Digital Delay

This might be a simple question, but a simple question I don't have an answer for. Can someone please explain to me the genius behind Martin Hannett's digital delay effect that revolutionized JD's sound? I just can't pick up on it.

ps: is my real name still coming up when I post? not that I have anything against it, just would rather my profile nickname come up. anyone wanna help me out?

1. It's more than a digital delay what revolutionated JD's sound, it was the deep bass of Hooky practising at maximum volume, the marvelous voice of Ian and the sharped guitars of Barney. Nothing to say about Steve's drums, simply incredible.

Martin Hannett was important for JD, but not the creator of their sound.

2. I think so...your post-name is the one you putted on your profile, as mine, for example.

Originally posted by eduardo maura 1) It's more than a digital delay what revolutionated JD's sound, it was the deep bass of Hooky practising at maximum volume, the marvelous voice of Ian and the sharped guitars of Barney. Nothing to say about Steve's drums, simply incredible.Martin Hannett was important for JD, but not the creator of their sound.2) I think so...your post-name is the one you putted on your profile, as mine, for example.

i agree with your assesment in the first point, but my question is just specific to the effect. i've just heard so much about it in mick middles' book and 24pp and i just have no clue wtf theyre talking about =)

In that case, I don't know. Maybe the others in these forum...many of them are phylosophical doctors in NO/JD area

At the time Hannett started using it, digital delay was state of the art technology. Basically it's just a box that takes an analogue input, converts it into a digital signal, stores it for a predetermined time and then converts it back to an analogue output. A controllable echo, in effect.

Doesn't sound like much, but Hannett applied it to the drum track in particular with good effect. I'm sure Unknown Pleasures would sound completely different had it not been used.

There was a story floating around that Hannett had been trying to create this sound previously, and had gone to the lengths of playing the drum track on a speaker in the toilet of Strawberry Studios, and using a microphone to re-record it with the natural echo produced. It may be a myth, presumably the occasional tinkling and grunting sounds persuaded him to invest in the electronic box!

Originally posted by eduardo maura 1) the marvelous voice of Ian

The word you are looking for is "varispeed", not "marvellous". He certainly wasn't a marvellous singer, and actually had a strange tinny weedy voice. Amazing what you can do with even primitive technology. The Ian Curtis you heard on the early Warsaw stuff was the real Ian Curtis voice, before they discovered a device that lowered the vocal sound an octave. He was still squeaking out the vocals when they sounded deep and resonant !

Originally posted by Benny's Cobweb EYES-UH !!! > Originally posted by eduardo maura> 1) the marvelous voice of Ian >

The word you are looking for is "varispeed", not "marvellous". He certainly wasn't a marvellous singer, and actually had a strange tinny weedy voice. Amazing what you can do with even primitive technology. The Ian Curtis you heard on the early Warsaw stuff was the real Ian Curtis voice, before they discovered a device that lowered the vocal sound an octave. He was still squeaking out the vocals when they sounded deep and resonant !

As much of the available live material will confirm. Sad truth is that Barney - for all his flaws - is actually a better singer than Ian ever was.

Agree with both...marvellous was not the right word. And Barney is nowadays better vocalist than Ian was. for them

Originally posted by Benny's Cobweb EYES-UH !!! > Originally posted by eduardo maura> 1) the marvelous voice of Ian >

The word you are looking for is "varispeed", not "marvellous". He certainly wasn't a marvellous singer, and actually had a strange tinny weedy voice. Amazing what you can do with even primitive technology. The Ian Curtis you heard on the early Warsaw stuff was the real Ian Curtis voice, before they discovered a device that lowered the vocal sound an octave. He was still squeaking out the vocals when they sounded deep and resonant !

this is kinda o/t but with all the recent talk about interpol I have to ask. I saw the band live a couple of weeks ago and the lead singer's voice sounded like it received the benefit of varispeed or some other effect in the studio. can anyone confirm/deny? the singer mentioned something about his voice being 'fucked' but I don't think that would affect your ability to singer lower.. higher maybe, but not lower.

Benny, You're doing a great job on swaying me on the Ian/Barney/Genius debate. Even Ians voice is under attack now with Barney becoming the better vocalist. The pendulum swings but is still weighted in Ians favour because I have too much baggage associated with my very early memories of Barney.

Originally posted by Benny's Cobweb EYES-UH !!! > Originally posted by eduardo maura> 1) the marvelous voice of Ian >

The word you are looking for is "varispeed", not "marvellous". He certainly wasn't a marvellous singer, and actually had a strange tinny weedy voice. Amazing what you can do with even primitive technology. The Ian Curtis you heard on the early Warsaw stuff was the real Ian Curtis voice, before they discovered a device that lowered the vocal sound an octave. He was still squeaking out the vocals when they sounded deep and resonant !

I had no idea Ian used something to lower his vocals...my illusion is shattered He was still a great lyricst.

