Why Do We Need Effects And Processors

One of the problems of recording in a home studio is that everything sounds small because your recording space doesn't have the same acoustic ambience as a concert hall or a club. In fact the same is true of most professional studios apart from those with large, live rooms, and most pop music is recorded fairly "dry", either ina a fairly dead enviroment or by close miking. Electronic effects units are then used to recreate the desired ambience, and the most important effects unit of them all is revernration or reverb.

Reverbration occurs naturally when sound is reflected and re-reflected from walls and other obstacles within a large room, and an electronic reverb unit mimics this effect by generating thousands of reflections electronically. Like all modern day effects, reverb can be used to create the impression of a real room, but it may also be used to create new effects that have no obvious counterpart in nature.

Effects are very powerfull tools, but if you try to use them to cover up a poor recording, you won't fool anyone. A good mix always starts with a good recording of a good performance.

If you do all your recordi+ing dry, adding effects only when you mix, you have the advantage that you can experiment with different types of effect after the recording has been made. In the professional studio where there's a big mixer, ots of tape tracks and plenty of different effects units, that's quite feasible, but in a small home studio, it's often more practical to add some of the effect as you record and others as you mix.

If you're working with a 4-track syste, for example, you often have to bounce tracks, which means that if you want the individual sounds to have different effects, you'll have to add these as you bounce. You may also find that your multitrack workstation doesn't have as many effects sends and returns as you need, so it's quite possible that some of the effects will have to be added when you first record the parts.

Guitar effects are usually recorded to tape because they affect the way the guitarist play. Even so, it helps if you can leave putting the reverb on until last. Not only does this let you find the right effects type and effects balance, but it also enables you to keep the reverb in stereo which does much to create the feeling of space and depth whitin a mix. Usually, effects added at the recording stage will be in mono because you simply can't afford the tape tracks to keep everything in stereo, but if you add a little stereo reverb at the final mixing stage, you'll be surprised at how the sound takes on new depth and realism.

Read more about making music and myrecommended sequencer for best results.