How to Use the Audio Sound Effects in Evermusic: Reverb, Delay, Distortion, Compressor, Crossfeed, and Volume Normalization
TL;DR: Evermusic includes six real-time audio effects — Volume Normalization, Compressor, Reverb, Crossfeed, Delay, and Distortion. Open them from the player’s ⋯ (More) menu > Audio effects, or from Settings > Audio player > Audio effects. Tap an effect, turn its switch ON (top-right), pick a preset, and optionally open Advanced mode to fine-tune the sliders. Each effect works independently and applies in real time to everything you play — local files, cloud streams, and internet radio — with no re-encoding.
What Are the Evermusic Audio Effects?
Audio effects change the character of your sound as it plays. Evermusic runs them as native, real-time processing nodes inside its playback engine, so they apply to every source — local files, cloud drives, media servers, and internet radio — without ever modifying or re-encoding your files. Turn an effect off and your original sound returns instantly.
There are six effects, and each one is independent — there is no single master switch, so you can run one, several, or all of them at once:
- Volume Normalization — keeps every track at a consistent loudness.
- Compressor — evens out the loud and quiet parts within a track.
- Reverb — adds a sense of space, from a small room to a cathedral.
- Crossfeed — makes headphones sound more like real speakers.
- Delay — adds an echo, from a tight slap to a long ambient tail.
- Distortion — adds grit and lo-fi character, for fun.
Volume Normalization and Compressor are about consistency and clarity. Reverb, Delay, and Distortion are creative effects. Crossfeed is a headphone comfort tool. Together they turn Evermusic into a small studio in your pocket.
How to Open the Audio Effects
There are two ways to reach the Audio effects screen.
From the player (fastest):
- Open the Now Playing / player screen.
- Tap the ⋯ (More) button.
- Tap Audio effects.
From Settings:
- Go to the Settings tab.
- Tap Audio player.
- Tap Audio effects.
Either way, you land on the Audio effects list, which shows all six effects in this order: Volume normalization, Compressor, Reverb, Crossfeed, Delay, Distortion. Tap any one to open its editor.
How Each Effect Editor Works
Every effect editor follows the same simple pattern, so once you learn one you know them all:
- Enable switch (top-right). Turn the effect ON or OFF. Every effect is off by default. When it is off, the controls are dimmed.
- Simple / Advanced toggle (top-right). Simple mode shows just a list of presets with plain-language descriptions — the easiest way to get a good sound in one tap. Advanced mode adds fine-tuning sliders.
- Preset picker. A row of preset “bubbles” in portrait, or a preset column in landscape. Pick a starting point, then adjust if you like.
- Sliders (Advanced mode). Each slider shows its current value and has a small reset button (a circular arrow) to return it to the default. Adjusting any slider switches the effect to a Manual state, so you always know when you have moved away from a preset.
Changes save automatically. Below is what each effect does and how to set it up.
Volume Normalization
What it does: Some songs are mastered louder than others, so you keep reaching for the volume. Volume Normalization measures each track’s real perceived loudness and gently levels it toward a consistent target, so everything plays at about the same volume. It uses the broadcast-grade EBU R128 loudness standard (ITU-R BS.1770), works in real time on any source, and — unlike ReplayGain — needs no loudness tags in your files and never alters the audio.
Presets: Light, Standard, Strong, and Night.
Advanced controls:
- Target loudness — the loudness every track is leveled toward, shown in LUFS. Higher (for example, −14 LUFS) makes everything play louder overall; lower (−23 LUFS) is quieter and calmer.
- Max boost — limits how much a quiet track can be amplified, in dB. Higher values bring soft recordings closer to the target.
How to use it: Turn it on and choose Standard for streaming-style loudness, or Night for consistent, quiet late-evening listening. Great for shuffled playlists that mix old and new recordings.
Compressor
What it does: Within a single song, quiet parts can be too soft and loud parts too loud. The Compressor pulls them closer together so the whole track is easy to hear — in the car, on a run, or anywhere noisy. It is a full dynamics processor built on Apple’s AUDynamicsProcessor.
Presets: Transparent, Soft, Standard, Heavy, Voice / Podcast, Old Recordings, Late Night, Movie Dialog, Streaming Match, and Maximum Loudness.
Advanced controls (seven sliders):
- Threshold — the level where compression starts. Lower squashes more.
- Headroom — space above the threshold before hard limiting engages.
- Expansion ratio — how strongly very quiet sounds (like background noise) are pulled down.
- Expansion threshold — the level below which that gating begins.
- Attack — how fast the effect reacts to a sudden loud peak.
- Release — how fast it lets go after the loud part passes.
