Bonus Question answer

Last time around, our bonus question was this:

Where was the first echo (or delay) effect first manufactured?

If you have been following the Hearing Effects series so far, then you’ll know by now that nothing has a clear-cut answer. There is always too much debate about who really did what, and who really did what when; and this is even among the official records’ archivists!

However, regardless of who first “pioneered” the echo effect; the first to commercially manufacture it was Ray Butts in the early 1950s, who designed and built his wire-based echo machine into guitar amplifiers. (There might be someone out there to dispute that, but most fingers point to Ray.) It is a common mistake that the “echoplex” distributed by Maestro was the first, but that mix up is understandable since the “echoplex” holds the popularity award, and is still certainly regarded as the “Holy Grail” of echo effects.

This leads us straight into our next topic of echo/delay/reverb effects. Smooth, aren’t I?

Inspired by Nature

Alright, let’s dive right in. Everyone knows the sound characteristics of, say, yelling in a giant stadium or a cavern, or even out in the open high mountain ranges (for those who have actually experienced the wonder of something like the Grand Canyon).

Nature has built-in reverberation. For each different environment, sounds behave accordingly. The larger, more open and unobstructed spaces produce a longer delay between the sound and the bouncing around of that sound that reaches back to your ears. Those reflections can take a few milliseconds or up to a second or two to reach back to you. Once they do: Click to read the rest…

Welcome back to the ongoing series that began with Frequency Fundamentals. I trust and hope it has been as helpful for you as it was fun for me to write.

Moving along, this is the start of a new series that will dovetail with the frequency series. Consider it the second suite of a broader work. These new articles will continue our discussion and build on top of the foundation we laid down previously. This time we will focus on audio effects.

“Relevance?”, you ask.

Find me a musician, audio professional, or recording/mixing/mastering engineer that doesn’t use audio effects – and I will be the one to question if they have red blood coursing through their veins!

A more pertinent question would be this: “Effects… OK. But why now?”

If you are familiar with the previous frequency series, you should know the answer by now:
Click to read the rest…