the cameraman is a woman, my girlfriend oss, also she sometimes does a few sounds on tunes and in general is really an inspiring person to be around The Way Back
https://faxinadu.bandcamp.com/album/the-way-back
jsrobinson
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jul 14, 2012 08:26
Hey Faxanadu
I was wondering if you have any input on how to approach learning sound design in great detail, to really get a sound out of one's head into the synth.
Is there a particular tutorial, reading material, or approach that helped propel your sound design in relation to Psytrance forward?
knocz
Moderator
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Posted : Jul 15, 2012 18:20
Quote:
On 2012-07-14 08:26, jsrobinson wrote:
Hey Faxanadu
I was wondering if you have any input on how to approach learning sound design in great detail, to really get a sound out of one's head into the synth.
Is there a particular tutorial, reading material, or approach that helped propel your sound design in relation to Psytrance forward?
Thanks for any ideas.
I thought I'd help out a bit.
I've found there is many ways to milk a cow, and many ways to learn howto milk a cow. And as long as you get milk, you're doing it right!
Although there are many ways to learn, there's one thing you want to achieve: to know what you are doing. Well, you are fiddling with a synth, twisting knobs pressing buttons and setting parameters, so you must know what each of these things do. That's the big step, but once you've got it figured out, it mostly related to any other synth. Of course there are different techniques, like subtractive synthesis, frequency modulation, sample based and a whole whack of other stuff that I'm probably not even saying right, but it's easy to relate the parameters of two synths of the same type. So Stick to one synth, and learn what everything does!
I like some old youtube videos about synthesis, these guys show how to imagine how a sound is being generated by an acoustic instrument in order to synthesis the same sound (a bass generates a sine wave with somewhat of and initial pluck, a violin generates more of a saw wave with a very detailed and controllable attack) but in normal psy scweltches and explorative synthesis (trying to get something sounding psy and nice, not trying to emulate an acoustic instrument) you must imagine the sound in your head, decompose it into the various parameters and simulate that on the synth (or just explore twiddling with knobs and see what comes out).
I say you select a synth and stick with it, twiddle with every single parameter it has in different combinations and both listen / visualize what happens. Learn each knob, and I guaranty you in 20 years you will still be learning more different combinations and things you didn't even imagine that it did! (but after 20 year, your learning rate will be much slower than in the beginning, of course). I also recommend you load a spectral visualizer at the end of the synth chain to show you what's happening frequency wise, and something like s(m)exoscope to show you the resulting sound wave (zoom in!). These tools can easily show you the difference between subtractive synthesis and FM and aid your ears (remember, some things can be seen better in the spectrum analyzer, like a filter, delay, a phaser, while others are shown better on the wave analyzer, like FM, distortion, compressors, limiters, ..., so use both and learn to trust your ears).
Please remember: no one is born taught, everyone must learn. There is no magic formula, or special course you can take to master anything, it all comes out of time, dedication, sweat, passion and persistence.
Super Banana Sauce http://www.soundcloud.com/knocz
faxinadu
Faxi Nadu / Elmooht
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Posted : Jul 15, 2012 18:44
very good answer knocz, i would like to add some other points.
in relation to psytrance, if you look at lets call it the "staple" sounds of psytrance, there really are not many.
- big detune leads/pad - you can get with vst plugins in decent quality from as old as stuff like the SuperwaveP8 and Vanguard.
- fm churning stuff - nordlead/discodsp
- arppegios - almost anything these days
the really basic things that make the genre itself are not hard to synthesize, and can be found easily and handily on many vsts (if you don't own hardware), via endless presets. the sounds are not rocket-science as far as complexity.
now, for anything else, you ask about synthesis in relation to psytrance. what does that mean exactly? it depends what you are trying to do. psytrance is basically just a kick/bass with certain distinguishable vibes, and from that point on it is up to you.
once that basic "trance" vibe is there, almost anything can play a part in your story.
i know my answer is more philosophical than practical, but it is really the truth. like knocz said, you learn by experiance, by keeping an open mind and ear and by letting your imagination go wild.
for me personally i don't tend to imagine sounds before creating them, i imagine more an idea, especially while working with modulars - "hmm i need some drums, so i donno could be cool if i try to take a noise source and then send it to an ad envelope and then to 3 filters in serial. oh and maybe i will modulate them by some lfos for some bleepness, geez wonder how that will sound". then build it, and play with the knobs. i really enjoy being surprised by my own patch making "woaaaaaaah didn't know that could do THAT" and usually, those type of happy mistakes are what end up being my favorite parts in a track.
for example in this track, just one idea led to another, and then when i connected the dx200 and fiddled with the knobs suddenly i got something totally unexpected and just went "HELL YEAH!!!" and quickly hit record. it doesn't mean i have no idea what's going on, it is more of a case of losing control in a controlled environment.
there is for me always a relation between those happy mistakes and the planned elemetns. for example in that track, the pad that comes in at 3:20, with also the pizzicato sort of stabs with it were planned, but then one of those birdy type of perc layers was a happy mistake, but that was cool so i added a second bird layer to it (now already planned) and then came that sick (unplanned) dx200 line that starts as a twerp and turns into that alarm type of sound and morphs again to fm madness. once you know a lot about your synths, a lot about your own fetishes, and develop an ability to recognize what will tell your story, you can afford to "LET 'ER RIP"
this takes time, but once you get there it is the most satisfying feeling there is, when a track you made has made itself.
