Sound Design, Mixing, & Studio TechniquesNeed to know how to make a specific sound? Want to improve your mix? Need advice on micing-up a drum kit? This is the area for you.
there are standard effeects we hear almost everywhere reverb, delay, phaser, chorus, distortion, pitch shifting and ect
is there something we missed ? i feel like there is something amazing i don't know about
Two maybe less known effect types I like are granular effects (something like Uhbik-G or the free plugins granalizer and boids iirc) and morph plugins (Zynaptiq Morph, for instance, or the one by Melda)...
The way I look at effects (and indeed music/synthesis in general) is from a basic physics/math orientation:
Music is the modulation of the loudness of a set of frequencies over time.
In other words, you get two parameters to adjust over time (what frequencies are present and how loud they are). All instruments and effects accomplish this through various means, but if you can interpret the end result in terms of the above statement, you can make an informed decision about any processing you can imagine.
Delays, and every other application of delays (including, but not limited to, reverbs and choruses) modify the loudness and presence of frequencies over time by smearing frequencies across the time domain.
Filters modify things in the above statement by determining which frequencies are present and (in the case of EQ) how loud they are. If you modulate this, it can change what frequencies are present and how loud they are over time as well. I view distortion as a less controlled form of EQ which is capable of adding new frequencies as well as increasing the loudness of a selection of existing frequencies, can also be time-dependent. I think phasers fit in here too, not sure if those are accomplished with filters or delays though.
I suppose pitch shifting kind of goes along with distortion, not really sure how to define that in my system.
I hadn't thought of the granular stuff as I don't really use it, but I would define that as a more direct manipulation of the time domain in my way of thinking.
The point is, what else do you want to do? Everything boils down to modulating the loudness of frequencies over time (to me, at least). To get a specific set in a specific sequence over time might take some unique combination of processing, but with additive synthesis or spectral filtering (and a white noise source) you can, in theory, create the exact set of frequencies you want at the exact time you want them. Packaging that hardcore math into effects just makes life easy for those of us who don't get off on doing the calculus to figure out what frequencies are going to be present in a drum hit or how loud the reverb is going to be at 667 hz at .1,.2,.3,.4, and .5 seconds after the initial hit.
It's likely you know most of the effects, but I think it's more a question of different flavors you might not know or unique techniques used to accomplish something novel with those basic tools. Especially with combining effects together or making use of creative side-chaining.
And just because something is a "chorus," doesn't mean it'll sound like other chorus effects or that you'd use it in the same scenario.
i understand most effects are volume manipulation but you know what im talking about, i want discuss effects that are not commonly used for example direct frequency shiftier that ignores scale and directly shifts frequency based on given hz or granular effects as said above which is basically vocoder but still different
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld
The idea has then also been stretched to a philosophical discourse around the unknown knowns...
As for unknown knowns, a philosopher by the name of Slavoj Žižek extrapolated to define this term: the things that we know, but are unaware of knowing.
You don't know what you don't know.
So, now you know.
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Techno starts with a capital 'T', as in TB-303 and TR-808.
As far as "uncommon" effects go, I love Disperser by Kilohearts. Essentially it rotates the phase of an incoming signal which in the end acts like a transient shaper.
All the psychoacoustic plugins like RBass and Maxxbass get the nerdy side of me.
Also theres a program called ixiQuarks (I can't link yet :/) that is just about the weirdest plugin I've come across. Its great for getting weird sound designy and spectral effects, great for bass heavy music. No idea how it works, but its definitely a blast to play around with (and its free!).
Also theres a program called ixiQuarks (I can't link yet :/) that is just about the weirdest plugin I've come across. Its great for getting weird sound designy and spectral effects, great for bass heavy music. No idea how it works, but its definitely a blast to play around with (and its free!).
ixiquarks is very good, agree. However it's mac only, if I remember correctly. no alternatives for windows, I'm afraid.
If anyone has reaktor or m4l, user library offers some really experimental plugins, just scroll through tag "other" in online database.
effects we dont know about
