Independent/Counterpoint
Melodies
If you’re really adventurous, you can take
the staggered harmonized line idea we
just discussed and use it to play something
contrapuntal, like a “canon” or a
“round.” In other words, soon after a
melody starts, it is imitated by another
voice. In this case, the other voice would
be from your delay. To get this technique
under your belt, you might try playing
simple, familiar pieces like “Row, Row,
Row Your Boat” or “Frère Jacques”—
which might be harder to play, initially,
than you would think. If you’re more
ambitious, try tackling something like
“Little Dance in Canon Form” from
composer Béla Bartók’s
Mikrokosmos or
parts of a Bach Invention.
Looping
Guitar legends such as Bill Frisell and
David Torn have made looping an integral
part of their live shows. At its most
extreme, looping is almost like real-time
multi-tracking: You can continually add
layers of sound, starting with a bass figure,
then a layer of chords, followed by
a muted, single-note rhythm part, and
then a solo on top. Pedals like the Line 6
DL4 Delay Modeler (street $236), Boss
DD-7, and Eventide TimeFactor (street
$399) have built-in looping functionality
and are good options for getting
started with looping.
One tricky thing with looping is that
the start and end points of the loop have
to be rhythmically precise: When you
first record the loop, you have to start
the loop on the first beat of the phrase,
and then stop the loop when the first
beat occurs again—thus cutting off the
note’s sustain to avoid overlap. In every
loop, the last note will immediately
flow into the repetition of the first note.
Sometimes there might be a very slight
lag before the effect is actually activated
after you step on the pedal. We’re talking
milliseconds here, but you might
feel it and may have to adjust the timing
of your stomps accordingly.
Many newer digital delays—including the
Eventide TimeFactor (above), Boss DD-7, and Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler (bottom)
—also feature built-in looping functionality.
If the maximum looping time available
on your delay device is too short
for some of your more ambitious looping
applications, there are still good
uses for it. For example, if you only had
enough delay time to have one harmony
or drone note sound, you could leave
it on for infinite feedback and practice
playing and hearing scales or patterns
against the fixed tonal center. You could
also use it to loop a note that you could
tune the rest of your strings to if you
don’t have a tuner (at least you’d be in
tune with yourself!). These may not
be performance-critical uses, but they
could certainly be helpful in your development
as a musician.
Adventure Awaits … Awaits … Awaits
Although we’ve explored its most common
uses, there are still many more
sounds and textures that can be created
with a delay pedal—in fact, the possibilities
are nearly endless. And whether
you arm yourself with a basic echo box
or one of the newer units with a bunch
of bells and whistles, learning to see
and use the effect in a fresh new way—
just as the Edge and Eddie Van Halen
did—could make you the next sonic
innovator whose sonic weapon is the
delectable delay.