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how do you make sounds?
 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 01:44 [#00675624]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



okay, i'm not demanding that people give up their secret
techniques, if that's how you look at it, but i'm curious to
see what kinds of things other electronic musicians out
there do to make interesting sounds...as soon as i see
anyone is interested in this thread, i'll post some of my
own...maybe even some i used for my remix :)


 

offline S M Pennyworth from East Timor on 2003-04-29 01:52 [#00675628]
Points: 2196 Status: Lurker



well i tweak around in reaktor a lot to create sounds. any
software synthezisers are interesting actually. there are
some good software for turning images into sound too and
they are nice. anything i can get my hands on really. ive
made some simple software too for randomizing sound triggers
too which was quite interesting.


 

offline Ceri JC from Jefferson City (United States) on 2003-04-29 01:57 [#00675633]
Points: 23533 Status: Moderator | Show recordbag



Lots of softsynths (especially modular ones that you can use
to make your own synth settings). I also use image
converting things and record scratches which I delay/speed
up/Fx the hell out of.


 

offline Dreamer from Malmo (Sweden) on 2003-04-29 02:01 [#00675639]
Points: 151 Status: Lurker



As others said... I play around a little in various
software-synths, VST-plugins, etc. I love the time-stretch
effect and use it often and a lot! :D


 

offline od_step_cloak from Pleth (Australia) on 2003-04-29 02:03 [#00675640]
Points: 3803 Status: Regular



I use drumsynth.

A useful tip in DS is not to use the noise generators, use
the to frequency generator (not the overtone A and B one)
and just put ridiculous numbers in for frequencies.

like from 321524134 to 20.

That kind of shit.

All my synths are the softsynths in fruityloops.
Thge 3xOSC is wicked because you have complete control over
it.
Like 100% control, which is kind of rare as far as
softsynths go, I think.


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 02:09 [#00675648]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



one of the techniques i tried with my remix i thought was
rather interesting. first, the entire remix was done in
sound forge, no sequence, no synth, no drum machine. nothing
like that. anyway, i was very curious as to how autechre
made the sounds on the track "gantz graf," so i figured out
my own way of coming up with such sounds...no doubt
different from what they do, but still cool. it's not the
same, but i like it, and plan to use it again.

i selected a very very tiny bit of audio (like in the
0.010-0.100 second range, sometimes slightly longer) and
copied it. i then loop-pasted the sample a good dozenish
times (as many times as your taste calls for) and repeated
with different samples, pretty much randomly selected audio,
within a loop. after doing this so much that basically the
entire loop had been effected, it sounded absolutely wicked.
the great part is that the parts you select don't have to
coincide with a particular sample, like a drum or fx, it can
literally be ANY RANDOM BIT OF AUDIO!

you guys need to get more specific!

tell me if my explanation makes sense...

i'll post more in turn, later on.


 

offline JAroen from the pineal gland on 2003-04-29 02:31 [#00675670]
Points: 16065 Status: Regular



use synthedit to make your own softsynths... you'll have
even more control over the sound..



 

offline dave_g from United Kingdom on 2003-04-29 02:40 [#00675680]
Points: 3372 Status: Lurker



download some free vst effects. play around with sounds you
have recorded. record 1 second samples from records and tv.
play with reverbs a lot. if you have any hardware which is
old/unique, use that, e.g. old tape recorders, synths,etc.
get a decent mic for about £30 and record anything that
makes a sound when you hit it. get a decent wave editor.
remember to cut all waves at zero crossings or you will get
pops...you can figure the rest out for yourself.


 

offline rockenjohnny from champagne socialism (Australia) on 2003-04-29 02:57 [#00675685]
Points: 7983 Status: Lurker | Followup to imtheknife: #00675648



i build my sounds on old roland sequencers.. then tweak them
in the sampler

ill also sample from recordings of jams.. much in the
fashion that intheknife mentioned.. rip out segements where
wierd shit happens etc, then again, keep messing with it

so its part recycling, part building from scratch.


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 07:57 [#00675999]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



k then, how about this one:

i'm rather proud of this, it was totally by chance, but if i
can make it happen again, i'll use the shit out of it.

the secret to my remix was my cd-rom. i had bought draft
7.30 that day, and before i even listened to it, we (my
remix partner and i) ripped a couple songs from it into
sound forge. one of the tracks (i won't say which one yet)
had these weird gaps in it all over the place. having not
heard the album yet, i assumed that was how the song went,
because it sounded super cool. so i said, this sounds like
ae took a cool song and literally ripped it apart, so what
if we put it back together? we we deleted all of the silence
in the track, and it still made no sense, but it sounded
fantastic. then we did most of the work on our remix...and
later on we were listening to the album on my cd player, and
there was no track sounding like the one we remixed!!! so we
quickly figured out that my cd-rom, coupled with sound
forge, had trouble reading some of the tracks on the cd, and
the rip sounded like that because of hundreds of glitches in
the operation.

how cool is that?

you'll hear what i'm talking about when the mixes are
released.


