11. Make Sound Sound Better

Audio effects (FX), sometimes called processes, and restoration tools are an important part of audio post-production. You will spend a lot of time cleaning up noisy and otherwise flawed audio tracks. And you will apply unique effects to give your work greater impact. Mixing all the disparate soundtrack elements usually requires digging deep into your toolbox to pull the project together.

You may use hardware equivalents of some or all of the effects mentioned in this chapter. That will be the exception for many, though, because most of us work in the digital domain of the computer—inside the box, so to speak. Therefore, once the sound gets into the computer, that’s where it stays. Instead of analog gear, we take advantage of software-based tools to craft the soundtrack effectively.