Like using reverb on your snare, snare delay allows us to give our snare more size in the mix whether that’s lengthening it, fattening it, widening it, or some combination of the three.
Snare delay can be preferable over reverb because it affords you more size without worrying about muddying up or otherwise blunting the sound. Let’s talk how to use snare delay to achieve a number of different effects but generally just improve the sound of your snare.
How to Use Snare Delay
Let’s talk a few settings you can dial into your delay of choice on your snare to get good results.
I should mention that in these scenarios I’m using my delay as an insert, putting the effect directly in the processing chain of my snare. This is in contrast to using an effect as a send (see inserts vs sends), putting the effect on an Aux/Return track.
I’m exclusively using this delay with these settings on my snare, hence the insert. As such, you need to be wary of the wet/dry “Mix” percentage you use in blending in the right amount.
Sustain
Lengthening the fadeout/tail of our snare for added sustain helps to fatten it to give it more emphasis in the mix. This can be done in a variety of ways as I explained in my snare compression and snare reverb tutorials.
If you’re not getting the sustain you want via compression or you want to keep your snare as clean as possible, avoiding reverb, delay is a good solution.
According to the Haas effect, when we hear the same sound within 40ms or less of each other, we perceive that as being one sound.
Applying this as our delay time on our snare, we can easily add an extra but transparent 40ms of sustain to our snare.
Remember the “Mix” percentage controls how much of that delayed signal we’re hearing versus the dry signal. Setting this at 100% wet means that we’d exclusively hear the delayed signal, or in this case would just mean we’d hear our snare 40ms later.
Setting this at 50% would give us an even blend of the initial and delayed signal, so if you want the full sustain, 50% is the way to go. If you’re hearing a little separation, try going down a few ms, or drop the percentage a bit lower for a more transparent and subtle effect. I generally find 30% to be about the sweet spot. It’s incredibly subtle, but it adds just a little bit of fatness to our snare via that delay.
I also find that utilizing your low pass filter control like my Soundtoys’ EchoBoy’s “High Cut” has to take some of the top end transient really helps to make the delay sound like an extension of the snare.
Whenever you’re still hearing a little bit of that separation, try tweaking the low pass filter to roll off a lot of the top end “crack” to just preserve the body which is really all we want to add sustain.
Width
While some delays feature a specific width control, you can get creative with how much width you want to blend in when it comes to that delayed signal if your delay DOESN’T feature a width controller.
While you can use the delay as a send and then follow it up with a stereo width controller like Ableton Live’s Utility style plugin, you can do the same thing a couple other ways using the delay directly on the track.
One is you can create a rack within that track with the instance of delay on its own “chain” followed up by the width plugin at the desired width. Make sure to set the “Mix” to 100% wet on your delay and using the rack volume control to blend in the amount you want:
Conversely you can simply duplicate the track and repeat the same steps without the rack, using the fader of that track to control the blend amount you want.
OR you can just use a delay like Comeback Kid which has an onboard width controller:
However you do it, this allows you to control the width of your snare via a delay which you can automate higher or lower as different sections of the mix call for.
Depth
Just because we’re not using reverb doesn’t mean we can’t cheat the illusion of a little depth via our delay.
Many delays like my Soundtoys’ EchoBoy feature high and low pass filters which are specific to the delayed signal.
We talked about the low pass filter earlier to exclude the transient click or crack from the delayed signal. If we wind that down further, it gives that delayed signal on the back end of the snare the sensation of coming from farther away. This creates some natural sounding depth in the decay because we naturally perceive lower frequencies as being farther away than higher frequency.
Using that filter to simulate depth is still a cleaner option than introducing a reverb tail while still getting an admittedly very subtle touch of depth on your snare.
Longer Delays
While we’re generally keeping our delay short to sell the listener on the idea that it’s a single sound, longer delays with clear separation can be used on snares, albeit in more specific aesthetic situations.
One notable example is in the case of slapback delay. Syncing your delay to the BPM of your song with an extremely short delay like 1/32 works well to get that clear separation which adds some size to your snare. You hear the reflections of the wall, but it’s very clean and can work well in the right contexts (again with that sweet spot of around 30% wet).
As you can see, snare and delay definitely go together. There are many ways to use snare delay, whether you want to give your snare a little added fatness, width, sustain, etc. for if and when compression or reverb aren’t applicable or getting you where you want.
