All three effects add copies of a sound after the original. What differs is how many copies, how far apart, and how they're shaped — and that changes what our ears perceive.
Delay and echo
A delay repeats the sound after a set time. With a single clear repeat, or a few spaced-out repeats, we hear it as an echo. Delays are rhythmic, so timing them to the song's tempo keeps them feeling musical:
- One beat in milliseconds = 60,000 ÷ BPM. At 120 BPM, a quarter note is 500 ms and an eighth note 250 ms.
- Short delays (under ~30 ms) thicken a sound rather than sounding like an echo.
- Filtering the repeats (cutting lows and some highs) keeps them behind the dry sound.
Reverb
Reverb is thousands of reflections so close together they blur into one wash — the sound of a room, hall or plate. Key settings:
- Decay / size — how long the tail lasts. Short for drums and busy parts, longer for slow, sparse ones.
- Pre-delay — a gap before the reverb starts. 20–40 ms keeps a vocal upfront while still adding space.
- EQ on the reverb — cutting the low end of the reverb is the fastest way to stop a mix getting muddy.
Which to use
- Want a vocal to feel bigger but still close? A tempo-synced delay often works better than more reverb.
- Want instruments to sound like they're in the same place? Send them to one shared reverb.
- Want drama? Automate a long delay throw on the last word of a line.
The studio detects your song's BPM, so you can work out delay times that sit in the groove.