effects-engineer

Effects Engineer

Where this fits in the workflow:

1. /phantom:audio-diagnostician -- analyze stems first
2. /phantom:session-architect -- set up the DAW session
3. /phantom:mix-engineer -- mix with measurement-backed decisions
4. You are here: /phantom:effects-engineer -- creative processing
5. /phantom:mastering-engineer -- final output

Philosophy

Effects aren't decoration -- they're part of the arrangement. A well-chosen delay is an instrument. A badly chosen one is a mess. Know why you're reaching for a plugin before you insert it.

The difference between amateur and professional effects use isn't the plugins -- it's intent. "I want the vocal to feel like it's in a cathedral" gives you a reverb with 4-second decay, high diffusion, and a 40ms pre-delay. "I want reverb on the vocal" gives you nothing useful. Define the goal before choosing the tool.

Distortion & Saturation

When to use saturation: adding warmth, generating harmonics for small-speaker translation, adding density and glue, creating aggression or grit.

Type Selection

Type	Harmonic Content	Character	Best For	Caution
Tube	Even-order (2nd, 4th)	Warm, musical	Vocals, bass, mix bus	Too much = fizzy, losing transients
Tape	Compression + harmonics	Glue, warmth, subtle rounding	Drums, mix bus, master bus	Loses transients at high drive
Transistor	Odd-order (3rd, 5th)	Gritty, aggressive, edgy	Guitars, parallel drums, punk/metal	Harsh in excess, fatiguing
Transformer	Transient softening	Density, weight, thickness	Drums, bass, full mixes	Reduces clarity at high settings

Why tubes sound musical: asymmetrical clipping produces even-order harmonics (octaves and fifths), which are consonant with the fundamental. Transistors produce odd-order harmonics (thirds and sevenths), which are more dissonant -- hence the aggressive character.

Parallel Distortion

Don't distort the original -- distort a copy and blend. Send to a parallel bus, drive hard, blend at -10 to -15 dB underneath the dry signal. The dry signal retains clarity and transients while the distorted signal adds density and harmonics.

Multiband Saturation

Keep the sub frequencies clean (below 120 Hz), saturate the mids for presence and warmth. This is critical for bass guitar small-speaker translation: the saturation generates upper harmonics (160 Hz, 240 Hz, 320 Hz) that small speakers can reproduce, and the brain interprets them as implying the inaudible fundamental.

For the full distortion taxonomy with DSP science, see effect-taxonomy.md.

Modulation Effects

Quick Selection

Effect	Mechanism	Character	Use When
Chorus	LFO modulates delay (15-35 ms)	Width, shimmer, movement	Thickening guitars, widening synths, lush vocals
Flanger	Same as chorus but 1-5 ms range	Jet sweep, metallic, comb filtering	Dramatic sweeps, sci-fi, guitar solos
Phaser	All-pass filters (NOT delay-based)	Subtler than flanger, notch patterns	Synths, guitars, funky rhythmic movement
Tremolo	Amplitude modulation	Pulsing, rhythmic volume changes	Guitar atmosphere, synth pads, vintage organ
Vibrato	Pitch modulation	Wobble, seasick, intense	Essentially 100% wet chorus -- use sparingly

Micro-Pitch Detuning for Width

The +/-7 cents trick: duplicate a signal, pitch-shift one copy up 7 cents and the other down 7 cents, add 10-20 ms delay to each, pan hard L/R. Creates natural width without the phase problems of Haas effect. Check with analyze_stereo -- correlation should stay above +0.3.

Time-Based Effects

Reverb Selection

Type	Character	Best For	Pre-Delay
Room	Natural, small, intimate	Drums, keeping sources grounded	0-15 ms
Plate	Smooth, dense, vocal-friendly	Vocals, snare, melodic instruments	20-40 ms
Hall	Large, cinematic, epic	Special moments, strings, pads, transitions	30-60 ms
Spring	Twangy, lo-fi, character	Guitar, surf rock, vintage	0-10 ms
Chamber	Warm, natural, classic	Orchestral, jazz, warm pop	20-40 ms

Pre-delay is critical for clarity. Longer pre-delay (30-60 ms) separates the dry signal from the reverb tail, keeping the source intelligible. Without it, reverb smears transients -- especially deadly on vocals.

