You have what’s known as an echo threshold. Your echo threshold is unique to you and it also changes depending on what you’re listening to. Getting familiar with this concept is going to help you keep track of random sounding numbers that go along with things like attack and release times, pre-delays, and the thing that will help you remember it is this thing called the Haas effect.
When you start hearing a really short delay, your echo threshold is the point where your brain kicks in and says, “This isn’t two things, it’s one thing.” It should be easy enough to imagine a thousand milliseconds, that’s a second. At 120 bpm, 500 milliseconds is like a quarter note and 250 is like an 8. A delay in that range you’ll hear it squeaky, but as we get into the 20 or 30 millisecond range, it starts to sound phasy.
Put a mental pin in the map where it crosses that echo threshold. Two signals below that echo threshold can be panned left and right to create a pseudo stereo effect, but the next time somebody asks you what a 10 millisecond attack time is, you have a better idea what that means. And if someone who wants to learn about this kind of stuff in a Beat Kitchen meeting, share this post.
