Hey I've just started making my own sounds with massive and Im trying to find a place where I can learn what sounds I can make in sound design. For example I've heard of plucks, pads and super saws etc but I dont know what they are! Im trying to find a place to learn all this terminology but cant find anything! Does anyone know of a place where I can learn the definitions of the sounds you can make in sound design? I feel knowing what I can make and the characteristics of what I can make then I will be able to do it better and make better sounds. So anyone know where I can learn about sound terminology or what type of sounds you can design? Please any help would be appreciated!
Types of sounds you can make in sound design
- Thread starter RuSty1
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scrapheaper
Moderator
They're not 'definitions' they're just descriptions of a type of sound.
I doubt you'll find a definition anywhere but your best bet is to go on youtube, search for 'make supersaw' or 'make pad' then watch a few videos and hear the sounds they make. It's fairly obvious what they sound like and would be much more helpful than me talking about sawtooth or filters.
I doubt you'll find a definition anywhere but your best bet is to go on youtube, search for 'make supersaw' or 'make pad' then watch a few videos and hear the sounds they make. It's fairly obvious what they sound like and would be much more helpful than me talking about sawtooth or filters.
krushing
Moderator
Sounds you can make in "sound design": every possible sound. It's not some narrow specific field of certain types of sounds made with certain technology; it is, as the name implies, about designing sounds, for any type of scenario possible.
noworlater
New member
Is sound design a software?
scrapheaper
Moderator
No.
Sound design means using a synthesizer (or other means) to make sounds that sound like you want them to.
steffeeh
New member
The OP seems more interested in getting a grip of what common "sounds" there are, such as plucks, supersaws and so on.
To start with you have the Pad and Lead-sections. These are more about how the sounds will be used rather than what type of sounds they really are. Though it doesn't mean that a sound always can be a pad/lead depending on how they're used - some sounds gives the impression that they're more one thing than the other, meaning some sounds are Pads or Leads pretty much always.
The differencies between pads and leads also overlap a bit, and their exact definitions often cause arguments, but at the basics, a Pad is more supportive and less upfront (such as background strings), while a Lead is a bit more upfront (such as a powerful in your face EDM synth).
That being said, let's move on to different types of sounds:
- Plucks - Pretty much what they sound like, they "pluck". Technically it's a patch with a faster envelope on a filter, often bright or somewhat bright (not necessarily though). For instance check out the song "Alex H - Kwekwe" and you'll hear that synth right away. This example though isn't the only style of a pluck sound as you find these synths in many genres and they've been around for a long long time, but you'll instantly recognize it this way. Don't confuse these sounds with stabs.
- Stabs - Many people confuse plucks with stabs, but they're different. While plucks are more tight, stabs are more loose. Stabs have a less "plucky" sound and a more "strummy" sound. They're also often less controlled by the filter, and rely more on the volume envelope. There are even stabs with the lowpass filter just left static at a nice cutoff, entirely focusing on the volume envelope or adding envelopes in different creative ways. House pianos are actually good examples of the character of a stab synth, just to compare with plucks. Check out the song "Darius - Espoir" or "Machinedrum - Only 1 Way 2 Know". Anyway, there are times where plucks and stabs actually overlap and you can't decide which one it is.
- Supersaws - Also known as Polysaws/Hypersaws or even just Saws. You'll instantly recognize this sound as it's heavily used in todays party music and pop music. Just check out "Mercer & Bare - Bangla". Technically a supersaw patch is when you use a larger amount of unison voices and detune them (you can though be experimental and use other types of detune such as PWM, Chorus, and off-phase vibratos with stacked voices). Supersaws, plucks, and stabs are somewhat linked to eachother as one may easily evolve into the other in a song (especially plucks and supersaws).
- Arps - Arp or Arpeggio is when you play a scale fairly quickly, often covering a large part of the scale. In synths you can often create these automatically, or manually fairly quickly (as in Massive). Arp sounds generally have a certain character and reoccurring modulations, hence why they're pretty much their own group. Check out "Flume - Sleepless" and you'll hear it every now and then when the beat comes in.
- 303 - A slurpy sound originating from the Roland TB-303 (as far as I've understood). Set a lowpass filter controlled by an envelope, add a bunch of resonance, distort it, and there you have it. You may need to finetune the filter a bit before you get it right. Check out "Fatboy Slim - Eat Sleep Rave Repeat (Calvin Harris Remix)".
- Syncmod sounds - This one doesn't really have it's own name as far as I know, but people tend to use this sound in mostly one way, hence why it's on the list. I'm too lazy to explain what it is technically, but check out "Daft Punk - Robot Rock"
- Reese basses - Reese basses are a huge world of its own, and one of the funniest sounds to make imo, but at the very basics it's about pitching down a waveform (such a sawtooth), add a 2-voice unison, and go experimental with filters, distortions, and so on. I'll leave it there, as you can write a whole book about them asyou can do pretty much anything to them. Check out the drops in the songs "Max Out" and "Meanwhile, In The Future" by Koan Sound.
