Simple Sound Design Tip For All Producers

[3za]

If your trying to make a sound you want, but you keep getting stuck, it might be because your trying to make that sound using just one synth or oscillator. If you broke it up into small bits, and made them all separately, then brought them all together to make the finished sound it might be much easier.

If you wanted to synthesize the sound of a guitar, you could break it up in to little pieces, then put them all together to make the full sound.

This is what I think the sound of a guitar is made of in chronological order;

1. The string being struck, and the "twang" sound it makes.
2. The string vibrating after being hit, and the sustained "hum" sound it makes .
3. The body of the instrument vibrating, and the "Wuh" sound it makes.
4. The room its in (reverb).
5. Any effects that might be added i.e. phaser.

Now you put all these little bits together to make one big full sound which, should sound better then one synth you have been tweaking for hours, and getting nowhere.

You can use this for leads, drums, bass, pads and whatever eles you like. This is not only useful when trying to recreate the sound of real instrument, the real fun starts when you mix and match bits that don't normally go together. When listening to sounds in music try to break them up in to little bits, this should help you when you try to recreate them. This way of thinking has not only helped me make the sounds in my head faster, but has also helped me with being creative with sound design. I hope this helps the "how do i make this sound" crew, because learning how to make a certain sound only helps you with that sound, viewing sound like this helps with creating all sounds. With some practice making the sounds in your head should become much easier...

If anyone has got anything to add, or any questions fire away. If anyone wants sound clips to the example holla, and I will up them over the next few days.

Happy production,
3za.

Edit: Might keep this thread rolling so tell me what you want to know, aslong as its not "how do I maka this sound...". More looking for questions Like what can I use ring mods for ect...

[EDN]

This also applies to sound effects in a non musical sense vis á vis foley/sound design for film/tv/whatever.
So if you want a missile hitting a military base and exploding you need (in this order, sort of)
1. Ambience of the base (soldiers giving orders/marching footsteps/wind noises/machines/vehicles)
2.Gradual increase in wind volume, coupled with whistling of incoming missle.
3.Shouts from soldiers (whistling still increasing along with wind)
4.Peak of missile noise with more soldier reactions.
5.Impact noise (something large and metal smashing into concrete/metal)
6.Fractionally later the explosion (shockwave "boom" first followed by sound of fireball, material destruction noise continues)
7.Wilhelm scream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PufhB4C-AEQ&NR=1

Obviously all blended nicely with fades, eq etc.

[3za]

Yeah this is how all the sound designers for films ect. thinking.

I know this way of doing sound design may seem obvious to some, but for people just starting out, or are struggling with sound design this will surly help, because it helped me lots.

[joekool]

this is a really cool way of thinking. thx for the tip man

[EDN]

Yeah its invaluable for making complex layered sounds.
Gonna re-up this link that deadly habit posted in the star wars thread because it is baaaad ass.
http://designingsound.org

[3za]

Yeah its invaluable for making complex layered sounds.
Gonna re-up this link that deadly habit posted in the star wars thread because it is baaaad ass.
http://designingsound.org

I did not read that thread for some reason, so thanks for the link

[EDN]

Yeah I missed the link the first time round, when I found it I nearly wept with how perfect that website is for me.
Props to deadly for the hook up.

[hifi]

If your trying to make a sound you want, but you keep getting stuck, it might be because your trying to make that sound using just one synth or oscillator. If you broke it up in to small bits, and made them all separately, then brought them all together to make the finished sound it might be much easier.

If you wanted to synthesize the sound of a guitar, you could break it up in to little pieces, then put them all together to make the full sound.

This is what I think the sound of a guitar is made of in chronological order;

1. The string being struck, and the "twang" sound it makes.
2. The string vibrating after being hit, and the sustained "hum" sound it makes .
3. The body of the instrument vibrating, and the "Wuh" sound it makes.
4. The room its in (reverb).
5. Any effects that might be added i.e. phaser.

now you put all these little bits together to make one big full sound which, should sound better then one synth you have been tweaking for hours, and getting nowhere.

