Unit 17 audio production
Characteristics of different acoustic Instruments (effect)
Effects Unit
· Distortion
Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of a musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones.
· Talk Box
A talk box is an effects unit that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument. The musician controls the modification by lip syncing, or by changing the shape of their mouth.
Bonjovi (Living On A Prayer
· Pitch Bend
A smooth uninterrupted glide in passing from one tone to another, especially with the voice or a bowed stringed instrument.
· Delay + Multitap Delay
Delay is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time.
Multitap delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.
· Auto tune
Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform apparently perfectly tuned vocal tracks without needing to sing in tune.
Example: T-pain (Bartender)
· Phaser
A phaser is an audio signal processing technique used to filter a signal by creating a series of peaks and troughs in the frequency spectrum. The position of the peaks and troughs is typically modulated so that they vary over time, creating a sweeping effect. For this purpose, phasers usually include a low-frequency oscillator.
· Temeblo
An imitative sound, as of thunder or an explosion, produced artificially for theatrical purposes, as for a film, play, or radio program. Often used in the plural.
· Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterized in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation ("extent of vibrato") and the speed with which the pitch is varied ("rate of vibrato").
· Compression
Audio compression is a form of data compression designed to reduce the transmission bandwidth requirement of digital audio streams and the storage size of audio files. Audio compression algorithms are implemented in computer software as audio codecs.
· Limiter
A compressor or limiter is an automatic volume control that reduces the volume when the input gets too loud. Originally they were used to prevent AM radio transmitters from distorting if the announcer got too close to the microphone, and to keep volume levels consistent. Then some creative folks discovered that a compressor can sound cool as an effect on voices and musical instruments.
· Gating
A Noise Gate or gate is an electronic device or software that is used to control the volume of an audio signal. In its most simple form, a noise gate allows a signal to pass through only when it is above a set threshold: the gate is 'open'.
· Surround Sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers.
Prince (The Beautiful Ones)
· Mono-aural
Commonly called mono sound, mono, or non-stereo sound, this early sound system used a single channel of audio for sound output. In monophonic sound systems, the signal sent to the sound system encodes one single stream of sound and it usually uses just one speaker. Monophonic sound is the most basic format of sound output.
· Stereo
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two or more independent audio channels through a configuration of two or more loudspeakers in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing.
