seriously how important is sound design to a producers arsenal?

When producers all have access to the same sounds than everything starts sounding the same, hence the current state of hip hop. This is why crate digging was such a sacred art, you wanted to be the producer who flipped a sample no one ever heard before. Sound Design keeps it fresh. There are a ton of ill presets out there, but once everyone starts using them over and over they are no longer as effective the first time you heard them
 
Master your craft

dmajor100 said:
diving into massive sound design seems pretty technical and a bit confusing at first but sure i just need hours on it and more training to understand the benefits for me in my music. There are some producers who think that sound design does not matter as long as your beats are awesome and to a artist it doesn't even matter which in some ways i do agree but listening to electronic music makes me think twice about this. Inspirational music like dub step,glitch hop and others give sound design justice for the most part. So at a crossroads of just trying to figure out how much of synthesis i wanna learn to benefit me as a hiphop/electronic producer to give me a great sound like my new influences glitch mob
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Everything that you learn is important. If you really want to be on the level of someone like kanye west or better you gotta do the things that most don't take the time to do. sound design and music theory is a good example. these things allow the creative energy to flow better. The more you know the quicker you will be, the easier it will be for you to put down ideas. if you hear anybody use the words cant or say that something wont help ignore them everything helps even stuff that doesn't have anything to do with music. This is what gives people longevity doing things that people don't take the time to do. but most importantly be a master of your craft.
 
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^^^Kanye west to this day can barely design, mix, or sequence drums. He keeps people around to do those things for him. There are literally millions of accessible drumloops, patterns, mixing presets, 3rd parties, and other outlets to get those things done. He always goes with one of those options other than "doing it himself".

Not knocking him, quite the opposite. All I'm saying is Kanye should be used as an example of how far you CAN go without sound design. As said before in this thread, you only need to know...WHAT YOU(as in yourself and no one else)NEED TO KNOW. No two people will have the same list of areas of expertise. This new era of "do everything yourself" guys is creating tons of "jack of all trade" guys who aren't great at anything.

Sound design is actually a field very few flourished in on a big scale. It's what made Dr. Dre so popular with his otherwise simplistic sound(thanks to his engineers, not Dre directly), it's what gave Timbaland tons of unorthodox sounds to add to his already crazy style(in all fairness Timbo dug up alot of stuff himself, but had help from others as well). Storch never utilized it much in his run, just about every sound he's ever used can be found stock in a Motif. Most of Mannie Fresh's sounds can be found across a few boards. Same for Jermaine Dupri, Red One, Jeff Bhasker(excluding live instrumentation), B. M. Cox. List goes on forever.

If you plan to use it as a make/break point to your sound, good for you, it will be needed above all else. But you are putting yourself no further ahead than a guy who buys(or "aquires" not supporting it, but gotta give the reality)Nexus, Sylenth, and a ton of presets/expansions. If you're "learning" the other guys actually winning because he has a library of patches designed by professionals when you have "what you're trying to figure out".

And even while designing sounds people tend to gravitate to things that sound familiar. One does not regularly look for a new piano sound for every song they do. Some greats rely on just a few signature sounds, that's why you can find "kits" on the internet that give you some guys entire arsenal. Get Alicia's Keys by NI and have the sound of the piano behind most of her songs off the last 3 or so albums. Sometimes having the same sound is a good thing. For the other times, you're lying to yourself if you believe as overused as Nexus is, that it still isn't overrun with never before used presets. The Triton with it's 64MB soundbank that was pretty much the same soundbank as the M1 and Trinity has been used endlessly in recordings it's sound could be turned to something "fresh" right now if used correctly.
 
deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
^^^Kanye west to this day can barely design, mix, or sequence drums. He keeps people around to do those things for him. There are literally millions of accessible drumloops, patterns, mixing presets, 3rd parties, and other outlets to get those things done. He always goes with one of those options other than "doing it himself".

Not knocking him, quite the opposite. All I'm saying is Kanye should be used as an example of how far you CAN go without sound design. As said before in this thread, you only need to know...WHAT YOU(as in yourself and no one else)NEED TO KNOW. No two people will have the same list of areas of expertise. This new era of "do everything yourself" guys is creating tons of "jack of all trade" guys who aren't great at anything.

