Identifying Effects/Plug-ins Including EQ, Reverb, Delay, Compression, Gates and Pitch Correction

As a producer or sound engineer, your aural skills are extremely important as they enable you to hear the music and production values, so be mindful to always look after them. Avoid listening to music too loud and always be cautious of listening for too long. If you find yourself unavoidably subjected to high volume levels, be prepared to wear hearing protection.

Whilst it is difficult to improve your hearing per se, there are ways you can improve your aural skills. This can be achieved by training your ears and brain to identify the sounds that you hear. Your aural skills are associative in nature i.e. by associating particular labels to particular sounds, your brain will associate the label with the sound and subsequently you’ll stand a greater chance of identifying (and ultimately using) these sounds in the future.

Always be prepared to listen intently and be aware that the producer’s analytical ear is one of his/her greatest tools.

It is crucial for any producer to become familiar with each of the effects listed earlier in the course, and their applications. The advent of digital technology has now led to most effects being accessed via plug-ins as opposed to dedicated outboard effects, but great mixes have been created by using both approaches. The general application of each remains the same and every producer and engineer will always have their own subjective preferences.

Always be mindful to practise identifying effects which exist in pre-recorded audio and also, experiment with using effects yourself. Some great results have occurred through the whole history of contemporary music due to advancements in technology and these have even become the catalyst for whole new genres of music (heavy metal, hip hop, electronica to name a few), so be prepared to be creative.

For Level/Grade 6, you will be required to identify these effects.

• In this audio example you will hear a vocal affected with reverb
  
• In this audio example you will hear a vocal affected with reverb
  
• In this audio example you will hear a guitar affected with chorus
  
• In this audio example you will hear a guitar affected with chorus
  
• In this audio example  you will hear a synth affected by sidechain compression, delay and flanger
  

Please note, the term ‘sonic fidelity’ will be used to define anything of an audible nature, but it would be just as likely for this to be referenced as ‘audio fidelity’ and subsequently both terms should be learnt.

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