Always HPF reverb returns at 200-300 Hz. Low-end content in reverb creates mud that builds up across the mix. The reverb doesn't need sub-bass.

Delay Types

Type	Timing	Character	Use Case
Slapback	50-120 ms, single repeat	Thickening, rockabilly	Vocal doubling, guitar character
Ping-pong	L/R alternating	Width, spatial interest	Synths, vocals, ear candy
Tape	Wow/flutter, degrading repeats	Warmth, vintage	Anything needing organic feel
Dotted-eighth	3/4 of beat length	Rhythmic interest	The Edge's signature -- rhythmic guitars, vocals
Reverse	Pre-echo swell	Atmospheric transitions	Before a vocal entry, between sections

HPF delay returns at 200-300 Hz, same as reverb. LPF at 6-8 kHz for warmer, more natural repeats.

Ducked Reverb/Delay

Sidechain the reverb/delay return from the dry source signal. During phrases, the effect ducks and stays out of the way. In gaps, it blooms. This gives you long, lush reverb tails without sacrificing clarity during the performance.

Run analyze_stereo after spatial effects to check width and correlation. If correlation drops below +0.3, you've over-widened.

Chain Order Rules

Chain order changes the sound dramatically. These aren't arbitrary -- each order produces a different result because each effect responds to what comes before it.

Chain Order	Result	Use For
Reverb → Distortion	Shoegaze wall of sound, smeared, massive	Dream pop, shoegaze, ambient noise
Distortion → Reverb	Clean space on distorted source, articulate	Heavy rock, metal (clear despite the gain)
Compression → Delay	Delay receives a consistent signal, even repeats	Clean, predictable delay behavior
Delay → Compression	Compression pumps with the delay, repeats interact	More chaotic, energetic, lo-fi
EQ → Reverb	Shapes what frequencies the reverb responds to	Targeted reverb on specific frequency content
Reverb → EQ	Shapes the reverb tail itself	Darken the tail, remove harshness from reverb

For complete creative chain recipes, see creative-chains.md.

Effects Automation

Static effects are demo-level. Professional productions automate effects to respond to the arrangement.

Key Automation Targets

• Filter sweeps: automate LPF or HPF cutoff for builds and transitions. Closing LPF into a drop, opening on the downbeat.
• Delay feedback throws: send level at -inf normally, punch to 0 dB on the last word of a phrase. The delay catches that word and echoes it into the gap.
• Reverb size/decay changes: shorter reverb in verses (intimate), longer in choruses (epic). Automate the decay parameter, not just the send level.
• Drive automation: increase saturation subtly into the chorus for energy and density, pull back for the verse. The listener feels the energy change without hearing "distortion."
• Stereo width: narrow in verses, wide in choruses. Automate the width of stereo effects or mid/side balance.

Effects should breathe with the song. If the arrangement gets bigger (more instruments, louder, denser), the effects should get bigger too. If the arrangement strips down, the effects should strip down.

Reference Materials

• For complete distortion, modulation, and time-based effect details with DSP science, see effect-taxonomy.md
• For creative chain recipes (ethereal vocals, massive guitars, gated drums, lo-fi, etc.), see creative-chains.md

Reaper DAW Recipes

For compound Reaper operations that apply this skill's methodology, see reaper-recipes.md.

Available recipes:

• parallel_distortion_bus -- parallel saturation for warmth/density
• ducked_reverb_setup -- sidechain-ducked reverb for clarity

Recipes require a Reaper MCP server (TwelveTake recommended). See setup guide for installation.