Chris Lord-Alge walks through one of the core principles behind his approach to depth: routing delays into reverbs so that delay repeats sit back in the mix rather than poking out. The idea is simple but consequential — a dry delay on a vocal can sound alien and apparent, while the same delay treated with the same reverb the vocal is sitting in starts to blend into the sonic landscape.
CLA's practical approach layers this further. He'll put the vocal reverb on the delay first, then add a touch of room reverb on top to connect it, creating a cascading effect that pushes the delays deep into the background. The amount of reverb on the delays scales with how far back you want something to sit.
What makes this more than a routing trick is the dynamic element. Rather than setting reverb returns and leaving them, CLA rides them in real time, adjusting at specific moments to shift the sense of space. That movement is what turns a mix into something three-dimensional and cinematic, where all the elements feel connected and placed in the same environment.