Hi, this is Rich from N.C. again, and this week I’m going to talk about and demonstrate how choruses, flangers, and phasers work.
All three effects are variations of modulated short delays. You can create a number of effects with them, and each one sounds different from the others.
Let’s Join the Chorus!
Chorus effects create multiple de-tuned copies of the track to create the illusion that more than one person is playing the same track. It’s the same as a chorus of people: everyone’s a little flat or sharp, so the combination of all of those voices that are just slightly off comes across as a wide, thick, big sound.
Changing the delay time of the track creates changes in pitch, which creates the audio illusion of more than one person playing that track.
Choruses are great for making a sound wider, thereby creating more room in the mix.
Put Flange B into Slot A
Flangers are essentially comb filters that are put into motion. A very short delay on a chorus (start with 0.1 milliseconds) will generate a comb filter. It creates a swirly, wide sound.
You can use an LFO to move the filter up and down the audio spectrum to create a feeling of motion.
You can also add some feedback to the flanger to add some depth to the sound.
Flangers are great for opening up the stereo sound of a track, making it sound “wider.”
Set Phasers on Groovy
Phasers take a series of notch filters and put them into motion as well. Phasers sound a lot like flangers. While flangers are strictly comb filters, phasers don’t have to be as evenly spaced. The notches in a phaser can be configured many different ways to get a variety of sounds, so you get better control with a phaser than you do a flanger. Unlike flangers, phasers are not even across the audio spectrum.
Phasers are great for guitars and pads, because they are similar to notch filters in how they act. That way, they stay out of the way of the bass, drums, and vocals. That’s very useful for making more room in the mix.
For all three effects, you need to keep an eye on your wet/dry mix. Dry is the unaltered sound coming in from the track, and wet is the version with the effects added. Adjust the knobs accordingly to get the sound you want.
How Do I Tell Them Apart?
I created a demo track in Reason 6.5 using Synapse Software’s Antidote. The first few bars are of the plain vanilla Init Patch of Antidote, then I ran the same bars through Antidote’s built-in phaser, then through its chorus, which I turned into a flanger.
It’s a little loud.
https://soundcloud.com/xyqbed/coursera-demo
Reflection
Well, I certainly learned a lot about modulated short delays, choruses, flangers, and phasers. It was a little tricky getting everything set up and running, but I managed to get it all done. I hope you enjoyed it.