Ok....Delay and Reverb.....Series or Parallel?

[Dancing Frog]

I am in the depends on the application territory. While there is a certain cleanliness of signal running in parallel, sometimes I want things to be colored by being in series. I've even put delay and reverb in front of amp to get the garage band kind of feel. As far as I can recall, FX loops on amps appeared the early 80's. All the early tape delays and stand alone reverb units were run into the front of the amp if I remember correctly for live applications.

 

[clarky]

Guitar-centric mentality is series. Classic mixing board approach is parallel.

that's my thought on this too..

I know that on paper, series reverb and delay, and parallel reverb delay should sound different...
as should 'delaying the reverb' v reverbing the delay'
but it's so subtle I can't say that I personally have ever actually been able to perceive it..

maybe I should try some A-B delta tests....
it may well be just my busted up / gigged to death hearing..

 

[GM Arts]

I think there are some reverb and delay effects that are an integral part of the overall guitar tone, such as grungy reverbs and delays, and particualrly really short delays used to fatten up a tone. These would normally be series effects, sometimes placed before an amp.

But long delays that are used to give a feeling of space (emulating repeats in a massive arena), and ambient reverbs that are intended to emulate playing in a lively room are parallel effects because they're additions to an existing raw tone. Likewise with bigger reverbs used to push an instrument further away in a band mix.

Well that's how I think about them, so just IMHO.

 

[clarky]

ha.. we seem to think alike here..

with my riffing tone I quite like a very strong but very short reverb
something like 25% to 30% wet, but only around 200mS to 300mS long
the reverb itself is stereo, usually a 'room' type'..
I prefer a wooden room because it's a little less bright than other 'stone / ceramic room types..
if the fx-unit I'm using does not have wooden rooms to choose from, I'll eq the reverb a touch [back off the lo's a little to prevent booming / back off the hi's down to about 3k to 5k just a touch to soften it's tone]
I'll have it in parallel and send both of my amp/cab chains to it

it's one of those things where you pretty much can't actually hear it..
that is until you bypass the reverb and then you notice something has gone missing..
a sort of "seen and not heard" thing...
the overall effect is to add a little size, smooth things up and provide a little stereo width..
but none of this is in a strong or done in an obvious way..
I think sometimes these very gentle but unobtrusive touches are the difference between nice and great tone..

 

[MrGuitarabuse]

Jake, you can do the same thing in series by just assigning the pedal to INPUT GAIN and setting the bypass mode to mute fx in.

Matt my man!! you are a genius! Never would discover this. Awesome feature

 

[jakel]

Matt my man!! you are a genius! Never would discover this. Awesome feature

Yeah, I'll have to try this. Thank you, Matt. I usually don't have the delay bypassed though, to avoid pedal dancing with my size thirteens. The pedal is controlling External 1, and this is where I am at a loss. I don't know how to control the delay bypass with external 1. I've wanted to do this type of thing many times, but is it possible?

 

[Bakerman]

Yeah, I'll have to try this. Thank you, Matt. I usually don't have the delay bypassed though, to avoid pedal dancing with my size thirteens. The pedal is controlling External 1, and this is where I am at a loss. I don't know how to control the delay bypass with external 1. I've wanted to do this type of thing many times, but is it possible?

You can press enter on the byp. mode control to assign a bypass modifier, dot in lower half of grid = bypassed. If the pedal's controlling input gain already there's no reason to do that unless you want to make a separate on/off switch. Input gain to 0% w/ pedal = same result as Mute FX In bypass mode.

 

[jakel]

You can press enter on the byp. mode control to assign a bypass modifier, dot in lower half of grid = bypassed.

Thanks, Bakerman, I'll have to try this out tonight.

 

[JWDubois]

I've tried it both ways on my Ultra numerous times.

In my case, I decided that I like delay in series with reverb a little better. I found I liked the sound of a little reverb on the delay rather than just a dry delay, especially with longer delays.

JWW

 

[iaresee]

Parallel. Both. because it's easier to maintain unity gain (adjusting the delay level doesn't influence the direct level).

