An effects unit, effects processor, or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A drum machine often has pre-programmed beats and patterns for popular genres and styles, such as pop music, rock music, and dance music. Most modern drum machines made in the 2010s and 2020s also allow users to program their own rhythms and beats. Drum machines may create sounds using analog synthesis or play prerecorded samples.
Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as Florida breaks, hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK garage styles.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a cohesive whole. Multitracking became possible in the mid-1950s when the idea of simultaneously recording different audio channels to separate discrete tracks on the same reel-to-reel tape was developed. A track was simply a different channel recorded to its own discrete area on the tape whereby their relative sequence of recorded events would be preserved, and playback would be simultaneous or synchronized.
In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among contemporary composers of 1950s and 1960s, such as Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used them to create phase patterns, rhythms, textures, and timbres. Popular music authors of 1960s and 1970s, particularly in psychedelic, progressive and ambient genres, used tape loops to accompany their music with innovative sound effects. In the 1980s, analog audio and tape loops with it gave way to digital audio and application of computers to generate and process sound.
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the supply reel containing the tape is placed on a spindle or hub. The end of the tape is manually pulled from the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and over a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of the second, initially empty takeup reel. Reel-to-reel systems use tape that is 1⁄4, 1⁄2, 1, or 2 inches wide, which normally moves at 3+3⁄4, 7+1⁄2, 15 or 30 inches per second. Domestic consumer machines almost always used 1⁄4 inch (6.35 mm) or narrower tape and many offered slower speeds such as 1+7⁄8 inches per second (4.762 cm/s). All standard tape speeds are derived as a binary submultiple of 30 inches per second.
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that records and plays back samples. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music.
The Roland Space Echo is a line of tape delay units introduced by Roland Corporation in 1974.
Keller Williams is an American singer, songwriter and musician who combines elements of bluegrass, folk, alternative rock, reggae, electronica/dance, jazz, funk, along with other assorted genres. He is often described as a 'one-man jam-band' due to his frequent use of live phrase looping with multiple instruments. Keller Williams was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia on February 4, 1970, and began playing the guitar in his early teens. He later matriculated at Virginia Wesleyan College in Virginia Beach where he received his degree in theater. After college, he moved to Colorado to advance his music career and expand his repertoire.
A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal by creating a series of peaks and troughs in the frequency spectrum. The position of the peaks and troughs of the waveform being affected is typically modulated by an internal low-frequency oscillator so that they vary over time, creating a sweeping effect.
Electro-Harmonix is a New York City-based company that makes electronic audio processors and sells rebranded vacuum tubes. The company was founded by Mike Matthews in 1968. It is best known for a series of guitar effects pedals introduced in the 1970s and 1990s. EHX also made a line of guitars in the 1970s.
The JamMan is an audio looping device manufactured by Lexicon in the mid-1990s. The idea for the JamMan began with modifications Gary Hall had devised for the Lexicon PCM-42 that allowed him to play into a long, looping delay whose clock could be synchronized to an external source. Bob Sellon extended the concept considerably, starting with elaborate PCM42 modifications and eventually working with several others at Lexicon to arrive at the JamMan.
Live looping is the recording and playback of a piece of music in real-time using either dedicated hardware devices, called loopers or phrase samplers, or software running on a computer with an audio interface. Musicians can loop with either looping software or loop pedals, which are sold for tabletop and floor-based use.
The Linn LM-1 Drum Computer is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics and released in 1980. It was the first drum machine to use samples of acoustic drums, and one of the first programmable drum machines. Its designer, the American engineer Roger Linn, wanted a machine that would produce more realistic drum sounds and offer more than preset patterns.
Delay is an audio signal processing technique that records an input signal to a storage medium and then plays it back after a period of time. When the delayed playback is mixed with the live audio, it creates an echo-like effect, whereby the original audio is heard followed by the delayed audio. The delayed signal may be played back multiple times, or fed back into the recording, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.
Albhy Galuten is an American technology executive and futurist, Grammy Award-winning record producer, composer, musician, orchestrator and conductor. He has numerous inventions and has produced 18 number 1 singles with songs and albums selling over 100,000,000 copies. He has won two Grammy Awards, a Dramalogue award, and a BMI Citation of Achievement.
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, or sound effects. A sample can be brief and only incorporate a single musical note, or it can consist of longer portions of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using electronic music instruments (samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations.
Nils Frahm is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Rhodes piano, drum machines, and Moog Taurus.
No Stairway is the debut studio album of Glassine, the musical project of Danny Greenwald, first released online and later issued on cassette worldwide by the label Patient Sounds, in April and August 2015, respectively. The title is a reference to a line from the 1992 film Wayne's World. The album garnered significant attention from music journalists for its compositional and production technique. In two Guitar Center stores, Greenwald tapped people playing instruments on his iPhone, and used snippets of these low-quality trackings as loops or synth patches, playing some of them through effects pedals or 4-track machines. The "dystopian" environment of Guitar Center shops and his desire to record something without a budget while in New York City is what inspired his idea to use samples of recordings of people playing instruments and build compositions out of them. On Fact's year-end list of best Bandcamp releases, No Stairway came in at number 19.
