How to Use Multi-Mono Delays

Apr 12, 2021

Multi-Mono Delays in Action

Hey, it's Josh Doyle from the Triple Threat Artist.

Today, we are going to be talking about delay and we're going to be digging into some advanced concepts in how to set up different types of delays. We're going to be talking about multi mono versus just a regular stereo AUX bus and what the pros and cons are to each one of those. So if that sounds like a bunch of jibberish right there, just stick with me. I think this is going to get really interesting and going to be a lot of fun. So check out this guitar that I've got recorded right here without any effects without any delay, this is just dry.

(Audio Playing)

Okay. Super simple. Just (audio) right. And what I was thinking when I was working on this idea is that there are times where I want to be able to play something that maybe I just don't physically have the technique to do. Right? So at this tempo, if I wanted it to be like a galloping rhythm on that, that part, it would be pretty fast. It would be (audio) right? And it's going to take a lot of fast technique to be able to pull that off, physically playing that on guitar.

So I was thinking there's multiple ways that you could go about achieving that sound if you can't physically do it. But one of the ways I wanted to try was using delay. So if I've got just these notes happening on just one, two, three, four, I want to get that galloping sound. That rhythm is one and a two and a three. So I need a delay that's going to hit on and-a. Right? So I've got one and then and-a one and (audio).

Right. So what I've got is I set up a one delay channel or one AUX bus, and I've got that called guitar delay one, and I just set it to zero and that's this right here. So if I soloed this, now, this is what it's going to sound like.

(Audio)

That's basically what I wanted, right. I, that was a bit too fast for me to play. So what I did was I do achieve that sound. I pulled up echo boy by sound toys. And I set it to duel echo right down here. And on one of these dual echo means that now it's got two echoes built into one interface, one plugin. And so on echo one, I've got the eighth note and the echo two is the dotted eighth note. And those together, the eighth note would just be the, 'and', and then the dotted eighth note will be the 'a' so we're getting the and-a.

Make sure that when you set this up, that your mix is all the way set to 'wet' on this. Otherwise you're going to be getting your actual beat one in there too. So we only want to be hearing the echo parts on this, and that's what the mix set to 'wet' does. So we'll see that right here.

(Audio)

Okay. So that's one, one way to just like, get the core idea. The other thing I was thinking though, as I was listening to this, is it sounds a little bit not natural in a way. And I was missing the beat 'E', so in a 16th note phrase, you've got one-E and-a two-E and-a.... And I thought it would be cool to have that third note in there, even if it was just kinda quiet, just really ghosting back there.

So what I did is I set up a second guitar delay, right? Just like I did the first one. And on this one, I've said it to just be a 16th note. So that's just going to be the one-E one-E of the one-E and-a. And so all of those together, if I just play that it'll sound like one-E two-E three-E so it'll sound like this. (Audio).

All right. And what I did there as we were playing through is I just turned up the output cause I had had it set kind of low because I didn't want it to be super prominent. I still wanted that Gallup sound of the one and-a two. But I wanted that 'E' in there just to be a little bridge between those two. So when I had that, that 'E' ducked in there now with the rest of them, now, it sounds like this.

(Audio)

So that's two different delays happening one delay is the dual handling. The, and and then the second delay is just doing the ease. So that's, this is one way to, to achieve that sound, right. We could either have just the one and then the, and like this, That he, and they're just a little bit to kind of make it sound more.

So this is where things kind of get interesting. There are versions of your plugins when you choose a plugin where you can choose between multi-channel plugin and multi-mono plugin. And maybe for some of you out there, you might not know what the differences, and we are going to dig into that right now.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring this multi-monitor track that I made right up here. And again, it's just an AUX bus. We're going to make these buses inactive, take this off. Now we're going to turn this on. (See Video) So we're just dealing with our main guitar track and this one, multi-mono AUX bus. The AUX bus is exactly the same as these two down here, we're just going to put a multimodal plugin on it.

Okay. So what I did is I went to create sends and I made one mono send a motto left and a mono right. And we're just going to be sending one channel at a time instead of a stereo channel to this. So we're getting two copies of this one, electric guitar phrase, two duplicate copies just to the left channel and then the right. But because this is a mono guitar, it's the exact same thing just twice.