 

offline qrter from the future, and it works (Netherlands, The) on 2003-04-29 07:59 [#00676002]
Points: 47414 Status: Moderator | Followup to imtheknife: #00675999



um.

it doesn't sound very cool, really.

guess I'll have to hear it.

does sound like a lot of what you achieve in sound
manipulation is based on chance, not so much skill and/or
choice.


 

offline raimons from Stockholm (Sweden) on 2003-04-29 08:28 [#00676035]
Points: 4266 Status: Lurker



I use my voice a lot.


 

offline princo from Shitty City (Geelong) (Australia) on 2003-04-29 08:52 [#00676078]
Points: 13411 Status: Lurker




V

S

T



 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 08:53 [#00676080]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



how could one surmise, from the information i've given, that
a lot of what i achieve in sound manipulation is based on
chance, not so much skill and/or choice?

first, i revel in randomness and "accidental genious," as
it's been called a couple times...

i could make available the sound file originally generated
by sound forge (actually it'd be the second one that
happened that way, as we accidentally lost the first
one...oh well) if anyone actually wants to hear what i'm
talking about.

off topic, but...raimons: what's your avatar from? i clearly
recognize it, but can't place where i've seen those
lights...some movie...not sure. do tell :)

anyway, back to sound...i suppose this is why many people
don't like to get specific about talking about how they make
and alter sounds, because someone's always there to be an
asshole and say how that's not pure, or doesn't require
skill, or some other total fucking bullshit like that.

do not post those kinds of opinions in this thread, that's
not what its for.

you could start your own thread called "i'm too good for
losers who enjoy the world's randomness from time to time,
and i make stupid assumptions about their supposed lack of
talent based on one thing they said about one very specific
event. i'm a douche."

there ya go.

ass.


 

offline rockenjohnny from champagne socialism (Australia) on 2003-04-29 08:55 [#00676085]
Points: 7983 Status: Lurker | Followup to imtheknife: #00676080



easy tiger :)



 

offline Ceri JC from Jefferson City (United States) on 2003-04-29 08:57 [#00676089]
Points: 23533 Status: Moderator | Followup to imtheknife: #00676080 | Show recordbag



People who criticise hitting randomise 200 times till you
get a good drum rhythm and then carefully fine tune it,
obviously have never used trial and error. They write entire
pieces from start to end getting all their synth patches
etc. spot on without previewing them. :D


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 09:00 [#00676094]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker



buy a novation supernova


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 09:05 [#00676103]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



thank you.

anyway, i'm not mad, just wearing my opinion right on my
poofy shakespearean sleeve ;)

i make it a point to call out that kinda stuff when i see
it.

my remix partner, whom i will refer to as "lsa" here
actually sometimes does his drum programming in reason with
the quantize turned off...and it usually sounds fantastic!
and we sculpt sounds in sound forge while listening to music
and not previewing the audio at all. where the talent comes
in is knowing what to use and/or how to use it once you've
got this random stuff, tweaking it to make it just right for
you, and coming up with creative ways of acheiving said
randomness.

another fun thing to do is to take a beat or two (as in one
or two counts, not whole patterns) and reverse it, maybe fx
it some, and mixpaste it back into the loop at some random
point, maybe even only on the left or right side :)

as i said, we did our remix using nothing but soundforge and
my cd player (i also sampled teartear skipping in my cd
player...i'm not sure if we used it though...i don't mind
sharing that track title, cuz that's not what we remixed ;)
and we ONLY used autechre audio, nothing of our own or from
any other source, so i learned a lot about how to take
source material and use it to alter itself...does that make
sense?


 

offline rockenjohnny from champagne socialism (Australia) on 2003-04-29 09:14 [#00676113]
Points: 7983 Status: Lurker | Followup to Spacecadet: #00676094



<- sends you huge respect for the cryptoburners avatar


 

offline roygbivcore from Joyrex.com, of course! on 2003-04-29 09:19 [#00676122]
Points: 22557 Status: Lurker



i've always thought the best way to make sounds was through
vibrations at different frequencies


 

offline gnocelot from Greifswald (Germany) on 2003-04-29 09:21 [#00676127]
Points: 288 Status: Lurker



I occasionally do things such as what imtheknife mentioned
in his second post, but mainly I use softsynths and crappy
samples. (What I really want is an MD recorder or something
so I can get my own from more interesting sources than what
I have on my desk) I wrote some of the synths (and effects)
I use myself, which doesn't make my music any better but
would allow me to sneer at people if I was the kind of
person to do that... which I hope I'm not.

