Audio Effects: Theory, Implementation and Application

by Joshua D. Reiss, Andrew McPherson

Overview

Audio effects are used pervasively in music performance and production, and the creation of new digital audio tools is a significant industry. They are also commonly used in game production, broadcasting, and film and television.

This book is intended as an educational textbook on audio effects, with relevance to audio signal processing, music informatics, sound engineering, and related topics.

It provides fundamental background information on digital signal processing, focusing on audio-specific aspects. This constitutes the building block on which audio effects are developed. It integrates theory and practice, relating technical implementation to musical implications.

• The book can be used to gain an understanding of the operation of existing audio effects, or to create new ones.
• Includes detailed coverage of common audio effects (and plenty of unusual ones).
• Includes discussion of current digital audio standards, such as VST. Accompanying source code is provided in C/C++, for audio plugin development using JUCE.
• Each section of the book also has examples, exercises, sound samples, lecture slides, and additional information on related topics.

This second edition includes revised and expanded chapters, with new content on equalization, distortion, phase vocoders, and reverberation. It also has new chapters on immersive audio and on advanced concepts in audio programming, revised source code using the latest version of JUCE, and corrections and improvements throughout.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032974859
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	02/18/2026
Series:	Audio Engineering Society Presents
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joshua Reiss

Josh Reiss is a Professor with the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. He has published more than 200 scientific papers, and co-authored three books. He is a past President and Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. He has served as an expert witness in major cases related to audio technology and patent litigation. He is also Entrepreneur-in-Resident at QMUL, having co-founded four spin-out companies; LandR, Waveshaper AI, RoEx and Nemisindo. His primary focus of research is on the use of state-of-the-art signal processing and machine learning techniques for sound design and audio production.

Andrew McPherson

Andrew McPherson is a Professor in the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London. He leads the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, a research team designing and exploring new musical instruments. He has published over 200 papers and has held research fellowships from ERC, UKRI and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and has spun out two companies including Bela.io, which makes high-performance embedded audio hardware.

Table of Contents

1. Fundamentals. 2. Building Audio Effect Plug-ins. 3. Delay-Line Effects 4. Filter Design 5.Filter Effects. 6. Amplitude Modulation  7. Dynamics Processing  8. Distortion. 9. The Phase Vocoder  10.Reverberation. 11. Spatial Audio 12. Immersive Audio. 13. Audio Production  14. Advanced Concepts in Audio Programming 

Editorial Reviews

"This book strikes a great balance between theory and get-your-hands-dirty applications. You get the essential math that deepens your understanding, but not so much that it discourages the motivated reader. The book is rich with actual examples—working code—so that you can build and hear functioning effects right away. The strong orientation to families of effects found in every recording studio means that readers of this book can look forward to making a full set of useful, relevant, real-world effects. The theory is just enough to arm you with the power to innovate and create, so you learn how to do what is shown in the book and, more importantly, to make your own extensions, variations, and inventions."
—Alex U. Case, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA

"Audio Effects: Theory, Implementation and Application is a fascinating new book on audio processing algorithms. It starts from basics of digital audio engineering and signal processing, and then continues to explain in detail the most important audio effects algorithms. I very much like the chapter on delay-line effects, which gives a great overview of all the well-known methods, such as slapback and ping-pong delay effects, and flanging and chorus algorithms. This book not only explains the basic idea and applications of each method, but also briefly shows the mathematics in the background of all techniques. I much enjoyed reading the historical anecdotes about the origins of some audio effect techniques. Every chapter ends with a compact set of problems, which makes this book very useful as a textbook. Both easy and challenging problems are included."
—Vesa Välimäki, Aalto University, Esbo, Finland

"This is a clear and concise guide to the details and applications of audio signal processing. The mathematical treatment of the subject is rigorous yet accessible, and problems to test understanding are included at the end of each chapter. Code examples in C++ are provided."
—Jez Wells, University of York, UK

"Audio Effects: Theory, Implementation, and Applications is a great book for those who are excited about the technical side of audio effects. Newcomers can gain a basic understanding of each of the topics and advanced students can take their understanding to the next level. The diagrams and formulae are in-depth and also function as a great one-stop reference on the subject."
—Craig Abaya, San Francisco State University, California, USA

"In the book, audio signal processing is explained in a very nice and smart way. Mentioning and explaining system theoretic aspects of basic processing structures helps readers to understand them in detail. Besides that, the application of these structures in music and audio in general is described in great detail, and in a very motivating manner. The authors start with simple structures (e.g., with constant parameters), allowing for a simple entry. Afterward, variants (e.g., by allowing the parameters to be changed in a periodic fashion) are described that show how structures are used in practice. Additional C-code examples help if readers really want to get hands-on experience when implementing audio processing schemes."
—Gerhard Schmidt, Kiel University, Germany

"... one of the best-written, best-structured, and most complete books on the topic of audio processing. ... The book uses dedicated chapters for a wide range of effects that take place in the time-domain (delay, reverberation, phase vocoder), the frequency domain (filters, Doppler effects, equalizers) or the realm of dynamics (overdrive, modulation, compression, etc.) and in each instance provides the theory of mathematical foundation using sophomore-level engineering math, clear and effective figures, excellent examples and exercises, as well as a short paragraph akin to a “did you know?” entry that lightens the reading. Whenever appropriate, the authors also include programming examples. From the excellent introduction to the final chapter (dedicated to building software plug-ins for some of the popular digital audio workstations environments), the book exalts clarity of thought and of presentation. ... What this book offers is an in-depth guide to how audio effects can be designed, calculated, and implemented in software. It is an effective text for college-level students in electrical engineering (or computer science) who have a passion for audio. ... Every reference book should have a good bibliography and reference section, and in this regards the readers will not be disappointed either. The references are both broad and deep, and they are extremely current. ... Personally I would not hesitate to spend the money on this work, as I can see annotating a lot of the pages (especially the code portions). ... a book of this quality should have a spot on an engineer's bookshelf."
—Dominique J. Chéenne, Columbia College Chicago, Illinois, USA, from Noise Control Engineering Journal, November-December 2014

"... presents the application and implementation, from a technical approach, of the gamut of audio effects with a balanced focus on the math and science involved. ... There are a large number of well-placed references throughout the book for further reading or expanded research into filters and DSP effects. ... I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a behind-the-scenes look at how our modern DSP-based effects do their magic. The book also will help with understanding the math and concepts related to modern DSP-based effects."
—David Brown, Santa Ana, California, USA, from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 63, No. 9, September 2015

From the Publisher