- Growl Basses - No need to explain what it is. Can't dive into how it's made either as it's such huge subject
- Wobble Basses - No need to explain this either. Though this sound is on a revival due to the Future Wobble genre which is getting more popular, but it's still the same principle. Though there are more ways that usual lowpassfilters to get a wobble sound, such as FM (also a huge subject of its own)
- Future Garage Basses - I don't know the actual name of this sound, but I dare to say that most of that sound is found in songs in the Future Garage-genre. You may aso find it in various UK Garage genres too, as well as some Trap music and even Deep House. It's basically similar to the basics of a Reese bass, but with 3-5 unison voices, and just lowpassed down a lot. Play with resonance and saturation. And that's about it. Check out the song "Synkro - Machine Love" at 0:44, or "Sorrow - Chronicle"
And that's some common sounds. There are way more sounds of course, but they're more labeled as [genre]-leads/pads/basses etc.
Sincerely, a sounddesigner
(If you wonder why I wrote so much I have a cold and I'm so friggin bored
)
To start with you have the Pad and Lead-sections. These are more about how the sounds will be used rather than what type of sounds they really are. Though it doesn't mean that a sound always can be a pad/lead depending on how they're used - some sounds gives the impression that they're more one thing than the other, meaning some sounds are Pads or Leads pretty much always.
The differencies between pads and leads also overlap a bit, and their exact definitions often cause arguments, but at the basics, a Pad is more supportive and less upfront (such as background strings), while a Lead is a bit more upfront (such as a powerful in your face EDM synth).
That being said, let's move on to different types of sounds:
- Plucks - Pretty much what they sound like, they "pluck". Technically it's a patch with a faster envelope on a filter, often bright or somewhat bright (not necessarily though). For instance check out the song "Alex H - Kwekwe" and you'll hear that synth right away. This example though isn't the only style of a pluck sound as you find these synths in many genres and they've been around for a long long time, but you'll instantly recognize it this way. Don't confuse these sounds with stabs.
- Stabs - Many people confuse plucks with stabs, but they're different. While plucks are more tight, stabs are more loose. Stabs have a less "plucky" sound and a more "strummy" sound. They're also often less controlled by the filter, and rely more on the volume envelope. There are even stabs with the lowpass filter just left static at a nice cutoff, entirely focusing on the volume envelope or adding envelopes in different creative ways. House pianos are actually good examples of the character of a stab synth, just to compare with plucks. Check out the song "Darius - Espoir" or "Machinedrum - Only 1 Way 2 Know". Anyway, there are times where plucks and stabs actually overlap and you can't decide which one it is.
- Supersaws - Also known as Polysaws/Hypersaws or even just Saws. You'll instantly recognize this sound as it's heavily used in todays party music and pop music. Just check out "Mercer & Bare - Bangla". Technically a supersaw patch is when you use a larger amount of unison voices and detune them (you can though be experimental and use other types of detune such as PWM, Chorus, and off-phase vibratos with stacked voices). Supersaws, plucks, and stabs are somewhat linked to eachother as one may easily evolve into the other in a song (especially plucks and supersaws).
- Arps - Arp or Arpeggio is when you play a scale fairly quickly, often covering a large part of the scale. In synths you can often create these automatically, or manually fairly quickly (as in Massive). Arp sounds generally have a certain character and reoccurring modulations, hence why they're pretty much their own group. Check out "Flume - Sleepless" and you'll hear it every now and then when the beat comes in.
- 303 - A slurpy sound originating from the Roland TB-303 (as far as I've understood). Set a lowpass filter controlled by an envelope, add a bunch of resonance, distort it, and there you have it. You may need to finetune the filter a bit before you get it right. Check out "Fatboy Slim - Eat Sleep Rave Repeat (Calvin Harris Remix)".
- Syncmod sounds - This one doesn't really have it's own name as far as I know, but people tend to use this sound in mostly one way, hence why it's on the list. I'm too lazy to explain what it is technically, but check out "Daft Punk - Robot Rock"
- Reese basses - Reese basses are a huge world of its own, and one of the funniest sounds to make imo, but at the very basics it's about pitching down a waveform (such a sawtooth), add a 2-voice unison, and go experimental with filters, distortions, and so on. I'll leave it there, as you can write a whole book about them asyou can do pretty much anything to them. Check out the drops in the songs "Max Out" and "Meanwhile, In The Future" by Koan Sound.