So what we do to achieve this is instead of choosing a multi-channel plugin, we choose a multi mono plugin. And we go down here and this might be off of your screen a little bit, but we would choose our sound toys and we would choose our echo boy. And that brings up this one. And it looks exactly the same, except for right up here, you see a little 'L' and then this little infinity sign, which is a master link button.

And so if I toggle between the one that we were looking at, this one, it's not there, right. Because that's the multi-channel plugin version. And this is the multi-mono plug-in version. And the cool thing about this is that this multi-mono actually has two copies, like two versions of this one plugin inside it. So you'll see here, I've got it set to an and-a preset that I made. And then if I go to my right channel, it switches to the 'E' preset that I made. So in this one plugin, without actually changing any instance of this plugin, we can access just the right channel of it and the left channel. And it lets us do presets to each side of the multi-mono - it's unique setting. So you can go through and just change your left side and just change your right.

The one thing that you want to make sure, is at least in Pro Tools, the master link button is on by default. And that means that anything that you do to one side is to get a copy over to the other, you know, if you change something in your left channel and then you toggle over to your right, it's just going to be the exact same. And we didn't want that because I wanted to be able to control the and-a on the left channel and just have the 'E' hitting on the right.

So, because we've got those set up and now sounds pretty similar to what we had before.

(Audio Playing).

Okay, so that's a little bit different. So let's go and troubleshoot that. What I'm going to do is I'm going to bypass (mute) the 'E's and just have it play the and-a which as you can see here, you're able to actually bypass one channel. So I just bypass my right channel and I'm going to go over here to my left.

(Audio Playing)

So it looks like my output is a little bit loud on this. Let's bring that back.

So now let's go back over to our right and see what's happening there. Let's un-bypass that.

(Audio Playing)

What was happening is that I had been playing with the panning earlier, and I had put everything in this multi-mono bus, pretty close to the center. You see, I've got it at 14 and 14. If we make this panhard right and left, you'll hear it like this now.

(Audio Playing)

And this is where the CON comes in on doing it with a multi-mono version of this. Because it's multi-mono and you're controlling your left channel and your right channel separately. That means that the delay for the,and-a is going to be on one channel and just the 'E' is going to be on the other. And my main beat one, two, three, and four from the main guitar track that was recorded is going to be in the center.

So this is going to mean that the delay is going to be bouncing all over the place. It's going to be like one-E and then a and-a (audio) and it's going to be kind of bouncing all around, and the only way - in this incidence of what I'm trying to get to happen - to make that not sound like it's bouncing all over your ears is to just bring it back to the center a little bit. So that's why I had it closer to the 14. I couldn't have it just be straight up the middle here.

(Audio Playing)

The pros for this multi-mono is that if you set this up, you can have it just on one track and be able to do some cool things by having individual control over just your left channel and just your right channel. But the cons are that if you wanted one performance to sound like a cohesive thing you're going to be limited a little bit on being able to do panning and what you can do with your stereo field.

There are ways around it, there are solutions to all this, but these are just things to consider.

All right. So hopefully this opens up a whole new world for you guys to explore. Get out there and have some fun with it!

 

Cheers!

 

Josh

 

https://www.thetriplethreatartist.com/

Stop Looking For a Producer.

I'm willing to bet you have some great recording gear, effects and tools already at your disposal. I can help you learn to make the most of them right away so you can start producing your own music. You are way more capable of this than you might realize. And with a little practice you could move away from trying to find a producer who "gets you" to making great sounding music whenever you have an idea. I've created a whole class with over 120 videos and exercise routines to show you the skills I've learned over the last 15 years. Also, you'll get access to a Facebook community full of people just like you that are learning and growing their skills. And I've made it extremely affordable so you can invest in more equipment or other classes as well.

So, you in?

Learn More
Close

50% Complete

Let's Stay Connected.

If you'd like to join our newsletter, just add your name and email here. We LOVE giving value to other like-minded producers and songwriters, and we will never sell your email address to the evil empires. 💚