This and for pretty much the same reason. I was struggling trying to match gain levels with delay on versus off, moving to a parallel approach made it a non-issue.

I was running them on separate parallel lines, so delay wasn't run in to reverb like this:

But then I got a patch from a user here who used this setup and I really dug it. So I too now use this setup throughout most of my performance patches:

With the above setup, in addition to being able to bypass either effect with a CC, they also both have their levels tied to one expression pedal. Neat trick. I forget who I got it from now, sorry.

 

[Tremonti]

Interesting....anyone else care to share tips or variances??

 

[Thomas-Hawk]

Yes, more please! This is a great thread... learning a lot here.

 

[LMO]

With the above setup, in addition to being able to bypass either effect with a CC, they also both have their levels tied to one expression pedal. Neat trick. I forget who I got it from now, sorry.

The second arrangement seems the same as the first, except for also connecting the delay to the reverb. Can you elaborate a bit on how this works? I would think you could tie both levels to one expression pedal regardless of which topology you used...

 

[InsideOut]

I'm a fan of parallel. I'm in the camp of not liking my delay reverbed and my reverb delayed. I just think it sounds cleaner in parallel and the AxeFx makes it so easy to set up. I do have some presets with series though. It's all about the sound I'm going for. Either way, the fx on the Axe are by far the best I've ever owned.

 

[iaresee]

The second arrangement seems the same as the first, except for also connecting the delay to the reverb. Can you elaborate a bit on how this works? I would think you could tie both levels to one expression pedal regardless of which topology you used...

Close. There's delay in the reverb signal. But there's also "dry" delay in the mix, not just reverbed delay. It's the middle ground between parallel and series delay and reverb blocks. Your delay doesn't get washed out by the reverb, but the reverbed delay gives it more space (if you're running longer delays). It's nice. I wouldn't have thought to cross paths in the routing like that if the other guy hadn't shown it to me.

And yes, you could tie an expression pedal to both blocks in either arrangement. I just hand't thought to do it that way until I played the second form in a patch I downloaded.

 

[GreatGreen]

Just do this:

Split the signal, then set the delay and main reverb's mix knobs to 100% and adjust their "mix" via their level controls. That way you could get a great main reverb sound while also giving the delay its own (significantly downplayed) reverb to avoid hearing a weird, bone-dry delay after a great big lush reverbed guitar sound. But you'd definitely mix the delay's dedicated reverb block pretty low to avoid muddying up everything. Best of both worlds!

 

[Tremonti]

Just do this:

Split the signal, then set the delay and main reverb's mix knobs to 100% and adjust their "mix" via their level controls. That way you could get a great main reverb sound while also giving the delay its own (significantly downplayed) reverb to avoid hearing a weird, bone-dry delay after a great big lush reverbed guitar sound. But you'd definitely mix the delay's dedicated reverb block pretty low to avoid muddying up everything. Best of both worlds!

Brilliant idea!

 

[Bakerman]

Just do this:
That way you could get a great main reverb sound while also giving the delay its own (significantly downplayed) reverb to avoid hearing a weird, bone-dry delay after a great big lush reverbed guitar sound. But you'd definitely mix the delay's dedicated reverb block pretty low to avoid muddying up everything. Best of both worlds!

If you just want less of the same reverb sound on delay repeats you could also reduce the level of delay feeding reverb w/ a vol/filter like this (use 100% mix on delay & reverb):

Or save a column by turning delay down and boosting the non-reverb path:

 

[luke]

For my main sound I go series. Within this strand, I have both delay and reverb.

When I wish to ADD some additional efx, including delay I do so in parallel.

Once upon a time in the late 1980s I had a monster rig with two 24 space racks, four multichannel amp heads slaved to line level and three 4x12s on stage. Back then we wanted to preserve the dry tone from becoming digitized, so we ran all efx in parallel. The Axe Fx is digital so the point is moot.

I've attached a photo of a typical strand with an additional couple of efx that I add together via one button push on my MFC to give a jet chamber effect, similar to that I use to employ using a PCM-80. It just adds a subtle grease to single note lines.

 

[Tremonti]

Any other tips?