- Growl Basses - No need to explain what it is. Can't dive into how it's made either as it's such huge subject
- Wobble Basses - No need to explain this either. Though this sound is on a revival due to the Future Wobble genre which is getting more popular, but it's still the same principle. Though there are more ways that usual lowpassfilters to get a wobble sound, such as FM (also a huge subject of its own)
- Future Garage Basses - I don't know the actual name of this sound, but I dare to say that most of that sound is found in songs in the Future Garage-genre. You may aso find it in various UK Garage genres too, as well as some Trap music and even Deep House. It's basically similar to the basics of a Reese bass, but with 3-5 unison voices, and just lowpassed down a lot. Play with resonance and saturation. And that's about it. Check out the song "Synkro - Machine Love" at 0:44, or "Sorrow - Chronicle"
And that's some common sounds. There are way more sounds of course, but they're more labeled as [genre]-leads/pads/basses etc.
Sincerely, a sounddesigner
(If you wonder why I wrote so much I have a cold and I'm so friggin bored
)
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krushing
Moderator
...but while an arp is often nowadays talked about as a type of sound, it's more like a sub-species of part-live, part-pre-set sequencing, and can be applied to any sound. It's kind of a boxing-yourself-in scenario if one ends up thinking you should only use certain types of sound with arps. I'll say try out *everything*
Yep, "303" usually refers to something related to the TB-303...but it's not really so much about the squelchy filter, but more about how the built-in sequencer glides the notes around and how the accents and such affect the sequence. The 303 is rather barebones as a "normal" synth, and the ultimate acid machine with the sequencer. How it's originally supposed to be a replacement for a real bass guitar eludes me.
"Sync" refers to oscillator sync, which tends to produce that hard-edged squeal by default...but there's much more to it which is more than adequately explained here.
But yeah, let's not reinforce the idea that sound design is just about doing stuff on synths. Movies, for example, are full of sound design: you probably won't hear anything in a modern AAA film that wasn't heavily designed from multiple, sometimes hundreds of channels of audio. Field recordings, foley, samples, synthesizers, real instruments, all kinds of stuff - it's all part of it.
Milo Burke
New member
For the original poster:
I recommend The Sound Design Show: The Sound Design Show | EDM Production Shows and Podcasts - How to Make Great EDM
I recommend The Sound Design Show: The Sound Design Show | EDM Production Shows and Podcasts - How to Make Great EDM
steffeeh
New member
...but while an arp is often nowadays talked about as a type of sound, it's more like a sub-species of part-live, part-pre-set sequencing, and can be applied to any sound. It's kind of a boxing-yourself-in scenario if one ends up thinking you should only use certain types of sound with arps. I'll say try out *everything*
Yup! It can be applied to any patch as long as the synth supports it (yet if it doesn't you can still do it in the sequencer or other ways) and you should absolutely experiment with it, but whenever I hear "arp" (along many others) I automatically think of a typical arp sound, so there's nothing wrong referring it to a certain sound as this is probably the more typical sound of the arp-sound in the synthworld.
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I'mNoGuru
New member
TB303's are also now ludicrously expensive to get hold of. This is in part because there really isn't a good software emulation that can replicate that glide... It's quite unique.
There's a few good clone units out there though that can be had for about £300 (GBP) and the Cyclone TT303 BassBot is probably the best of the bunch with an improved sequencer that allows more back peddling. The original Roland sequencer was very basic in comparison.
KonKossKang
Ozagas
Too broad.
Genre
Technology used in genre
How sounds are produced in that genre.
Depends. For instance that squeelchy stuff in tekken 3's intro was a tb303 I think, which could only do A faux guitarish thing with square/sawtooth modulation or phase distortion/processing. the rhythm in the intro though was not arpeggiated on a regular arp, that had to be piano rolled or sheet'd with automation.
So basically it depends on how much you want to know about a certain genre or most of not all of them if it becomes a thing that matters to you.
Genre
Technology used in genre
How sounds are produced in that genre.
Depends. For instance that squeelchy stuff in tekken 3's intro was a tb303 I think, which could only do A faux guitarish thing with square/sawtooth modulation or phase distortion/processing. the rhythm in the intro though was not arpeggiated on a regular arp, that had to be piano rolled or sheet'd with automation.
So basically it depends on how much you want to know about a certain genre or most of not all of them if it becomes a thing that matters to you.
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krushing
Moderator
Yeah. The Bassbot is good, as is the Acidlab Bassline, and the XoXBox as well - the thing is, unless you've actually had the real thing, they're all just fine because they're only "worse" in the sense that they don't sound exactly like the originals did. So I think nowadays you'd have to be a pretty hardcore acid purist to need to have the real 303. I had the Acidlab unit for a while (and have played with real 303s), and while I can sort of tell that it's a bit differently squelchy, it didn't stop me from doing a lot of acid tracks. I ended up selling it because I couldn't really come up with anything else than acid
KonKossKang said:
I can understand why someone might end up thinking that, but it's definitely not a 303 or not even a (bad) clone of it.