delay for vocals?

[mysticaxe]

I know the PT2399 is designed as a delay for vocals.  I've built a couple delays for guitar (sea urchin and echo base) and was wondering whether there were any interesting DIY concepts out there for a vocal stomp box delay.  Any suggestions?

[jimilee]

You're probably better off with a rack mount unit, but I've been tempted to use the cave dweller myself. Switch pop is my only concern.

[RobA]

The spec sheet for the PT2399 does say that designed for karaoke machines. But, I'm guessing that they aren't intending for it to be used much beyond a slapback/echo in that setting. It's only got 44Kbits of memory and at a decent sample rate and bit depth of say 48kHz and 16 bits, you aren't going to get much delay time.

I think using a real micro-controller/processor with good audio CODEC's is the only way to really get the quality that this would need. 

[DutchMF]

The singer from my band uses a cheap Behringer (yes, I said the B word) guitar pedal, but he isn't really worried about fidelity, also uses distortion and flange on both vocals and B-harp. Sounds killer BTW!

Paul

[Kinki fuzz]

You can try a deluxe memory man (or dirtbag!). I like it.

[soldersqueeze]

I found the Digitech Digidelay to be cheap and super clean for vocals. Plus it has reverse delay and rudimentary looping functions which is a lot of fun! They come up on eBay for hardly anything.

[jimilee]

I use an Alesis midi verb IV you can usually find one in the cheap

[stecykmi]

You're probably better off with a rack mount unit, but I've been tempted to use the cave dweller myself. Switch pop is my only concern.

i would suggesting using a mixer of some type to blend in the delay rather than relying on the switch, like how reverb is added on most mixers, ie using an AUX buss to send dry signal out to the effect and using another mixer channel to send the level of the effect. this typically works with guitar effects as well as rack effects. if the particular effect happens to have a wet/dry mix, as delays sometimes do, usually the mix is set to 100% for an application like this.

some guitar delays don't really work with some other instruments. i couldn't get the sea urchin to work on a snare drum track one time because the snare sound was too far out of the frequency range of the feedback circuit. i could barely get it to repeat more than one time.

[jimilee]

Yep, when you're working with no sound man, everything is on the the fly. Is like to sometimes use delay like on one or two words at the end of a verse or chorus or something.

[lincolnic]

i would suggesting using a mixer of some type to blend in the delay rather than relying on the switch, like how reverb is added on most mixers, ie using an AUX buss to send dry signal out to the effect and using another mixer channel to send the level of the effect. this typically works with guitar effects as well as rack effects. if the particular effect happens to have a wet/dry mix, as delays sometimes do, usually the mix is set to 100% for an application like this.

This. Or at the very least, get some kind of transformer to convert the impedance appropriately.

[mysticaxe]

Thanks for the input!  I guess it sounds like the input/output impedance would have to be tweaked.  My idea came from seeing the ad for the new TC Helicon vocal harmonizer (which I told a friend could let me be out of key 3 times on the same note).  I thought that I could build a singer buddy a cool little board (he's using the crappy effects on a Behringer PA now) with a delay, pick up that harmonizer, and be good to go.

I can see the Sea Urchin being too dark.

[JohnL]

The easiest, but not cheapest way, to get the levels right is to use a reamper. Feed out an aux, reamper to delay and back to the board. However it would probably be cheaper to find a used rack delay with a tap tempo and bypass jack and use that.