A key feature of popular music is the use of artificial echo and reverberation to make small ensembles sound big, to complexify simple arrangements, and to turn poky studio spaces into wide open landscapes.

Listen to ‘Isi’, the opening track of Neu! 75, by German band Neu, for example. It begins with a simple sequence played on a piano. But a reverberation (reverb) effect sends each of the three basic chords out into a big blue sky – one that exists only in a studio box of tricks.

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