Squad delay fx sounds

[ammanuel]

why does square play fx sounds more like repeat than echo delay? or is there a different

[thetechnobear]

not quite sure what you mean…

I guess, generally I consider :

• a repeat to be an 'exact replica; repeated N times.
• a delay, I usually think of as something that repeats over time but it decays

a delay (eg. pedal) is more ‘natural’, since nothing in nature can keep the same energy over time, energy is always lost aka decay.

more abstract a delay, could just delay an individual sound/note.

(but hey, these are my definitionns, everyone can make up there own )

the delay fx, could be used as a repeat or delay …
really thats down to the mix/gain

if you had mix=100%, gain=100, and repeat = 1, then it would sound like a simple delay (of a note)

if you have mix < 100%, gain = 100 its going to be basically a repeat.

if you have mix < 100, gain < 100, its starts to sound like a decaying delay (in my defn above)

but we also have to consider this is a note delay fx, not an audio delay.
for an audio delay like sound, you also have to play with gain
this means you also need a velocity output, which you’d attach to a vca to let the sound die away on each repeat, also (or instead) you might want to modulate a filter so the sound gets a little darker with each repeat.

but you’ll never really completely mimic an audio delay, since most audio delays have feedback, which is impossible with a note delay…

all that said… you don’t really want to use a note delay instead of an audio delay… audio delays are much ‘cheaper’ in processing cpu (and lots of cheap delay modules), so really its more of a creative tool.

probably the most interesting thing you can do with delay fx, is combine with other fx… e.g. you could follow the delay with a chance… this means each repeat is probability bound… that is an FX that is impossible to do with a (single) audio delay.

so get creative

[ammanuel]

Thank you for the explanation … I understand why I have not found any use of the delay successfully…delayed in time that is.

[thetechnobear]

yeah, the manuals explanation

MIDI delay creates a copy of entered notes, simulating a standard delay effect, but using velocity MIDI data.

is obviously a simplification, to get the basic idea across… and whilst for sure its true, it kind of sells itself short.
I mean the immediate question I had when I first saw this (*) , my question was simply … why would I do that, many synths have delays built-in, and if not people have delay pedals, or fx’s in daws, all of which are much more ‘flexible’… also it uses up voices( / polyphony) in a synth, which often are a limited.

so thats when I started to experiment, and find use-cases where it might be useful/creative to deal at the ‘event’ level rather than audio level.

you don’t mention if your using the pyramid or hermod (both have delay fx)
on the hermod it can be especially interesting, since each ‘repeat’ is generating new gate and velocity cv… the gate could therefore trigger and s&h, thus giving each repeat a new ‘character’ thru modulation , and similarly the (changing) velocity can be useful for modulation etc.
(similar things can be done thru midi… depending on your synth setup etc)

also you can do some ‘weird’ effects, if you put gain > 100% the repeats will actually get larger.

so lots of creative options to be had … once you think beyond the audio delay fx that we all know and love.

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(*) I should say midi delays (and this ‘explanation’) is not unique to squarp, many daws and midi processors always feature midi delays, with the same characteristics (as its a function of using midi)

[calem]

I just had this come up for me today.

And just like thetechnobear is saying- once i chained delay with a simple midi arp effect the whole box really opened up for me.

can’t wait to try random on the delay such a cool idea! thanks for sharing that.

so yh… right on for experimenting with the sequence of midi effects as loopop also mentions in his tutorial video.