Sound design is actually a field very few flourished in on a big scale. It's what made Dr. Dre so popular with his otherwise simplistic sound(thanks to his engineers, not Dre directly), it's what gave Timbaland tons of unorthodox sounds to add to his already crazy style(in all fairness Timbo dug up alot of stuff himself, but had help from others as well). Storch never utilized it much in his run, just about every sound he's ever used can be found stock in a Motif. Most of Mannie Fresh's sounds can be found across a few boards. Same for Jermaine Dupri, Red One, Jeff Bhasker(excluding live instrumentation), B. M. Cox. List goes on forever.

If you plan to use it as a make/break point to your sound, good for you, it will be needed above all else. But you are putting yourself no further ahead than a guy who buys(or "aquires" not supporting it, but gotta give the reality)Nexus, Sylenth, and a ton of presets/expansions. If you're "learning" the other guys actually winning because he has a library of patches designed by professionals when you have "what you're trying to figure out".

And even while designing sounds people tend to gravitate to things that sound familiar. One does not regularly look for a new piano sound for every song they do. Some greats rely on just a few signature sounds, that's why you can find "kits" on the internet that give you some guys entire arsenal. Get Alicia's Keys by NI and have the sound of the piano behind most of her songs off the last 3 or so albums. Sometimes having the same sound is a good thing. For the other times, you're lying to yourself if you believe as overused as Nexus is, that it still isn't overrun with never before used presets. The Triton with it's 64MB soundbank that was pretty much the same soundbank as the M1 and Trinity has been used endlessly in recordings it's sound could be turned to something "fresh" right now if used correctly.
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my point is that doing things that most don't take the time to do gets you further than saying that you don't have to do this to do that. no you don't have to be a genious at sound design to be a good producer but if you want to separate your self from the crowd do different things. or you can play into sounding like another sound click producer. MASTER YOUR CRAFT SO WHAT IF NO ONE ELSE DID IT, WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING TO THE UNIVERSE UNIQUE.
 
I agree with that point, doing things that most don't does get you further, so, being that 90%(just generalizing, no accurate number)of this site are producers sitting in a room by themselves trying to be a one man band with no instruction beyond websites whatsoever, do you think "sound design"(that will more than likely happen within a computer and nothing else) is the "big differential" that will put them in some type of lead?

You think sound design is the "time consuming hard work" missing from most music in an era when everything can be done within a box so a slight tweak like adding a preset LFO filter and preset delay to an already for the most part mixed preset sound and autopanning can give you results that would have taken Prince a day of mixing in 1988 to create using a modular synth ran thru boxes to a board to tape?

These days there are too many options. Wanna sound different? Use a less famous plug in. Use an older plug in people forgot about. Plug up some outboard gear. Get a buncha freeware plugs, hell, no one uses those anymore. Lol.

This discussion in 2014 is as ludicrous as saying it's essential you learn to use an SSL, Neve, or similar mixing consoles to separate yourself from other producers. The world of music is changing people give bad advice out of stubbornness and not wanting to change with the times.

For every HUGE current record you can play me where sound design was a questionable factor in it's producer's success I'm sure I can round up 20 where it was not.
 
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sound design is arguably the most important skill to have in producing, ur not going to make what you try to make for a long time but once u get to a point where u can do that it is very rewarding - but more importantly the better u get, the better sounds you are able to not only imagine but know how to make because u been tweaking sounds for so long.
 
^^^I'd say sound design was ONCE arguably the most important skill to have as a producer, and for the most part has been replaced by "sound selection".

You need a lead synth, you just load a vst and go to it's lead synth presets. Don't find a good one, load another vst. You may have to tweak a little, but not the same effort that was needed when statements like this one actually held weight.

You make music using a Nord Lead or Alesis Andromeda, sound design will absolutely be essential. But are we really pretending most of this site even takes the time to get a good sound out of Reason thanks to the other tools at their disposal? Just NI's Pro 53(now considered outdated)came with 10s of thousands of presets. A producer utilizing sound design with a prophet 5 wouldn't come close to making all of those in a lifetime. Let's quit pretending, forwards in technology that make things easier are okay.

It's like saying "if you want to deliver a telegram the most important tool is the horse" and thinking you got advantage over me because I use email. If anything, you want an advantage you learn to capitalize on the invention of the internet better than the next man.

Don't confuse that, because if you have flowers delivered by horseback to your girl on valentines day her friend who got nothing but an email is gonna be jealous. Do the same to give her a message you're gonna be 15 mins late from work, and you'll beat the message home. There is indeed a place for everything.
 
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