Dry is the original sound before any effect touches it, and wet is that same sound once an effect has been applied. Most effects let you blend the two, so in practice you are rarely fully one or the other. You are usually setting how much of the effected sound to mix in with the untouched one.
The words turn up on almost every effect, hardware or plugin: a dry/wet mix knob, a fully wet send return, an EQ running in line. None of this is tied to one product.
Dry is the original, unprocessed signal, and wet is the signal after an effect has been applied. Dry is the sound as it was recorded or generated, with nothing done to it. Wet is what comes out once you pass that sound through an effect such as reverb, delay, chorus or distortion. The same part can be described as mostly dry, meaning you hear it almost as it was, or mostly wet, meaning the effect has taken over.
In most mixing you are not choosing one or the other. You are deciding how much wet signal to blend in with the dry, so the original stays recognisable while the effect adds something around it. That blend is the thing you are really setting whenever you reach for a dry/wet control.
Dry and wet are just labels for two versions of the same sound: before the effect and after it. Nothing about the words says how strong the effect is, only which side of it you are talking about. A very gentle reverb still has a wet signal; there is simply not much of it in the blend.
The dry/wet mix control sets the balance between the untouched sound and the effected sound. At fully dry you hear only the original, at fully wet you hear only the effect's output, and anywhere in between you hear a blend of the two. Turning it up adds more of the wet signal without removing the dry one, so the effect grows more obvious as you go.
It is common on time-based and colour effects such as reverb, delay, chorus and saturation, where keeping some of the dry signal lets the original stay clear while the effect sits around or under it. The table below shows how the mix is usually handled for a few common effects, though the right amount always depends on the part and is best judged by ear.
| Effect | What it does | How the dry/wet is usually set |
|---|---|---|
| Reverb | Adds a sense of space and distance. | Blended so the dry sound stays present, or fully wet on a send. |
| Delay / echo | Repeats the sound one or more times. | Blended, often well below half, so the repeats sit behind the source. |
| Chorus / modulation | Thickens and widens by detuning copies. | Blended to taste; a little wet goes a long way. |
| Saturation / distortion | Adds harmonics, warmth or grit. | Blended for a parallel warmth, or fully wet when it is the sound. |
| EQ | Shapes the tone of the signal. | Usually fully wet, since it is meant to replace the signal. |
| Compression | Controls the dynamics of the signal. | Usually fully wet, except when used in parallel. |
Not every effect gives you a mix knob, and where it does the useful range is often well below fully wet, so the effect adds to the sound rather than swamping it. Reverb is the clearest example, since a small amount of wet signal places a part in a space while too much washes it out. There is a whole guide on how reverb works and how to use it if you want to go deeper on that one effect.
An effect usually runs fully wet when it is meant to replace the signal rather than add to it. Tone and dynamics effects such as EQ and compression normally sit fully wet in line on a channel, because you want the whole signal shaped, not a blend of a treated and an untreated version fighting each other. Mixing a dry copy back in under an EQ or a compressor would mostly just undo the work you asked it to do.
Time-based effects are the opposite. Reverb, delay and chorus are usually blended, so the dry sound stays up front and the effect adds space or movement around it. Here the point is to hear both the original and the effect at once, which is exactly what a partial wet blend gives you.
There is one more place a fully wet setting is normal. The return of a send effect is run fully wet, because the dry signal is already playing on its own channel and the send only needs to supply the wet part on top. The blend still happens; it just happens at the mixer rather than inside the plugin.
Compression is usually fully wet, but not always. Blending a compressed copy back in under the untouched original is a common trick called parallel compression, and it keeps the natural dynamics of the dry signal while the wet copy fills in the quiet parts. That is a dry/wet blend applied to a tool that normally would not have one.
An insert effect sits in line on a single channel and processes the whole signal passing through it, while a send effect takes a copy of the signal to a separate channel where the effect lives and blends its output back in. The difference is really about where the signal goes and how the dry and wet parts are combined.
An insert is in the direct path of one channel, so everything on that channel passes through it. EQ and compression are almost always inserts and run fully wet, because they replace the signal. A time-based effect can be an insert too, in which case you use its own dry/wet knob to keep some of the dry sound in the blend.
A send, sometimes called an aux, works differently. You send a copy of the channel to a shared effect on its own return channel, and that return is kept fully wet and mixed back in alongside the dry source. Several channels can feed the same send, which is why one reverb can place a whole group of parts in the same space while using far less of the computer than a separate reverb on each.
This is also where parallel processing comes from. Because a send keeps the dry channel playing and adds a wet copy next to it, a send is already a dry plus wet blend. That is the whole idea: run a heavily effected copy underneath the untouched original and balance the two to taste. The clearest example is parallel compression, where a squashed copy sits under the natural one, but the same dry plus wet thinking applies to saturation, distortion and reverb as well.
Dry versus wet is a mixing decision, not a sound in itself. It only matters once you have a part worth treating, and the harder job is making a source that is worth placing in a space or driving into an effect in the first place. Get the dry signal right and every wet decision after it gets easier.
We do not make an effects plugin, and this guide is not a pitch for one. But every blend on this page starts from a clean dry signal, and that is what our instruments are for. The Collection is our three instruments together, ARGISH, SILT and REHEAT, with three separate licence keys. Each one makes a clear dry source you can then treat however you like, so you decide exactly how wet to go with your own effects: ARGISH is a self-playing drone synth, SILT is a tape-loop instrument, and REHEAT writes acid lines.
Every one ships as AU, VST3, AAX and a standalone app on macOS, signed and notarized, and a VST3 on Windows. You can hear one free in your browser first, no install and no account, then decide.
Everything on this page works by hand with any effect in any DAW, which is rather the point of writing it down.
We write these when there is something worth writing down. One email when a new one lands or a new Tunary instrument ships. No newsletter, no schedule.
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