ABSTRACT
The use of amplification to balance instrumental and vocal forces changes the relationships of the mechanical sounding world. Amplification systems can allow the creation of illusory spaces, changing the depth and breadth of what is evident from the acoustic sound and visual information in the listening space; this is often done with additional use of reverberation and panning. There is therefore the possibility of playing perspectives. Composers can create a compositional strategy involving changing the 'normal relations of objects'. While all amplification 'colours' the source, some extreme colouration may deliberately be sought. The most obvious and first to be harnessed consciously was the 'fuzz guitar' sound, a product of overdriven guitar amplifiers. But contact microphones also have very 'coloured' characteristics. Microphones and loudspeakers themselves add their own colour (possessing their own particular resonant characteristics). Microphones were used to modulate the radio signal directly.
