How to Use Delay on Metal Guitars

Delay on guitars can be a double-edged sword. When it’s done right, it adds depth, creates space, and makes a lead guitar part sing and soar. When it’s done wrong, you get a cluttered, washy mess that buries your guitar tone and fights for space in the mix.

The difference between an amateur and a pro isn’t about owning the most expensive plugins; it’s about knowing how to use them with intention. The goal isn’t to create a cool delay effect. The goal is to make the guitar sound awesome, and the delay is just one tool to get you there.

Let’s break down a proven workflow for setting up a killer guitar delay that will work in a dense metal mix, not against it.

The Foundation: Setting Up Your Delay for Success

Before you even touch a single knob, your routing matters. Don’t just slap a delay plugin directly on your guitar track as an insert. The pro-level move is to use a send.

Here’s why:

• Flexibility: It allows you to EQ, compress, or saturate the delay separately from the dry guitar signal.
• Control: You can easily blend in the perfect amount of the effect with a single fader.
• Efficiency: You can send multiple tracks (like lead harmonies) to the same delay, saving CPU and creating a more cohesive sound.

Create a new aux/send track in your DAW, and let’s load up a workhorse plugin. While any delay can work, we’re partial to something versatile like the Soundtoys EchoBoy. It’s a studio staple for a reason. Once it’s loaded on your aux track, set the Mix/Wet knob to 100%. Since you’re blending the aux track fader with the dry signal, you only want the "wet" effect coming from the send.

Dialing in the Core Settings

Now for the fun part. Instead of scrolling through presets, let’s build a great starting point from scratch that will add width and texture without getting in the way.

1. Choose An Analog Style: In EchoBoy, select a mode like "Studio Tape" or "Analog Delay." These models often add subtle harmonics and saturation, which helps the delay feel more like part of the music and less like a sterile, digital repeat.
2. Go Wide with Dual Echo: For lead guitars, a stereo delay is a must. Switch the plugin to "Dual Echo" mode. This allows you to set different delay times for the left and right channels, creating a wide, dynamic feel.
3. Vary Your Timing: This is a classic trick. Set one side to a quarter note (1/4) and the other to a dotted eighth note (1/8D) or a standard eighth note (1/8). The slight difference between the channels makes the delay feel massive and prevents it from sounding like a one-dimensional "ping-pong" effect.
4. Set the Feedback: Start with the feedback around a medium setting. You want enough repeats to create a nice tail, but not so many that it runs away and starts oscillating. We’ll fine-tune this with automation later.

The Most Overlooked Step: Sculpting with EQ

This is the step that separates a clean mix from a muddy one. A full-frequency delay contains all the same low-end and high-end information as your main guitar track. When those frequencies get repeated, they build up and clash with the bass, kick drum, and cymbals, creating a jumbled mess.

You need to EQ your delay.

Most modern delay plugins, including EchoBoy, have built-in high-pass and low-pass filters. Use them aggressively.

• High-Pass Filter (Low Cut): Cut out the lows. Start around 200-300Hz and push it higher if needed. This clears out mud and keeps the delay from interfering with the rhythm section’s power.
• Low-Pass Filter (High Cut): Tame the highs. Roll off the top end, maybe starting around 3-5kHz. This removes the harsh, fizzy part of the distorted guitar tone from the repeats, making the delay sound smoother and pushing it further back in the mix.

The goal is to make the delay repeats sound darker and thinner than the original guitar. This approach follows the same logic as strategically EQing metal guitars for max impact; you’re carving out space so every element can be heard clearly.

The Real Pro Move: Automation is Your Friend

A static delay setting is good, but a dynamic, automated delay is what truly brings a guitar solo to life. Your lead guitar part isn’t static—it has fast flurries and long, sustained notes. Your effects should react to that.

The "Swell" Technique: Automating Feedback

This is a game-changing move. Let’s say your solo has a bunch of fast notes and ends on a long, screaming string bend. If you have high feedback throughout the whole solo, the fast parts will turn into an incomprehensible blur of notes.

The solution? Automate the Feedback parameter.

Keep the feedback fairly low during the busy, fast sections. Then, right as the guitarist hits that final sustained note or bend, automate the feedback to rise significantly.

The result is a beautiful, swelling tail of repeats that bloom after the main phrase is over, giving the solo an epic finish without cluttering the performance itself. You get all of the vibe with none of the mess.

Beyond Feedback: Other Automation Targets

Feedback is just the beginning. You can also automate:

• Send Level: Keep the delay low in the mix, but automate the send level to jump up for a single word or note you want to emphasize—a classic "delay throw."
• Filter Cutoffs: Make the delay darker and more muffled during a verse and then automate the filters to open up during a chorus for more excitement.

Guiding Principle: Serve the Song, Not the Plugin

Remember, nobody gets an award for having the loudest, most obvious delay. The real skill lies in using it as a tool to enhance the emotion and power of the track. You’re trying to make the lead guitar sound incredible, not show off your cool delay plugin.

It’s a mindset you’ll see shared by every world-class producer, from modern metal masters to rock legends. They use their tools with subtlety and surgical precision. Just ask any of the incredible producers on the Nail The Mix instructors list—they’ll tell you it’s all about serving the song.

These techniques are your new starting point. They give you the control and tastefulness to make your guitar delays sound professional and polished.

But what about making that delay sit perfectly with bone-crushing drums, a thick bass tone, and aggressive vocals? That’s where you see these concepts applied in a real-world scenario. Nail The Mix gives you a front-row seat to watch the producers behind bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, and Periphery mix their actual songs from scratch. You get the raw multitracks and watch them build the entire mix, explaining every delay throw, EQ cut, and automation move.

Check out the full catalog of Nail The Mix sessions and see how the pros build these massive tracks from the ground up.

Want even more? Over 1,500 more tutorials just like this are available as part of URM Enhanced. Elevate your production game and learn everything from songwriting and recording to mixing and mastering. Explore URM Enhanced here.