5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Dynamic Delay - Part 20 of 31

Sometimes the best effect is the one you don’t hear. I know it’s true with vocal delays. As much as you want to hear them ring out when a vocal phrase ends, they get in the way when they swirl all over the vocalist as he is singing a line. You turn it down to avoid this problem, but then you don’t hear enough delay at all.

Time For The Smart Delay

The smart delay is really a dynamic delay. One that knows when to turn itself down (getting out of the way of the vocal) and when to turn itself back up to echo out the awesomeness. You can set this up with a regular old delay plugin in your DAW, with just a little help from a compressor with a sidechain.