Creative Signal Abuse

Who needs outboard processing when you can have just as much fun running audio through a synthesizer? Mark Cousins gets dark and dirty with his synth...

When it comes to the extremes of signal abuse, few devices can mangle a sound with the same sonic dexterity and sheer brute force as the synthesizer. Musicians like Brian Eno, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and William Orbit have all made distinctive use of a synth’s signal processing properties to turn guitars, drums and everything else besides into an exciting array of new textures and effects. Ultimately, if you’re after something a bit different from the norm, patching a sound through the depths of your synthesizer makes for one of the most exciting means of mangling audio – but what are the methods behind these effects, and what can you realistically expect to achieve with today’s technology?

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 44
Filed under General Features

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