D'oh! That should be the opposite. Farther back = shorter delay. Here's the layman's explanation of the psychoacoustics;j_e_f_f_g wrote:instruments farther back get longer times.
Imagine you're in the middle of a concert hall. A singer stands right next to you. As a result, you're going to hear the direct source (singer) immediately. But before you hear any reverb, the singer's sound must first travel across the hall, bounce off the wall, and then travel back to the middle of the hall (to you). That's going to take awhile. So you're going to hear a long delay between the direct sound and the reverb. Your brain therefore perceives the singer as being close to you,
Now have the singer move to the opposite end of the hall (far away from you). This time, before you can hear the direct source, the singer's voice must first travel across the hall to the middle of the hall -- just llke the reverb. The result is you're not going to hear much of a delay between the direct sound and the reverb. Your brain therefore perceives the singer as being far from you,
So if you''re mixing, and you want a soloist to "move to the front of the stage", then put reverb directly on everyone but the soloist. Split the soloist through a slight delay (10 to 20 ms), run that delay to the reverb, and mix with the soloist's direct (dry) sound.