improving your sound designing skills
 

i am pretty good at sound design, but i would like to be able to be come a pro at it...any advice?

thanks

specific or general comments welcome.

learn c or c++ programing language and start building/programing/writing your own synths and effects on max/dsp or Csound.

Are you talking sound designing for Virus???? Or sound designing in general.....

For the Virus....to start with go through the manual ten times over and try to understand the concepts. There is other material out there too (The "Programming Analogue Synths" guide comes to mind)

And of course there are some great Sound Designers on this board (Juho, Blank)

Good luck!

i think there is a point when you want to go to the next stage,a stage above tweaking...

What do you mean by pro?

a soundesigner is more then a synthman
the limits become clear no more,it slides to math,pysics,electronics...
its realy complex.

Tomer: Sound designer is a person that has know-how to take out 100% out from gear and get stylish stuff out. A good example of a top sound designer is Eric Persing - Whatever he does, is great. Being a sound designer doesn't mean that you are some sort of a scientist.

i def am not gonna learn c++ just to program my synths...like juho said be able to get good stylish stuff out of it...any tips?

as has already been said, learn the synth you want to get the most out of, read the manual over and over, look at patches you like to see how they are made, then practice, practice, practice.

I'm no pro, I would consider myself a bad amatuer, and I can't see that improving in a hurry unless I devote every moment I can to programming the virus, which I can't do :(

One thing I would say is that I have learnt a lot more by starting at the init patch and seeing what I can do than tweaking patches by other people.

Learn the essentials (waveforms, envelopes, LFO's, modulation, blah, blah...) then try breaking the rules.

My advice on synth programming is this:

You have to be naturally inquisitive. You need to be one of those people who gets enjoyment out of experimenting and programming. For me, its one of the greatest pleasures in life.

I started off back in 2000 with a Sequential Pro-One. I spent about two years programming it and learning what oscilators, LFO's and filters do. I then 'moved up' to a Jupiter 8 and Juno 60. Once I learned how to program polyphonic sounds....I then moved upto a Virus KC. The Virus will help you greatly on your quest to become a great programmer.

You must accept that it takes time. Id say its only now (after 5 yrs of programming) that im beginning to reach a level of consistently great, useable sounds. The journey is not a particularly fast one....but once you start to get there magical things start to happen.

Get your hands dirty and dive in. You will learn more in 6 months of intensive programming time than you ever will from a book.

If you want specific tips.....just ask.

DS

i found this link, he is the creator of the classic hoover sound ! 8O

:arrow: http://www.spectrasonics.net/artists/roland.html

thanks for the advice guys...yeah im not a complete beginner im just trying to get better....so the general consesus is spend a lot of time on your synth...check. So while im spending time what should i be doing besides playing with preset sounds? Should i try to imitate a piano sound...or a fog horn or somethin like that?


by the way dont get me wrong...ive spent tons of time programming my triton and ive made about 100 patches for it...out of which 20 are really really cool....im just looking for more guidance...thanks.

One thing that I found really educational was to try to programme sounds from popular songs. It takes time obviously, but is a good method of improving your skills.

no,the knolage of operating synths and creat original sounds does not make you a pro in my opinion.
i dont know what does anymore...

harry nice idea....ima try that out for sure...thanks.