Effects are not just for mixing. In sound design, effects are where ordinary sounds become extraordinary. A simple synth patch, a field recording or a drum loop can become something completely new with the right chain of effects - and many signature sounds in electronic music came from pushing effects far beyond their intended use.
Distortion and saturation
Distortion adds harmonics, making sounds brighter, more aggressive and more present.
- Saturation - gentle, warm harmonics, like tape or valves. Thickens almost anything.
- Overdrive and distortion - stronger clipping for grit and aggression.
- Bit crushing and sample-rate reduction - digital degradation: lo-fi, aliasing, crunch.
- Waveshaping - reshapes the waveform according to a curve, adding specific harmonics.
- Multiband distortion - distort different frequency bands separately, keeping the low end clean while the highs scream.
Distortion before a filter creates rich, buzzy tones for the filter to carve. Distortion after a filter emphasises the resonance.
Filters and movement
Filters as effects - not just in the synth - create movement on any sound:
- Automated sweeps on a loop or a whole mix.
- LFO-driven filters for rhythmic movement.
- Envelope followers - the filter opens as the input gets louder, for touch-sensitive wah effects.
- Formant filters - vowel-like shapes that make sounds "talk".
Delay as an instrument
- Tempo-synced delays create rhythmic patterns from single hits.
- High feedback builds dense, self-oscillating textures. Automate the feedback for a climbing wash.
- Filtered and distorted delays - processing in the feedback loop makes each repeat darker, brighter or dirtier.
- Ping-pong delays bounce repeats across the stereo field.
- Short delays (under about 30 ms) become comb filtering - metallic resonances.
- Tape-style delays with wow and flutter add warmth and wobble.
Reverb beyond space
- Huge reverbs turn short sounds into pads and drones. Freeze or infinite-decay settings hold a sound indefinitely.
- Reverse reverb - a swell that rises into a sound.
- Gated reverb - a big reverb cut off abruptly, the 1980s drum sound.
- Distorted or filtered reverb returns create textures in their own right.
- Shimmer reverbs add pitch-shifted octaves to the tail for an angelic glow.
Modulation effects
- Chorus - detuned copies for width and thickness.
- Flanger - short, modulated delay with feedback - the jet-plane sweep.
- Phaser - moving notches in the spectrum for a swirling sound.
- Tremolo and auto-pan - rhythmic volume and stereo movement.
- Ring modulation - multiplies two signals, creating inharmonic, metallic, robotic tones.
Pitch and granular effects
- Pitch shifters - octaves, harmonies, or detuned layers.
- Granular effects - break audio into tiny grains and rearrange, stretch or scatter them - stutters, clouds, glitches.
- Frequency shifters - shift every frequency by the same amount, destroying harmonic relationships for alien, metallic effects.
- Stutter and glitch effects - rhythmic repeats, slices and reversals.
Resampling
Record the output of your effect chain back to audio, then process it again. Resampling commits your results, frees CPU, and lets you build sounds in stages - a sound resampled three or four times through different chains can end up unrecognisable from its source.
Building chains
- Order matters. Distortion before reverb sounds very different from reverb before distortion. Experiment.
- Use parallel processing. Effect racks and sends let you blend a heavily processed version with the dry sound.
- Automate everything. Effects that change over time are far more interesting than static ones.
- Save chains you like as presets or racks.
Do this now
- Take a simple sine-wave synth note and transform it into five completely different sounds using only effects.
- Build a delay with filtering and distortion in its feedback loop.
- Freeze a reverb tail into a pad and play it.
- Resample a drum loop through a granular effect, then chop the result into a new loop.