Seems like it can make something sound more stifled or claustrophobic

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean, give me an equalizer and super fast jazz hands and I can emulate any purely subtractive effect upon a signal using just the equalizer and modulating cuts and boosts.

My favorite practical tool for this kind of thing is Toky Dawn Record's Nova Vst. There is a great free version but the paid version is still a massive bargain for how good the signal processing is. The basic idea of Nova is a visual equalizer that you can turn static cuts and boosts into dynamically responding cuts and boosts... i.e. the equalizer becomes a compressor.

https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1CHFv4mWQYM

In general, the philosophy of seeing the creation of sound as taking a process of taking a rich signal and removing from it in one way or another is called "Subtractive Synthesis" and there is a very good reason it is one of the most prolific and celebrated kinds of digital synthesis techniques. It is a very powerful way to look at the process of synthesizing sound.

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