Shaping Sounds with Plugins and Effects

Volume is an integral part of the mixing process, but the most creative and challenging parts of any mix are deciding which plugins and effects to use and how to apply them. You can use plugins to repair audio that has technical problems, and you can also shape the way they sound and interact with each other. Used to good effect, you can invoke powerful reactions from the listener and provide information to the audience that wasn’t there in the audio on its own. In this chapter, we’ll look at the fundamental tools used to mold and sculpt sounds and how to combine them for specific use cases. You’ll learn when and why to apply things such as Equalization (EQ), and how to best use it for different situations. All the examples shown will use stock Pro Tools plugins, but we’ll also touch on some of the other popular plugin offerings by third-party vendors.

In this chapter, you will learn about the following key topics...