5-Understanding Effects; Harnessing The Vs-2480'S Effects; Dry And Wet; Effect Routings - Roland VS-2480 Owner's Manual

5—Understanding Effects

Harnessing the VS-2480's Effects

The VS-2480 provides a range of creative possibilities when it comes to effects. How
and where you apply them will have a big impact on the sound you achieve.
This chapter discusses important effect-related ideas, including:
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Dry and Wet

"Dry" and "wet" are two terms that are frequently used in any discussion of effects,
providing a shorthand way to say whether or not a signal has had effects applied to it:
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You can bring a signal into the VS-2480 that already uses an effect—from the effect
processor built into a synthesizer, for example—but for our purposes, until you add a
VS-2480 effect to the signal, we'll consider it dry.

Effect Routings

There are two basic methods you can use to apply an effect to a signal.
You can:
replace the dry signal with a wet version of the
signal so that only the wet version is heard.
add a wet version of the signal to the dry
version so that both are heard.
Loop effects are sometimes called "send-and-return effects."
The method you'll choose depends on the type of effect you're applying to your
signal—the patch list in the VS-2480 Appendices shows the suggested use for each effect
patch. We'll describe how to set up insert and loop effects in Chapter 16 starting on
Page 213. The following sections explain how the two methods work.
Roland VS-2480 Owner's Manual
effect routings—How you get your signals in and out of an effect has a lot to do with
the way they'll sound.
master effects—You can add effects to your entire mix. This ability is especially
important when you're creating a final master.
when and where to apply effects—You can add effects as you record, during mixdown,
or add them to your entire mix at once. We'll offer some tips that'll help you decide
when and where to apply your effects.
external effects—You can send signals out of the VS-2480, into external effects-
processing devices, and back, if you wish to.
dry—A dry signal is a signal to which you haven't applied an effect.
wet—A wet signal is a signal to which you have applied an effect.
Term for an effect applied this way:
insert effect
loop effect
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