Sound Design all about experience?

B

B4ckdrAft

New member
I'm just wondering if all of the "good sounds" (whatever you consider "good" is your own provocative) out there being produced are based off of experience rather than knowing exactly how a saw wave and a square wave combined at different levels will sound. For instance, how people ask how deadmau5 makes his stab sound or whatever and people are able to re-produce it, is this just based on the amount of experience they have in their VSTi or are they really that good to where they know that Saw wave + Square wave + Sine + Triangle all at these different volumes or intensities = Deadmau5 pluck, or how skrillex can make that gnarly vowel sounding grungy bass, do they just experiment until they find these sounds?
 
The people that reproduce sounds like that know their synth well enough to be able to hear the sound and reproduce it with the synth.

But yeah, I think in time you will know what oscillator combinations to use depending on what sound your making
 
it's about oscillator combos, filter knowledge, adsr knowledge, noise knowledge, modulation knowledge, and most importantly understanding the way in which a particular soft or hard synth actually works - routing, matrix, etc

for example, I understand reasons subtractor very well because it is modeled after the Roland system 700 and system 100 modular synths which I was using in the late 70's and early 80's

know your medium and the results become doable, repeatable and repoducible
 
Knowing what two colors to mix in order to make the color purple requires little more than some basic knowledge, but it's the constant application of that knowledge that makes you experienced enough to be able to mix and match a very particular color purple when you see it.
 
so becoming very experienced in a certain synth such as NI's Massive for example and knowing exactly how it works plays a big part in making great sounds?
 
Well, if you know very well on how to program for example a stab synth, you'll probably be able to make one on many different synths, even the ones you've just recently started using.

On the other hand, it's very good to know your favorite synths in and out if you want to experiment.
 
Having a program or a synth (or an instrument even) that you are comfortable with helps because it gives you a medium in which you can feel comfortable and be creative
 
sound design is based on many approaches, in a way its like learning how a track is made. for example songs are broke into channels then down into the sounds, sounds are broke into waveforms then into the effects applied to them.
each waveform has a certain sound and quality to them and can be either picked out by ear or visually in an oscilloscope or audio editor. reverse engineering existing presets is a good place to start, change some settings remember what effect it has on the sound then move onto another. once you learned what each knob does then youll be able to pick out the individual parts of a sound then rebuild it back into how you want.
also read up on synthesis tutorials, the earlier you understand the various terms (resonance, ADSR etc) the quicker youll learn
 
Try different synths, and choose on that best fits you. I've tried Operator in abelton, love it, can make prog chords with it, but it sounds too digitally for me. Sylenth, I like, but I can't seem to design great chords out of it. Massive, I love it! I can create great chords out of that. Its all about finding the synth that best fits you, and learning it.
 
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