I wanted to mimic/recreate something I experienced

I was walking at my local community college campus and when no one was around I started shouting to see what kind of delays and reverbs I was working with. To my pleasant surprise, I noticed something that low key fascinated me. The louder I shouted, the more the delays would repeat. The softer I shouted the less number of delays I would get. So here is my questions: Is there a parameter on the Axe Fx III that can mimic/recreate this kind of thing? The harder I play a string, the more delays I get and the softer I play the less? Please let me know.
 
That's one of the beautiful things about Tape Echoes, and even a Deluxe Memory Man. They do that... "thing."

I wonder if it has something to do with delays that have a "preamp" in them? I am not smart enough to
know the answer, just that I dig that kind of behaviour.
 
I was walking at my local community college campus and when no one was around I started shouting to see what kind of delays and reverbs I was working with. To my pleasant surprise, I noticed something that low key fascinated me. The louder I shouted, the more the delays would repeat. The softer I shouted the less number of delays I would get. So here is my questions: Is there a parameter on the Axe Fx III that can mimic/recreate this kind of thing? The harder I play a string, the more delays I get and the softer I play the less? Please let me know.
Asign the mix to the input level?
 
Natural echoes are gonna be something like geometric/exponential because each repeat is diminished by the same relative factor until below audibility or energy dissipation.

It's like a bouncing ball. Drop it from 1 meter and observe it bounces 5 times. Drop it from 10 meters observe it bounces 7 times.

EDIT: It's sad to me that simple math/physics concepts are not taught well or in a way that can be related to everyday phenomena. Probably most people are exposed to geometric/exponential growth (positive feedback) via banking or investment "interest", but it's all over the place in nature. Also geometric/exponential decay, damping, and dissipation get short shrift in basic education.
 
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All delays do "this thing" if feedback is positive. The louder the input signal, the more repeats you get for the same feedback value.


Really? Do ALL delays do it the same way, with the same intensity and dynamic range??

I am asking because I only know what my experience is from playing and owning all kinds of
delays and echoes from vintage to modern, tape to digital. Some are simply more lively, for lack
of a better term. Conversely, some just feel dead and lifeless.

I wonder why that is.
 
Echoes are gonna be something like geometric/exponential because each repeat is diminished by the same relative factor until below audibility or energy dissipation.

It's like a bouncing ball. Drop it from 1 meter and observe it bounces 5 times. Drop it from 10 meters observe it bounces 7 times.

EDIT: It's sad to me that simple math/physics concepts are not taught well or in a way that can be related to everyday phenomena. Probably most people are exposed to geometric/exponential growth (positive feedback) via banking or investment "interest", but it's all over the place in nature. Also geometric/exponential decay, damping, and dissipation get short shrift in basic education.

But echoes and delays in the context of manufactured effects don't exist in an ideal geometric vacuum, do they??

It seems to me that the way a delay or echo is designed and implemented (the surrounding circuitry) is either
going to amplify that natural law, leave it neutral and mostly unaffected, or inhibit it in some way.

Signed,
Product of Public Education :)
 
The intensity of the repeats can be adjusted but the bottom line is that a delay can only repeat what is input. Whether the input signal is strong or weak, the output will be commensurate to the settings.

In the world of effects, there can be seemingly apparent exceptions, e.g. the Ten Tap delay, but they are really no longer a delay or echo in the traditional sense but rather their own signal repeating effect. That said, even these effects dynamically respond to varying input signal strength/volume.
 
My gut is that it's an illusion. The louder inputs cause louder echoes, which stay longer above the threshold of hearing and the noise floor.

Electronic devices may have companding and/or other trickery, but natural echoes have no such mechanism. The trails are exactly as much louder as the input.

Sez me.
/$.0000002
 
I am asking because I only know what my experience is from playing and owning all kinds of
delays and echoes from vintage to modern, tape to digital. Some are simply more lively, for lack
of a better term. Conversely, some just feel dead and lifeless.

I wonder why that is.

An algorithm can do anything (up to the limits of the mathematics and ability to reproduce it through a sound system). So some delays could have a linear decay or sub-linear decay or be non-linear in different ways. If you keep pumping a signal into them and/or crank the feedback these can get unstable or numerically blow up (NB: new Pitch/Shimmer verbs).

Real echoes follow a natural dissipation law which usually is relatively simple away from the extremes. A nuclear bomb would be echoed until it destroyed the structures while the flapping of butterfly wings would be dispersed before any energy gets reflected. But you can also get resonances or standing waves that have much less dissipation and can be 'driven' louder and louder. Think the Tacoma Bridge collapse.

The trails are exactly as much louder as the input.

That's what she said. 😉
 
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Love you nerds!

In a given setting, the Nth echo from an input of a given volume (origination of the sound, or prior repeat) will have the same level.

So, the 5th repeat of a loud sound is louder than the 5th repeat of a soft sound.

You hear more repeats because there are more that are above your threshold of hearing.

Of course, diffusion will accumulate and soften repeats as N gets larger.

In terms of "algorithms can do anything", yes, but OP was in an "ordinary" physical setting.

My favorite delay setup is to feed a ducked delay into a non ducked delay. That way, once you generate some echoes they decay naturally instead of getting clamped by the ducker.
 
Love you nerds!

In a given setting, the Nth echo from an input of a given volume (origination of the sound, or prior repeat) will have the same level.

So, the 5th repeat of a loud sound is louder than the 5th repeat of a soft sound.

You hear more repeats because there are more that are above your threshold of hearing.

Of course, diffusion will accumulate and soften repeats as N gets larger.

In terms of "algorithms can do anything", yes, but OP was in an "ordinary" physical setting.

My favorite delay setup is to feed a ducked delay into a non ducked delay. That way, once you generate some echoes they decay naturally instead of getting clamped by the ducker.
Now that is an interesting idea!
 
Neat idea @fractalz ! Gotta try that tonight.
@yyz67 , I'm a science teacher, and yea, I agree, decay, dissipation, etc. probably don't get enough attention in education, and you are spot on saying that effective teaching should tie back to natural phenomena when possible. I teach biology and astronomy, and end up spending a bit of time talking through inverse square law and entropy with students. I have a bunch of demos I do with guitars and amps. Last semester, I fired up my Carol Ann Tucana 3 to help demonstrate a few frequency and wavelength concepts, and completely shocked every kid in class. Good times.
 
My gut is that it's an illusion. The louder inputs cause louder echoes, which stay longer above the threshold of hearing and the noise floor.

Electronic devices may have companding and/or other trickery, but natural echoes have no such mechanism. The trails are exactly as much louder as the input.

Sez me.
/$.0000002
Correct. The number of repeats is technically infinite. It's just that at some point they fall below the noise floor. The louder the initial signal the more repeats heard before they are masked by the noise floor.
 
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