Intelligent Music Production

2

Understanding Audio Effects

“That was the era of musicians, while now is the era of producers. [...] Today’s greatinnovation is the studio, the recording process.”

Brian Eno in “From the Velvet Underground to Burial,” The Guardian, 2 July 2011.

In this chapter, we give an overview of audio effects. We describe their mathematical formalism, several schemes for their classification, the building blocks for their implementation and how they may be imbued with ‘intelligence.’ The scope of the chapter is quite broad, and discusses audio effects in all of their forms. However, details of specific intelligent implementations of these effects are reserved for Chapter 7.

2.1 Fundamental Properties

Some key mathematical concepts are incredibly useful ...