good sounds. On the pod go there is no parallel path and I was able to replicate my regular Halix sound with just lower mix percentages. 

[craiganderton]

On 10/5/2024 at 7:08 AM, theElevators said:

So in summary, it just seems more musical to have this setup, basically it’s easier to dial in good sounds.

 

There's also an historical precedent. In traditional recording studios, delays and reverbs were often placed in parallel buses. Part of that was because multiple sources fed them, but even so, it did indeed seem easy to dial in good sounds.

[theElevators]

On 10/6/2024 at 2:02 AM, craiganderton said:

 

There's also an historical precedent. In traditional recording studios, delays and reverbs were often placed in parallel buses. Part of that was because multiple sources fed them, but even so, it did indeed seem easy to dial in good sounds.

Yes. When mixing music I always use buses with delay/reverb. 

[catalano]

Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately this forum NEVER sends me notifications on threads I follow. But, IIR, one of the benefits from the tutorial had to do with the initial transient of the note being more pronounced when the delays and reverbs were split to the parallel path. (hope I explained that correctly)

[theElevators]

On 10/7/2024 at 2:59 PM, catalano said:

Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately this forum NEVER sends me notifications on threads I follow. But, IIR, one of the benefits from the tutorial had to do with the initial transient of the note being more pronounced when the delays and reverbs were split to the parallel path. (hope I explained that correctly)

Yes, that is correct!  In most cases the same can be accomplished by setting the "mix" parameter to a low value.  However, in my example with the left/right double stereo delay: having a note played in the middle is simply not possible to accomplish with the mix parameter unless you use the parallel path.