- Master gain — final makeup boost applied after processing.
How to use it: For most listening, turn it on and pick Standard. Choose Voice / Podcast or Movie Dialog for spoken content, Late Night for quiet listening, or Maximum Loudness for the loudest, most even result.
Reverb
What it does: Makes music sound like it is playing in a real space, with a natural tail of echo — from an intimate room to a grand hall or cathedral. Built on Apple’s AVAudioUnitReverb.
Presets (13): Small Room, Medium Room, Large Room, Medium Hall, Large Hall, Plate, Medium Chamber, Large Chamber, Cathedral, and several hall and room variations.
Advanced control:
- Mix — how much reverb to blend in, from 0% (dry, original sound) to 100% (fully into the chosen space).
How to use it: Turn it on, pick a space (for example, Medium Hall for a warm, roomy feel), and keep the Mix modest — a little goes a long way. Use it to add air to close-mic’d or “dry” recordings.
Crossfeed
What it does: On headphones, the left and right channels stay completely separate, which can make music feel stuck inside your head — especially on hard-panned older stereo mixes. Crossfeed blends a small, filtered amount of each channel into the other, the way your ears naturally hear speakers in a room, so the sound feels more natural and less tiring on long listens. It is built on the well-known Bauer stereophonic-to-binaural (bs2b) algorithm.
Presets (6): Subtle, Chu Moy, Strong, Jan Meier, Speaker-like, and Vintage Stereo.
Advanced controls:
- Cutoff — where the bleed between channels begins to roll off. Lower values give a warmer, more pronounced effect.
- Feed level — how much of one channel bleeds into the other. Higher values sound more speaker-like.
How to use it: This is a headphones effect — leave it off for speakers. Turn it on and try Chu Moy or Jan Meier (both audiophile favorites), or Vintage Stereo for hard-panned 1960s and 1970s recordings.
Delay (Echo)
What it does: Repeats the sound like an echo in the mountains. A little makes music feel fuller; more leaves a clear, rhythmic echo after each note. Built on Apple’s AVAudioUnitDelay.
Presets (10): Slapback, Doubler, Short Echo, Standard, Tape Echo, Bright Echo, Long Echo, Dub, Spacious, and Ambient.
Advanced controls:
- Delay time — the pause between the original sound and its echo. Short is a tight slap; long is a clear repeat.
- Feedback — how many times the echo repeats before fading.
- Tone — filters brightness out of the echo for a warmer, tape-like sound.
- Mix — how much echo to blend in.
How to use it: Turn it on and start with Slapback or Tape Echo for subtle depth, or Ambient and Dub for long, spacious tails.
Distortion
What it does: Makes music sound rough and gritty, like a broken speaker or a lo-fi transmission. It is a creative, for-fun effect rather than a fidelity tool, so use it sparingly. Built on Apple’s AVAudioUnitDistortion.
Presets (22): including Bit Brush, Broken Speaker, Cellphone Concert, Radio Tower, Alien Chatter, Cosmic Interference, and many more.
Advanced controls:
- Pre-gain — how hard the signal drives the distortion. Higher is more aggressive.
- Mix — how much distortion to blend with the clean sound.
How to use it: Turn it on, pick a character preset, and keep the Mix low unless you want a heavily broken sound. Fun on electronic and experimental tracks.
How the Effects Are Built
Evermusic’s effects run inside a modern AVAudioEngine processing chain. Each effect is a native audio node placed in the signal path, and it is only active when you switch it on — otherwise it is bypassed with zero cost. Reverb, Delay, and Distortion use Apple’s built-in audio units (AVAudioUnitReverb, AVAudioUnitDelay, AVAudioUnitDistortion); the Compressor uses Apple’s AUDynamicsProcessor; Crossfeed is a custom node based on the open-source bs2b algorithm; and Volume Normalization is a real-time EBU R128 loudness node.
Because the effects are part of the playback engine itself, they:
- Apply in real time to everything you play, including cloud streams and live radio.
- Never modify or re-encode your files — turn an effect off and the original sound returns.
- Remember your settings between sessions, per effect.
- Can be combined freely, since each one is independent.
They also work alongside Evermusic’s 10-band graphic equalizer and its gapless playback, so you can shape the tone, level the loudness, and keep transitions seamless all at once.
Tips
- Start in Simple mode. Pick a preset first; only open Advanced mode when you want to fine-tune.
- Less is more for Reverb, Delay, and Distortion — keep the Mix modest for musical results.
- Crossfeed is for headphones, not speakers.
- Volume Normalization + Compressor together give the most consistent, easy-to-hear result for mixed playlists and in-car listening.
- Every slider has a reset button if you want to return to its default.