Effects Explained

Several different sound formats are used in these articles. We recommend using the MPEG files which are very high quality and not very large. You can get sound players and test them out via How to use IUMA page.

• Expansion/Noise Gating
• Equalization
• Compression/Limiting
• Phase Shifting (Phasing)
• Ring_Modulation
• Chorus
• Delay
• Reverberation
• Flanging

Other Articles

• The Cool Sound of Tubes

  A somewhat technical discussion about tubes and why they are so sought after. From the IEEE Spectrum.

• Hutch's Hints, Tips, and Tricks

  Some tips for using compressors and limiters.

• The Equivalence of Various Methods of Computing Biquad Coefficients for Audio Parametric Equalizers (195K)

  A PDF file that takes a pretty technical look different methods of computing coefficients in parametic EQs. If you want to jump right to some equations to implement an equalizer, try the Audio EQ Cookbook.

• Parametric EQ Notebook

  for use with Mathematica. It covers some theory and design.

Tech Notes:

TC Electronic and Alesis have published several tech notes on compression as well, which have some different material from the above article. These were orginally found on their respective web sites, and are in PDF format.

• Intro To Compression (14K)
• Basic Compression Terms (92K)
• Pumping and Breathing (7K)
• Compressor Applications (136K)
• Compression Applications (145K)

  by Howard Massey for TC Electronic.

Tubes vs. Transistors -- Is There an Audible Difference?