History of the Delay Effect in Music
History of the Delay Effect – Who doesn’t know the song Underworld – Born Slippy? The song is legendary because it is one of the soundtracks for the phenomenal film, Trainspotting, it has electronic drums that sound very majestic and a synthesizer sound wrapped with many delay effects, resulting in a rave feel that was very iconic in its era.
The delay effect is a process of repeating a recorded voice signal and reissuing it with a time delay so as to create a sound effect commonly referred to as echo. This delay effect is a very common thing used in various types of music genres. Besides functioning to give the impression of a large space dimension, the delay effect is also very effective to be applied to various audio tracks such as vocals, drums, and even basslines.
However, in History of the Delay Effect, electronic music is not the first type of music to use delay effects in production and performance techniques. If we take it far back, precisely in the 1950s when this effect was discovered, the delay effect has also begun to be applied in various musical genres that exist in this era, although its use is still very limited. At first, this effect was applied using a much more traditional method of using improvised tape or tape on a reel-to-reel magnetic recording system. By shortening or lengthening the recording loop, the length of the resulting delay can be controlled.
Turning to the 1960s, on History of the Delay Effect, there was a new musical scene movement in Jamaica that involved using effects as the main foundation. A new sub-genre called “dub” was created as a result of several studio engineers who like to play various kinds of effects in the studio. They applied a spring reverb effect kit which is a simple effect tool to produce echo sounds and also used various types of delay effects to then be applied to existing reggae music releases, thus creating a new atmospheric feel and having a dreamy impression. Perhaps this is the first time that a set of effects has become central to the formation of a new sub-genre.
Entering the era of the 1970s, in History of the Delay Effect, this delay effect unit became more and more available in the market and the technology was increasingly developed using bucket brigade delay (BBD) circuits. This technique is a combination of analog and digital methods because, in addition to using magnetic devices, this method also uses digital devices in the processing of existing voice signals. Then the sound signal that is passed along the capacitor lines will be split, one routing directly to the original sound output or commonly called dry and the other passing through the capacitor called wet, the capacitor will slow down the signal by as much as a matter of microsecond and then mixed with the dry signal thus creating a sound effect echo. Both dry and wet signals can be controlled individually so that the size of the echo can be adjusted. Although bucket brigade delay (BBD) is an old technology, there are still many music gear manufacturers that produce this type of effect because it has unique characteristics and vintage sound.
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The availability of inexpensive digital signal processing devices in the late 1970s and 1980s led to the birth of an era of digital delay effects that no longer used magnetic or analog devices. Initially, these devices were only available in units mounted in luxury studio shelving panels, but as the electronics industry grew, delay effects began to be available in smaller and more compact forms such as foot pedals. The first mass-produced delay effect in the form of a foot pedal was the Boss DD-2 which was produced in 1984. This digital delay effect technology evolved into a digital reverb effects unit and continues to a digital multi-effects unit capable of producing more sophisticated effects than just delay effects, such as reverb and audio timescale-pitch modification effects.
Back in the current era, on behalf of History of the Delay Effect, the world of music production which is increasingly dominated by software-based production techniques also has many methods of using delay effects. Almost every digital audio workstation (DAW) on the market today provides delay effects natively or without having to download additional plug-ins. The algorithm-based effect panel in this software has a working method that simulates various kinds of delay effect devices, both analog, hybrid, and digital. By using a software-based audio processing algorithm method, all possibilities in the use of delay effects become wider and limitless. Voice signals that have been processed using delay effects can be adjusted automatically using the automation method. With the use of automation that is generally found in various kinds of DAW, you can string the value of each function panel in the delay effect so that you can create the desired effect flow.