You can use this for leads, drums, bass, pads and whatever eles you like. This is not only useful when trying to recreate the sound of real real instrument, the really fun starts when you mix and match bits that don't normally go together. When listening to sounds in music try to break them up in to little bits, this should help you when you try to recreate them. This way of thinking has not only helped me make the sounds in my head faster, but has also helped me with being creative with sound design. I hope this helps the "how do i make this sound" crew, because learning how to make a certain sound only helps you with that sound, viewing sound like this helps with creating all sound. With some practice making the sound in your head should become much easier.

If anyone has got anything to add, or any questions fire away. If anyone wants sound clips to the example holla, and I will up them over the next few days.

Happy production,
3za.

Edit: Might keep this thread rolling so tell me what you want to know, aslong as its not "how do I maka this sound...". More looking for questions Like what can I use ring mods for ect...

sorry if this is off-topic but I was listening to your track in your sig and staring at your avatar for about 4 or 5 minutes and afterwards everything I looked at started swirling. it was weird

[3za]

sorry if this is off-topic but I was listening to your track in your sig and staring at your avatar for about 4 or 5 minutes and afterwards everything I looked at started swirling. it was weird

I just did the same to see if it works, I looked at the text on the screen, and some words started to get bigger, and some smaller. Then I started to look around my room, and dead center of my vision every thing was spinning. It lasted way to short, but that was the most fun I have had tripping with out the aid of hallucinogens.

[psychedelicatessen]

Something people might not have thought about, seeing as it's only something that happens during small live shows and jam sessions, but the bass guitar rattles the drums, the snare especially. Yeah, it's something that isn't desirable, but simulating a slight rattle in the snare whilst having a heavy bass playing might prove interesting in certain musical settings, as far as timbre and making a full sound goes. Hell, I've even listened to albums where when I turned it up loud enough I could hear the guitarist's pick... and in some cases, poor technique

[3za]

Something people might not have thought about, seeing as it's only something that happens during small live shows and jam sessions, but the bass guitar rattles the drums, the snare especially. Yeah, it's something that isn't desirable, but simulating a slight rattle in the snare whilst having a heavy bass playing might prove interesting in certain musical settings, as far as timbre and making a full sound goes. Hell, I've even listened to albums where when I turned it up loud enough I could hear the guitarist's pick... and in some cases, poor technique

Now your going deep

I just did a few little edits to the OP, I could write some more on this, and post some examples if anyone wants them?

[EDN]

Something people might not have thought about, seeing as it's only something that happens during small live shows and jam sessions, but the bass guitar rattles the drums, the snare especially. Yeah, it's something that isn't desirable, but simulating a slight rattle in the snare whilst having a heavy bass playing might prove interesting in certain musical settings, as far as timbre and making a full sound goes. Hell, I've even listened to albums where when I turned it up loud enough I could hear the guitarist's pick... and in some cases, poor technique

Yeah that kinda ties in with the "making stuff sound organic" thread going around a little while ago. A couple of drum vst's (XLN addictive drums and I think Abbey Road drums) have settings so that hitting other drums while the snare is on gives you snare rattle (as you would get with a real drum kit) and depending what you are going for this can be useful or it can be a hinderance (when I'm making dancefloor tunes I set up a seperate track for my snare and turn it off on the track with the rest of the kit because the extra rattle annoys me.)

[psychedelicatessen]

Alright. So I've been getting into sampling, recording and synthesizing to create sounds. My latest experiment was a series of percussion hits made with a subtractive synth, some simple automation on the filter and bandwidth, as well as tweaking the master volume envelope.

I've done a few other drums, mainly just snares and hi hats using white noise, filters, and envelopes, but the problem with sampling white noise is it tends to get cluttered and I sometimes loose sight as all the noise blends in together into a bit of a muddy mess, despite eq'ing, proper gain mixing and filters.
What are some things I can try along with/in place of pure white noise to make good sounding drums?

I've found incorporating ultra-light percussive elements into pads can sometimes be just the thing to create interesting atmospheres, not relevant to my post, but thought it should be said regardless.

Let's keep this thread rolling!