Category Archives: Sound Design

Sound design examples

Mendelian Inheritance

Posted on by
Reply

Here is the third sound in my installment of FM synthesis experiments. Once again I’m using artificial selection to simulate a genetic algorithm. In this case I selected a rhythmic sound out of a large collection of randomized sounds then repeated the two bar loop four times to create an eight bar pattern based on the sample. To me it sounds like some sort of high tech laboratory equipment being operated.

One quick note. I will be out of the country from Friday, November 7 through Wednesday, November 12, 2008. On Friday, November 7 I’ll be posting my 100th consecutive sound, and want to continue the trend while I’m out of the country. So, I’ll be scheduling a series of entries based on these FM synthesis experiments to post automatically while I’m away.

Mendelian Inheritance

Insectoid

Posted on by
Reply

This is the second in a series of FM synthesis experiments I am conducting with the X.FM instrument that is included as an example in MaxMSP. This sound was generated by randomizing the parameters in the instrument. I selected it because is has a nice artificial insectoid quality to it which is why I selected a photograph I took of a large dragonfly while camping at Nils Westdal’s bachelor party last September.

Insectoid

Bouncy FM Patch

Posted on by
Reply

I created this bouncy reverberated sound with an FM synthesis virtual instrument called X.FM which is one of the example “patches” within the famous Cycling ’74 produced integrated development environment Max 5. The X.FM patch is a complete fully featured virtual instrument and can be played with a MIDI controller or by tapping a keyboard “object” with the mouse. The instrument is capable of a broad variety of sounds which can easily be illustrated by randomizing the parameters and then listening to the results.

Bouncy FM Patch

Quick and Dirty Ambiance from Hell

Posted on by
Reply

There are so many ways to use processing to make scary sounds that it’s almost too easy. The classic reverse reverb in the original Poltergeist comes to mind. This example is a recording of a conversation with a colleague during a lunch break at a busy sandwich joint. It’s been reversed, pitched down significantly, run through a low pass filter, slowly phased, filter delayed and run through a long reverb. All this processing has diffused the voices into a hellish ambient drone.

Quick and Dirty Ambiance from Hell

Room Tone

Posted on by
8

This sincere looking chap is Alvin Lucier, Artist, and sonic explorer. One of his most memorable works is ‘I Am Sitting in a Room’ in which he records himself speaking a phrase in a room. He then plays that recording into the same room and records that. Each subsequent recording has more and more room tone until the fundamental frequencies of the room completely obscure his original narrative. It’s a simple idea and a great one, the best thing about it is that you can try it out for yourself really easily.

My sound today is a recording made in the upper room of Beconsfield Art Space in South London where I was making an installation last year. The room is acoustically very active with old wooden floors, reflective walls and a very high celling. I played the sound of a one sample click (sounds like a glitch at the start of the mp3) into the room using a PA system then recorded the results using a pair of Oktava MK012’s, normalised the recording then played it back into the room and recorded that. I repeated the process 10 times. As you will hear the results are fascinating. I really like the way the tiny impulse gradually turns from a percussive sound into a pitched sound as the attack time gets stretched out and the room’s fundamentals take over. You don’t have to have a big room to try this out it’ll work well in any slightly reflective space, you could even try it through a convolution reverb. My installation is documented here.

lucierclick1