Also, in the early NO days, did Barney ever use varispeed while playing live shows? His voice did sound very...low or distorted or something

Originally posted by Substantial Republic of LowLifes > Originally posted by Benny's Cobweb EYES-UH !!!> > > > Originally posted by eduardo maura> > 1) the marvelous voice of Ian > > >

The word you are looking for is "varispeed", not "marvellous". He certainly wasn't a marvellous singer, and actually had a strange tinny weedy voice. Amazing what you can do with even primitive technology. The Ian Curtis you heard on the early Warsaw stuff was the real Ian Curtis voice, before they discovered a device that lowered the vocal sound an octave. He was still squeaking out the vocals when they sounded deep and resonant !

I had no idea Ian used something to lower his vocals...my illusion is shattered He was still a great lyricst.

Also, in the early NO days, did Barney ever use varispeed while playing live shows? His voice did sound very...low or distorted or something

Nah, that was just his inability/nervous reaction to sing(ing). Plus the fact that they were still writing songs in the keys they had needed to for Ian at that stage, rather than writing to suit Barney's natural voice.

Where did you guys find out that Ian used varispeed to improve his vocals? Not questioning its authenticity, it's just that I thought I'd read practically everything about JD, and have not come across this piece of info before... Any ideas?

Originally posted by Atrocity Exhibit Where did you guys find out that Ian used varispeed to improve his vocals? Not questioning its authenticity, it's just that I thought I'd read practically everything about JD, and have not come across this piece of info before... Any ideas?

There's actually some very interesting stuff about it buried in that "An Ideal For Living" book, in amongst the pretentious crap that begins each chapter. It's all written in an anonymous way, but it is very easy to see who they are referring to.

Delay effects, digital and analog, are all over the JD records. Tons of it especially on 'Autosuggestion'(guitar, drums, like the way the drums have those multiple sectioned repeating effects, some of which are held and mixed with feedback from the other heads for that big, weird sound), 'These Days' and all the drums and ambient sounds on Unknown Pleasures. Like, listen to the snare drum on the third beat of each measure in the verses of 'New Dawn Fades', it is heavily delayed, and Hannett constantly varies the delay settings in a similar way to dub reggae, which is probably where he got it. Barney was a heavy user of delay in his guitar rig, too, which was quite possibly a Hannett influence (I don't think he used them before they worked with Hannett).

The pitch of Ian's voice was reportedly slowed down in the studio simply by changing the speed of the analog tape deck, which is a cool effect and very transparent compared to actually running a voice real time through a device that can pitch shift. At that time the only practical way to do that was with an Eventide Harmonizer, which is what they used in concert. It is pretty easy to hear the difference, the harmonizer kind of dirties up and compresses the sound a bit in addition to pitch shifting it, whereas the studio recordings are a lot more subtle (that is, as an engineer who has heard a lot of stuff I can hear that his voice on Unknown Pleasures was pitch shifted, mainly in the way it changes the sound of the decay of the held note, but most listeners can't tell).

By the way, there's a lot more to Hannett's style than just running one or two signals through a delay and turning the knobs while you print to tape, he did a lot of stuff like leave the dry track in the mix a little, then run it through a delay and send the wet return from the delay into a reverb and run that output back into the mix, and then turn up the reverb depth in real time manually as each note of a drum or guitar track decays. That's how all those crazy drum sounds move around all over the place and do all those cool weird sounds on UP. Hannett was up there with Lee Perry and King Tubby as master messed up knob turning wizard.

Originally posted by teleharmonium By the way, there's a lot more to Hannett's style than just running one or two signals through a delay and turning the knobs while you print to tape, he did a lot of stuff like leave the dry track in the mix a little, then run it through a delay and send the wet return from the delay into a reverb and run that output back into the mix, and then turn up the reverb depth in real time manually as each note of a drum or guitar track decays. That's how all those crazy drum sounds move around all over the place and do all those cool weird sounds on UP. Hannett was up there with Lee Perry and King Tubby as master messed up knob turning wizard.

not really actually... do you know how easy it is to use reverb/delay?

Actually now that I am listening to UP I realize it is Candidate that has more of the delayed snare I was referring to.

Sean wrote: "not really actually... do you know how easy it is to use reverb/delay?"

Why yes I do. But there's just using it, and then there's heavy complex dub style usage like Hannett did. He didn't have access to todays equipment, his digital delays (his favorite is reported to have been an AMS) had limited options and short delay times, and terrible converters compared to the current ones.

If you don't believe me, I suggest you try to do something comparable using only 1979 effects and an analog board and tape decks, and analog edits with a razor blade. It can be done, but it isn't a single evening type of proposition.

im not on about Hannett, im talking about Lee sratch Perry.

ah, well I have only heard a small fraction of his many recordings. Some of it sounds to me like it was thrown together quickly amid a cloud of smoke, other things sound like he spent more time on them. On a lot of dub it sounds like they only had one or two delay effects and used them on only one track at a time, so it is easy to hear what they are doing and isn't all that special as production (but not without its charms), but I've heard some that was pretty over the top. I think money, training, time and equipment were probably much less of an issue for Hannett than for the Jamaicans.