In this week we're going to be talking about a variety of kind of complex signal flows that we can configure within

our mixing board. One of the main reasons we set up these kind of complex signal flows is so we can employ audio effects in the most appropriate way. And there are really three categories of audio effect and if we're in any of the digital domain, which we are in our DAW, we might call this a DSP or Digital Signal Processing. And there are three categories, and the three categories are generally related to three of the principles of sound. Our first category is our Dynamic Effects, and our Dynamic Effects are related to amplitude. And Dynamic Effects kind of automatically control volume based on the material over time. And these effects are our compressors, limiters, expanders and gates. And we'll get more into them into the coming weeks but for now, we'll just have to know the category and that the effect amplitude over time. The next category of effects are our Delay Effects, and these are related to the propagation principle of sound. In that they add slight delays to the signal, which tends to represent spaces that you're inside. And these effects are your reverbs, your delays, phasers, flangers and choruses are all delay effects. And they really give us a sense of the space. So, if you want to give the listener the sense that this is recorded in a large room or a small room, you would turn to a delay effect to give that, give that impression. Kind of the illusion of three dimensionality is has a lot to do with these kind of delay effects. And then finally, we have our filter effects. And these control the timbre of the sound. So, any time I say, cut the highs or boost the lows. They're going to be some kind of filter effect. So, when you're talking about your pass filters, like high pass, low pass and band pass, your EQs like, your parametric filters or graphic equalizers.

These are going to be the filter effects. Now, I'll bring this up again because as we set up our signal flow, that's related to how we want to process things. If I want to process all my drones as a single unit, I'll have to make a sub-mix in my mixing board. I'll route all my different drum tracks to a single track that I can then process as a unit. And by using only one plug in or EQ on that or compressor on that one track I save a lot of processing. I don't need five of them for the five drum tracks. I can use one in the sub mix. Similar from adding reverb, but I might use a send and return structure for reverb so I can apply the same reverb to multiple tracks but in different amounts. So, we're going to look at those two types of signal flow now and just recognize that there associated with these categories of affect. In, later weeks we'll get into the specifics of those affects and how to use them effectively in a mix.