TRUTH: Every single sound we hear can be reproduced using layers and layers of nothing but sine waves.
Incredibly time-consuming? Maybe. But it CAN be done.
On the other hand, many music producers start with pre-made samples, and adjust them to fit the needs of their tracks.
I appreciate that sample manipulation is in no way “easy” – it’s as much of an art as building sounds from scratch. BUT I believe it skips the fundamental stages of sound design, which is needed to achieve mastery.
Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.
Michael Jordan
Without the fundamentals, we don’t understand how a sound is created in the first place. A level of detail is lost. And that edge could be the difference between a successful artist and an unsuccessful one.
What really excites me about sound synthesis is the potential to build complex sounds from simpler ones. This makes it easy to gradually built your skills and understanding, so if something goes wrong, you know what needs tweaking.
Earlier today I was working on making EDM risers, so lets use them as an example.
The easiest riser to make is a noise riser. Start with a white noise oscillator, slap on and automate a LP filter, and BOOM! You’re done.
After making a few of those, I checked how it sounded with an extra filter added in, this one an automated notch filter. Now the riser goes from sounding like simple noise to something akin to a rocket ship blasting off.
Using the filters in different ways, different placements and slopes, etc., teaches you what each adjustment is doing to the sound, and trains your ears at the same time.
Once I felt good about the second filter, I added some reverb. NOW it sounds like that rocket ship is blasting off right in your living room!
And so on.
Of course, I could have modulated the pitch instead of the filters, or added frequency modulation, or any of a thousand things. And I SHOULD, until I spot the patterns that each adjustment brings to the sound.
I recognize the temptation to cut corners, to grab something that already sounds awesome and make it your own. Life is short, and we’re all impatient for success.
I just believe the greatest joy (that IS what you’re doing this for, right?) comes from understanding the basics as deeply as possible. Everything else grows from there.
Credits:
“Equations Written on Blackboard” by Monstera from Pexels