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Lesson 7 of 10

Delay

A delay records what you play and plays it back a moment later, like an echo off a canyon wall. One repeat sounds like a doubled note. Many repeats fading away sound like space.

Three flavours

  • Analog (bucket-brigade chips): warm, dark repeats that get murkier as they fade. They sit behind your playing instead of competing with it.
  • Tape: the original echo machines ran a loop of tape past a record head and playback heads. Expect slightly wobbly, saturated, lo-fi repeats. Pedals copy that character.
  • Digital: clean, exact copies of your notes and usually longer delay times. Great when you want clarity; many digital pedals also simulate analog and tape.

The knobs

  • Time: how long until the repeat, in milliseconds.
  • Feedback (or Repeats): how many repeats you hear. Turn it way up and it can run away into self-oscillation.
  • Mix (or Level): how loud the repeats are compared with your dry sound.

Classic settings

  • Slapback: one repeat, about 80-140 ms, Mix around 40%. A short "doubled" snap, heard all over rockabilly and country.
  • Ambient trails: 400-700 ms, Feedback around 1 o'clock, Mix low (20-30%). The repeats wash behind long notes.
  • Dotted eighth: a rhythmic delay that turns simple eighth notes into a busy, cascading pattern. It's commonly linked to The Edge of U2.

Working out a dotted eighth

A beat lasts 60000 / bpm milliseconds. An eighth note is half a beat; a dotted eighth is one and a half eighths, so 3/4 of a beat:

ms = 60000 / bpm × 0.75

At 120 bpm: 60000 / 120 = 500 ms per beat, × 0.75 = 375 ms. At 100 bpm you get 450 ms.

Tap tempo saves the math: tap the footswitch in time with the song and the pedal sets the delay. Many pedals also have a subdivision switch, so you tap quarter notes and pick "dotted eighth".

The exercise

Set your delay to a dotted eighth at the exercise tempo (re-tap or recalculate whenever you raise it), Feedback at one repeat, Mix around 40-50%. Pick even, steady eighth notes. If your timing is right, each repeat falls into the gap between your notes and the line sounds like constant sixteenths. If it sounds messy, your delay time or your timing is off.

Signal chain

Guitar to amp, left to right. Settings are starting points to get you close: trust your ears.

  1. 1. Guitar

    Your guitar

    Pick even, steady eighth notes.

  2. 2. Delay

    Dotted-eighth delay

    Time: a dotted eighth at the exercise tempo, 60000 / bpm × 0.75 (450 ms at 100 bpm), or use tap tempo. Feedback at one repeat, Mix around 40-50%. Each repeat falls into the gap between your notes, so the line sounds like constant sixteenths.

  3. 3. Amp

    Your amp

Exercises

Even eighths into a dotted-eighth delay

100 → 126 bpm
  1. Bar 1
    1. high E string, fret 5
    2. B string, fret 5
    3. G string, fret 6
    4. B string, fret 5
    5. high E string, fret 5
    6. B string, fret 5
    7. G string, fret 6
    8. B string, fret 5
  2. Bar 2
    1. high E string, fret 4
    2. B string, fret 5
    3. G string, fret 6
    4. B string, fret 5
    5. high E string, fret 5
    6. B string, fret 5
    7. G string, fret 6
    8. B string, fret 5

Clean 3 times in a row? Raise the tempo by 5 bpm.

Checkpoint

Move on when you can do all of these.

  • Work out the dotted-eighth delay time for 100 bpm and 126 bpm on paper (450 ms and about 357 ms)
  • Dial in a slapback, an ambient trail and a dotted-eighth setting, and switch between them from memory
  • Play the exercise at 126 bpm with a dotted-eighth delay so the repeats sound like steady sixteenth notes
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