Want a classic 80s-style lead guitar tone but you’re not quite sure why nothing seems to work? The secret to those epic anthemic chest-pumping killer lead guitar sounds is deceptively simple, and it has very little to do with the right hairspray, leopard-print spandex or how florescent your pointy guitar is. And this little trick is so useful that it’s able to make even somewhat novice guitarists sound (relatively) good.

The secret is in the use of delay.

The trick is to use a couple of different delays to achieve a larger-than-life sound: either two completely separate units on separate signal chains (which can be tricky) or via a single unit which lets you set two totally separate delay times at once.

What you need to do is set up one delay for a very short set of repeats (say, about 40ms or 60ms with both Feedback and Mix at around 45%), and another one in sync with the song’s tempo in eighth notes – although I’ve found that 320ms is a good ‘all-round’ delay time for when you aren’t set up for tempo-syncing.

Here’s a little demo of what this might sound like (using Seymour Duncan SH-55 Seth Lover humbuckers in a Gibson Les Paul Traditional). You’ll hear a few muted notes at the start which will give you an idea of how the two delays should sound together. If they were to be expressed by ‘T’ sounds it’d be “Ttt …t …t …t” – that is, some very short repeats right after the initial signal, followed by a few slower repeats.

You can enhance the effect by adding a little bit of reverb after the delay. Again, 40ms seems to be the magic number: set your pre-delay to this amount, adjust the mix and duration controls to taste, and have at it!

Oh and here’s an extra little trick that you can perform during mixing: set up your two delays on an effect bus, then when you hit any big sustained notes, increase the level of that bus. This works especially well if a solo ends with one big note up at the screechy end of the fretboard. You can also achieve this effect in real time on stage if your delay unit supports MIDI control. Assign the delay level to a MIDI expression pedal and increase it at the appropriate time.

Another fun trick is to insert a compressor after the amplifier but prior to the delays. If you select a slow attack time you’ll get a nice attack on each note which will emphasize the ‘pop’ of the delay repeats.

Want to get really advanced? Here’s a trick which you can use when using computer-based amp simulation or recording software. Run two independent stereo delays, with a very short delay like the one described above and with its stereo repeats panned not too far away from the centre. Then pan the longer delays further apart and timed in sync with the song. You might want to try a ducking delay for the longer repeats (this type of delay automatically keeps the volume of the repeats a little bit lower while you’re playing, fading up to a pre-determined maximum volume when you stop). If you overdo a ducking delay it can sound kinda cheap, but if you balance the ducked and non-ducked volumes just right, you’ll get plenty of ‘air’ around your notes while you’re playing, but nice epic delay trails when you’re not. It’s kinda like having your own dedicated mix engineer sitting at your feet, watching you play, cranking up the delay mix knob whenever you’re not shredding.