delay

delay holds every event back by a fixed time.

On its own it just makes the whole instrument late, which is rarely the point. Its musical life is inside a fork, against the dry signal: one branch now, one branch later, and you are playing a canon with yourself at whatever interval and distance you choose. Unlike echo it repeats nothing; each event happens exactly once, just displaced.

Parameters

Exactly one of time= or beats= must be given; see Time and tempo.

Parameter	Type	Default	Range
time	duration string	required (or beats)	positive, "250ms" or "1.5s" form
beats	number	required (or time)	finite, greater than 0

Example

miditool.kdl

input "Roland"
output virtual="miditool Out"

fork {
    pass
    chain {
        delay time="500ms"
        transpose 12
    }
}

Everything you play answers itself an octave up, half a second later.

Try this

A strict two-voice canon at the fifth, one measure behind, locked to the tempo:

tempo 90

fork {
    pass
    chain {
        delay beats=4
        transpose 7
        channelize 2
    }
}

Change tempo and the canon distance follows.