The manipulation of sound could be divided in different ways one of which would be:

1. manipulation done before a sound is generated, or rather the choices made beforehand that determine the characteristics of what will eventually be heard and that are either difficult or impossible to change during the generation of a sound. These include but are not limited to:
   • the shape and size of the instrument being played, determining the frequencies getting accentuated
   • the environment in which the instrument is being played
     • whether indoors or outdoors
     • shape (niches, parallel walls) and size of a room, hall
     • surface material of nearby walls like concrete, wood, stone
     • presence of other object like plants, furniture, curtains
2. manipulation done during the generation of sound
   • vibrato
   • dampening
   • muffler
   • adding other resonating objects
3. manipulation done after the sound has been generated
   • in the physical domain this would be the manipulation of the reverberation of the sound – e.g. sitting in a room adjacent to where an instrument is being played with lots of reverb and then somebody opening the door between the hall and this room
   • in the electronic domain with the usage of a microphone or other pick-up device after which the now “captured” sound gets manipulated either in “real time” (= with a minimum of time delay) or after it has been recorded and then of course is getting played back and mixed with the original acoustic sound or even without it.
   The manipulation of sound within the electronic domain has taken an immense flight within music, starting in 1940’s with the French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician. Pierre Schaeffer, who started using tape recorders to manipulate recorded sound. Introduced into pop music by artists like the Beatles and Frank Zappa, brought to another dimension by reggae music producers and pretty much taken for granted by current generations of (home-grown) musicians using computers and all-in one digital audio workstations.

   More to follow.