[ Note on Synthedit: Maybe I'm biased, but I'd rather
recommend either using Reaktor (though I don't have a lot of
experience with it) or writing them from scratch yourself.
The basics aren't hard to figure out at all if you're the
right kind of smart, and for anything you don't have the
time to learn about you can just use other people's code
(it's the same thing as using music software written by
other people, really). See http://www.musicdsp.org for that.
]


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 09:22 [#00676131]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker | Followup to rockenjohnny: #00676113



respect for the roddy avatar ;)


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 09:34 [#00676158]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



i like how i was assumed to be male ;)


 

offline qrter from the future, and it works (Netherlands, The) on 2003-04-29 09:44 [#00676167]
Points: 47414 Status: Moderator



jesus don't get so defensive. don't start threads if you
can't take criticism.

my original comment was:

"does sound like a lot of what you achieve in sound
manipulation is based on chance, not so much skill and/or
choice."


the two examples you have given both lean quite a lot on
chance. however, nowhere does it say this is an inherently
bad thing. I'm just saying, that it didn't come down to
skill and/or choice, therefore there isn't a lot to talk
about. am I supposed to say "wow, thats really cool, you
stumbled upon something by accident, well done!".

that's all.

seems to me you were the one making a lot of assumptions.

and I will decide myself how I will comment in any thread -
you do not decide what "it is for".

please don't start stuff like "ass" - it makes you sound
like a 16-year-old.

grow up.


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 10:01 [#00676190]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



the only example based on chance was the incident with my
cd-rom...the other technique was very purposeful...the point
of it being a "random bit of audio" is that you don't end up
hearing the source sound as it appears normally...you hear a
tinytiny snippet of it, so the exact sample you shoose
merely determines the sharpness and pitch of the effect.
very purposeful, however...as far as the cd-rom thing, i
just felt like sharing that little story here...

and i can take the criticism. just because i don't ignore it
doesn't mean i can't take it. i will respond to anything i
feel the need to.

i apologize for "ass," it was a bit inappropriate. however,
what you said could be taken as being fairly offensive.

and no, you no one has to say "wow, that's really
cool...etc" in fact, i'd be suspicious of their brainpower
if that's all they had to say...

one of my other posts does attempt to explain where the
skill/talent/choice comes into play.

it's all just a matter of taste. some people find that stuff
inspirational and fun, others think it's crap. oh well.
i know i'm right ;)


 

offline qrter from the future, and it works (Netherlands, The) on 2003-04-29 10:04 [#00676199]
Points: 47414 Status: Moderator



ow allright then..

everything is hunkydory again. :)


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 10:04 [#00676200]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker



with 'real' synths youve got all the knobs and sliders
infront of you to touch, so it's easy to make sounds, it all
depends on your knowlage of how synthersisers and sounds
work, using analog synths for years means you know exactly
where to set the knobs/sliders to get the sound you want,
nothin random bout that


 

offline gnocelot from Greifswald (Germany) on 2003-04-29 10:13 [#00676222]
Points: 288 Status: Lurker



I haven't been here long enough to know anybody or their
gender, so pardon me. English isn't my first language, and I
don't intuitively know exactly when "they" or "he" is
conventionally the gender-neutral personal pronoun, but I
decided that in this case "he" would fit best. (And I'm not
going to use "ey" (a fully neutral and very silly pronoun
proposed by some group or other, I forget which) no matter
how hard you hit me.) (Unless you hit me hard enough.)


 

offline wilcoooo from Sydney (Belgium) on 2003-04-29 10:55 [#00676281]
Points: 794 Status: Regular



nord modular
http://www.clavia.se/nordmodular/
you should fuckin buy it!
this makes really fantastic sounds
it isnt cheap though but its worth the money
(thats my problem)


 

offline evolume from seattle (United States) on 2003-04-29 10:59 [#00676288]
Points: 10965 Status: Regular



like this check it!

wooooGOOOOKKKKhhh
verrrPPPP!
shpeewwwwwwKiKiKikggggh
GhWAAaaaaaaarrrrfff

sample that shit. aww yeah.


 

offline hepburnenthorpe from sydney (Australia) on 2003-04-29 11:22 [#00676338]
Points: 1365 Status: Lurker



im getting right into my hardware lately. running it all
with fruityloops. ive made dashboards in fruity for my juno,
A station, and am working on one for my brand new roland
SH-32.

but yeah, been playin around with the SH-32 for the last few
weeks. havent written a song in months though.

too busy trying to learn to program in asp VBScript at the
mo.


