Effects One of the most creative parts of recording your own music is how you shape it. One of the most useful tools for doing this is effects processors.
FX processors alter the sounds in different ways depending on the effect.
FX processors have a number of settings. At their most basic you have a percentage of mix. Wet is the amount of the sound processed, dry is the amount unaffected.
First effect I’ll go over is reverb.
*
Reverb.
Reverb or reverberation is the way your ears hear the sound bouncing off the walls of the room.
This is why singing in the bathroom sounds so good. Concert halls are built to carry sound throughout their space.
Depending on how good your reverb effect is you may only have a percentage slider, or you may have different settings. Common settings include room type, room size, liveliness, and decay.
Room type such as Rich Hall is a preset to mimic that type of room. Room size mimics the effect of large space or small space.
Liveliness affects the rate of sound wave balancing, which without getting into technicalities is a type of echo. Decay is how fast they affect goes away. Almost all recordings use reverb. Even the best singer will tend to sound flat without it.
*
Delay.
Delay is a specialized form of reverb. You will most often find a decay setting with this affect. Delay causes the sound to repeatedly echo. The amount of the effect used and how high a decay you use depends on how much echoes at how fast it stops.
A good example is the chhh chhh chhh, haaa haaa haaa from the horror movie. The way the sounds echo and slowly die out is a delay effect.
*
Chorus.
No matter how good a musician is if he tries to play at the same time as another musician, they will never completely sync up. Nor will their instruments sound exactly the same, or their style of playing be the same.
This creates a richer sound. That is why orchestras use so many instruments. Each musician adds his or her own color to the mix.
Chorus takes a single piece of sound or track and uses slight tonal and speed shifts to simulate having multiple musicians playing. Used in small amounts it adds a good deal of color to any recording.
*
Distortion.
Basically distortion takes sounds and messes them up. The crunchiness you hear in a guitar riff, or a heavy metal bassists playing is distortion. The more you distort it, the more crunchy it sounds.
*
Compressors.
The most basic function of a compressor effect is to act as a volume control.
Using the settings, you tell it when to cut off, and how hard to do so. By compressing the recording you will actually be able to increase volume better. The compressor cuts off unnecessarily high peaks in the sound. This allows you to increase the volume over the entire recording.
*
De-esser.
The de-esser is an effect used in vocal recording. Sometimes when you make the S sound it hisses in the microphone. The de-esser reduces the hiss.
*
Equalization or EQ.
An equalizer is an effect that changes the volume level of specific frequencies. At its most basic it is the same as the bass, middle, and treble sliders on your stereo.
By boosting or reducing those frequencies you get more pleasant sounding songs.
A graphic EQ works in various bands of frequencies. By using EQ you can sculpt the various elements of your songs to make them more pleasing. It is without a doubt your most essential tool.
Acid Music Studio comes with a very nice and easy to use set of effects.
There are also many free effects available for use with Acid Music Studio and other programs. These are called VST effects. There are also VST instruments.
These pieces of software plug-in to Acid Music Studio (any such program) and give it a much wider array of effects to use.
VST instruments are software synthesizers.
These are the effects im most used to using so far. I will be adding more to my articles as i learn. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
This intel first appeared on: http://acidhedz.com/wordpress/?p=4
