Alternative Sound Design Techniques

[DjTrainWreck]

Thank you

[yamaz]

You should check out eskmo, him and amon tobin just released a tune, eskamon, with free sound bank and live pack!

[Tragic_Gash]

A microphone. Want industrial, sample a boiler room. Want ambient, sample the forest. Want weird, sample torture chamber in an alien mothership. Want sexy sample asian lesbian sex slaves. Want filth sample mud.

I think I load more EDM artists need to do an Amon Tobin and start sampling "real" sounds and then mangling them. I'm a great fan of recording/sampling "real" sounds and transforming them into more dance orientated sounds.

This thread is an attempt to get people to think outside the massive brootal electro way of doing wobbles/sounds.

Nice one man, all awesome tricks here we've been sampling a lot more real sounds recently and it makes a huge difference, getting some much more interesting sounds and textures.

also props for promoting a fresh outlook instead of just bitching like a lot of other people on here seem to be doing these days

[alex_l]

A microphone. Want industrial, sample a boiler room. Want ambient, sample the forest. Want weird, sample torture chamber in an alien mothership. Want sexy sample asian lesbian sex slaves. Want filth sample mud.

I think I load more EDM artists need to do an Amon Tobin and start sampling "real" sounds and then mangling them. I'm a great fan of recording/sampling "real" sounds and transforming them into more dance orientated sounds.

that way of doing things is certainly the way that film sound designers often approach their work.

A couple of tips I can think of -
1) take noise gates and trying to get the threshold exactly so that your sounds cut in and out extremely quickly as a different way of approaching glitch
2) use a denoiser (like the logic bundled one) as unsubtly as you can to drastically alter the character of a sound
3) take sounds created with one type of synthesis and run them through another (recently I have had fun creating sounds in FM8 then resampling them with the granular processing in Absynth)
4) don't just use mics, use bad mics. Laptop, mobile phone etc. The poor sound quality will definitely be of advantage if you intend to mangle something
5) use convolution reverbs with non-reverb sounds as the impulse
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwjO1c8TfhE (I think this actually made it onto the album on 'Leakage')

[staticcast]

6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwjO1c8TfhE (I think this actually made it onto the album on 'Leakage')

Haha. That's sick. My flatmate's got a blown hifi speaker with a pretty hefty bass driver but some nasty rattles when you play pure subs through it. Been meaning to sample it for ages, maybe I will this weekend...

[Wrigzilla]

6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwjO1c8TfhE (I think this actually made it onto the album on 'Leakage')

Now I'm sure THAT one is a joke (although it may yield results...) noisia never mentioned anything like that on their Q&A on DOA.

[meer]

bandstop filter on a snare (or whatever) layer with an lfo on the cutoff frequency. Instant drum sound variations, you lazy cnut.

[logic pro]

1 rename any files ending in .wav
2 open with editor
3 go crazy with it
4 ?
5 profit

[slothrop]

Big, big post. Best topic in ages imo.

Feedback:

Send a sound to a bus and send the bus to itself (put a limiter on the bus or the master - YOU CAN BLOW YOUR SPEAKERS BY DOING THIS OR DAMAGE YOUR EARS). The send level to the bus is the feedback level, by adding inserts to the bus you can modify the feedback loop. Try automating the volume, send level and insert effects to create interesting new sounds.

Short Delays:

Create a sound and add a delay plug in as an insert (50% wet) now set the delay time to something less than 30ms. This can create a chorus style effect and if you turn up the feedback this goes more into the territory of phaser/flanger. Try messing about with lfo settings to create more twisted sounds.

You can combine these for fun and profit - I've got quite into using a snappy percussive sound with a short delay at 100% feedback to produce a strange rattley oscillator sound, and then sticking a volume envelope and all the usual crap over the top. Then start messing around with the delay time to change pitch and rhythm...

I like Synthedit for this - IMO stuff on the borderline between sound design and synth design - particularly using feedback effects - is where it really shines. Although I've been starting to use Reaktor lately (got it with Komplete, but just haven't had the time to start digging into it properly yet) - does that handle feedback loops nicely?

[Wrigzilla]

You can combine these for fun and profit - I've got quite into using a snappy percussive sound with a short delay at 100% feedback to produce a strange rattley oscillator sound, and then sticking a volume envelope and all the usual crap over the top. Then start messing around with the delay time to change pitch and rhythm...

I like Synthedit for this - IMO stuff on the borderline between sound design and synth design - particularly using feedback effects - is where it really shines. Although I've been starting to use Reaktor lately (got it with Komplete, but just haven't had the time to start digging into it properly yet) - does that handle feedback loops nicely?

I'm afraid I don't know how Reaktor handles feedback (although I'm sure it does it well enough, if I remember correctly the Space Drone ensemble makes some really nice feedback style noises). When I can afford it I'm definitely getting Reaktor, I've been using pD for my more leftfield effects ideas and some things are a lot easier to do in Reaktor.

[staticcast]

You can combine these for fun and profit - I've got quite into using a snappy percussive sound with a short delay at 100% feedback to produce a strange rattley oscillator sound, and then sticking a volume envelope and all the usual crap over the top. Then start messing around with the delay time to change pitch and rhythm...