 

offline ereetFRO from United States on 2003-04-29 11:27 [#00676346]
Points: 2 Status: Lurker



idiots. defensive, cockgobbling, egostrutting charlatans.

i am the aforementioned 'lsa', as it is my release moniker.
pretty much, this board has shown itself to be full of
incompetent charlatans who think they know a lot. great
work guys! hope you make it past 20!

anyways, sure you can say it doesn't take skill to
accidentally find something, but there's no proof that's
actually what happened. it was a noticed trend, and then it
was decided to use this error as an intentional form of
destruction to a track. basically, it was like applying a
massive distortion/gapper to a song.

so basically, what we ended up describing was a method of
fx, of which is as equally valid as explaining an eq method
or a distortion method or a reverb method.

anyways, i'm done. enjoy masturbating while typing your
flame out, and i hope you don't hit your eye.
-j


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 11:30 [#00676348]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



gnocelot >

no worries, i was just givin ya shit...it's all good :)

my way of commenting on american subliminal sexism and the
built-in preferencial masculinity of most romance- /latin-
based languages.
nothing personal.

i have a korg electribe ea-1 (the blue one/the synth) and i
like running sound into the audio in a tweaking it
realtime...i just about did my remix that way, but that
woulda been way too cheap and wouldn't have represented the
amount of thought i wanted to put into said mix.
but try running drum loops through of those puppies :):):)
or a sound effects cd...or talk/sing through it...i haven't
even tried that yet, though i have an idea of how it could
be made to sound...more smiles :)


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 11:31 [#00676350]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



lsa rulez ;)


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 11:33 [#00676354]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker | Followup to imtheknife: #00676348



i've got the er-1 (red)

it's wicked, tho i don't like playing it from midi, it's
better just screwin with the nobs
ace that you can realtime record the nob movements and
process external audio


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 11:33 [#00676356]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker | Followup to imtheknife: #00676348



have you tried putting the headphone out back in to the
audio input?


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 11:38 [#00676363]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



i made a track once my taking a distortion pedal, phaser,
and wah, and running them together in a feedback loop.

as i recall, i ran the distortion out into either the phaser
or wah, then back into the distortion. the distortion out
was split and the unused output routed to the 3rd pedal
(whichever it was). i just used the noise the distortion
generated (which was a whole lot! ...it was a boss metal
zone) and very slowly adjusted the phase rate and depth, and
eventually brought the wah frequency up from low to
high...it was a good 1:30 - 2 min...i don't recall
exactly...it's been a while since i heard that track. i made
it for the intro to my old band's shows...i added over top
of it a recording of anton lavey reading from his satanic
bible :) funstuff. splitters rule.


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 11:39 [#00676365]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



i want an er-1 so bad...in fact, anybody happen to have one
for sale? or know of a good place to look, besides ebay?
(i'm not dissing ebay, but it's not always the best...)


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 11:54 [#00676377]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker | Followup to imtheknife: #00676365



i'd sell mine but the alpha dial's broken

i just use it as a noisebox now

actually i think i'd keep it if it worked
try somewhere like the reader ad's in magazines, there cheap
enough brand new now too


 

offline more10 from Lkpg (Sweden) on 2003-04-29 12:45 [#00676425]
Points: 321 Status: Lurker | Followup to wilcoooo: #00676281



Ah! You got wonderful taste I see! Mine is used on
everything!


 

offline manifestevil from Australia on 2003-04-29 13:11 [#00676474]
Points: 986 Status: Regular



mc303 drum machine, sometimes effects (pedals delay etc) and
sometimes i use samples on a computer.


 

offline Monoid from one source all things depend on 2003-04-29 13:19 [#00676488]
Points: 11010 Status: Lurker



Most of the time, I have a special sound in mind rtc. The
problem is to recreate it in "reality" with a synth
etc.......its ver frustrating......my FAVOURITE synth is
probably and Pro53 by NI.....I like reading boooks, and a
good glass of wine now and than....thatz is all !


 

offline Spacecadet on 2003-04-29 13:26 [#00676504]
Points: 1790 Status: Lurker | Followup to Monoid: #00676488



the things i'd do for a real prophet 5....


 

offline imtheknife from Afghanistan on 2003-04-29 15:37 [#00676841]
Points: 16 Status: Addict



cadet>

i don't recall which the alpha dial is, but i might even be
interested in purchasing a er-1 if that was broken on
it...if you would actually consider such, let me know...the
only thing is, the shipping from the u.k. to the u.s. might
not make it worthwhile.

if anybody here uses reason...or has ever used it...thoughts
on it? likes/dislikes about it? and has anyone had the good
fortune to play with reason 2.5...i have (beta, at this
point), and it's pretty cool...they added a few more
modules, my fave is the new screamer distortion (i think
that's what it's called), which is a 2 full rack unit
distortion unit with something like 10 different distortion
modes, and bunches of tweaking knobs :) funstuff.


 


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