I like Synthedit for this - IMO stuff on the borderline between sound design and synth design - particularly using feedback effects - is where it really shines. Although I've been starting to use Reaktor lately (got it with Komplete, but just haven't had the time to start digging into it properly yet) - does that handle feedback loops nicely?

I'm afraid I don't know how Reaktor handles feedback (although I'm sure it does it well enough, if I remember correctly the Space Drone ensemble makes some really nice feedback style noises). When I can afford it I'm definitely getting Reaktor, I've been using pD for my more leftfield effects ideas and some things are a lot easier to do in Reaktor.

Reaktor can do whatever you want it to do. If you need feedback you just hook it up. It's basically just a graphical DSP programming language -- if you know the algorithm, you can make pretty much any effect you want. Most of the NI stuff is prototyped in Reaktor.

Never used SynthEdit but from what I hear it's like Reaktor but more user-friendly, more CPU intensive and maybe less geared up towards low-level mathy stuff.

[mks]

I actually found an ensemble for Reaktor that was based on feedback and sound mangling. I cannot remember the name of it at the moment unfortunately.

[back2onett]

something I've been trying out recently is using the mixer as an instrument (kind of), anyone who's used one of newer versions of FL should know how versatile the mixer can be with all the routing options and whatnot. basically just using a simple waveform (square for example) and feeding it through a fuck load of effects wihtout tweaking the original vst itself, I've had some mad resampling sessions using this on a white noise osc.

[slothrop]

Never used SynthEdit but from what I hear it's like Reaktor but more user-friendly, more CPU intensive and maybe less geared up towards low-level mathy stuff.

Yeah, I think that's about fair. It certainly feels like its slightly more towards the 'analog modular' end of the analog modular to programming language continuum. I found it marginally more user friendly to start with (and haven't been using Reaktor for long enough to know how it compares in terms of long-term usability) although it also has a bit of the standard high-level language issue that if you want to do something almost but not quite standard it can be a bit of a faff.

Having said that, it's also got a C++ module SDK which means that a) there's a whole lot more stuff available now than there is in the basic distribution, so in terms of raw module power it's probably not far off these days and b) it'd actually be pretty useful if you were a hardcore dsp head and wanted to implement some new and sophisticated circuit-modelling technique to create the perfect 303 filter but couldn't be arsed faffing around with GUI programming or preset management or rewriting the routing to put the same filter into a new synth or any of the other boring boilerplate stuff...

[psychedelicatessen]

I realized the other day that delay, a pitch shifter, shelves, panning and maybe a few other effects; like parametric eq, your tool of choice for dynamics and distortion are the only effects I need, and the only ones I ever use. making my own chorus/flanger/phasers, reverb, misc stereo effects and such has taught me a lot about the power of routing, relying on synthesis-not the crutch of effects- Yeah, I'm not pointing anything new or profound out, but I think it can't be stressed enough.

[hasezwei]

i love this thread

[VirtualMark]

Wrigzilla - what course is it you're doing? Sounds interesting. I've been looking at courses from point blank and dubspot but i'd need a lot of cash for these. Sounds like the degree route may be better. What sort of things have you been studying?

this is an interesting topic as its always nice to see fresh ideas for experimentation. although i'd think some of them may slow down workflow(i.e i'd rather use a delay plug and flick through presets quickly than do a manual delay) theres definitely some interesting ideas there.


Does anyone know how to make impulse responses? its not something i've tried, but i like the suggestion of using non ir's in a convolution reverb and want to give it a try.

[Wrigzilla]

Wrigzilla - what course is it you're doing? Sounds interesting. I've been looking at courses from point blank and dubspot but i'd need a lot of cash for these. Sounds like the degree route may be better. What sort of things have you been studying?

I'm doing a degree in Creative Music Technology at Bath Spa. We've studied: recording techniques, sound design for TV/film, digital signal processing (audio theory and how to make effects), production techniques, sonic art (anything from soundscapes to electroacoustic music), multimedia (so stuff like flash games, making videos etc). There are also options for things like game audio, interactive audio and sonic performance.

Personally I'd steer away from a pure production course and go for something with more variety.

this is an interesting topic as its always nice to see fresh ideas for experimentation. although i'd think some of them may slow down workflow(i.e i'd rather use a delay plug and flick through presets quickly than do a manual delay) theres definitely some interesting ideas there.

For sure, there's always a trade off between more control + creative options vs quick workflow. Personally I often go for the quicker workflow route, but it's always good to try different ways of doing things.

Does anyone know how to make impulse responses? its not something i've tried, but i like the suggestion of using non ir's in a convolution reverb and want to give it a try.

I've never tried it but these articles look good:

http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_acting_impulse/

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb08/a ... h_0208.htm (for those who have logic)

[Kochari]

Wrigzilla - what course is it you're doing? Sounds interesting. I've been looking at courses from point blank and dubspot but i'd need a lot of cash for these. Sounds like the degree route may be better. What sort of things have you been studying?

I'm doing a degree in Creative Music Technology at Bath Spa. We've studied: recording techniques, sound design for TV/film, digital signal processing (audio theory and how to make effects), production techniques, sonic art (anything from soundscapes to electroacoustic music), multimedia (so stuff like flash games, making videos etc). There are also options for things like game audio, interactive audio and sonic performance.

Well well well, so am I

[hasezwei]

bump