Category Archives: Sound Design

Sound design examples

Meditation Bell

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Nils Westdal and I recorded these bells for a percussive element in one of those tracks that have yet to see the light day. These beautiful solid brass bells have more than twenty seconds of decay. We recorded nineteen of those seconds. We used an AKG c4000b large diaphragm condenser microphone to capture the sound. The c4000b is one of the most versatile and sensitive mics I’ve used. It’s perfect for capturing all that sustain and high frequency goodness. Take a deep breath, cross your legs, close your eyes and press play.

Meditation Bell

Synthesizer Fifths Drone

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I added some delay to spread the stereo spectrum on this synthesizer drone of a low frequency fifith interval. During the recording you can hear the cutoff frequency changing as I turned the knob for it. On my most often used synth, the Korg MS2000 that was used for this recording, the surface around the cutoff frequency knob has been polished smooth from wear. I use it much more frequently than the modulation wheel or pitch wheel. I love knobs.

Synthesizer Fifths Drone

Electric Razor

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In January, 2008 I wrote about the sound design I had produced for an animated short film called “Drown” (43mb – right click to download the movie) by Aaron Dabelow. In that entry I illustrated how I created ambiance for the underwater atmosphere of the piece. Here’s a recording of my electric beard trimmer. I used it to create the sound for the mechanical humming bird like creatures in the film at about 1:08 minutes.

As I was recording I moved the beard trimmer past and around the mic to simulate the movement of the creatures, which use high speed rotary fans for locomotion. Once I synchronized the the audio to the animation it seemed to fit quite well. As you can see, it’s probably about time that I stopped recording electric razors and started using them on my face.

Electric Razor

Door Stop

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I always liked the sound this old spring door stop makes when accidentally kicked, but never recorded it until now. I think the fact that its attached to a one hundred two year old wooden door gives is some nice resonance.

This is a basic mono recording originally at 48kHz and 24bit. I plugged my favorite large diaphragm condenser into my M-Audio Firewire 410 with the phantom power enabled. I’m not sure what I might use it for. Perhaps it will make up some percussion in a future track.

Door Stop

 

Herding Random Behaviors

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After playing Precambrian Resonance for a few people and explaining how the arpeggiator was creating a randomness to the output I was asked how that randomness made it sound different from previous playback. This was easy for me to imagine since I had heard it rendered several different ways, but difficult to explain. Therefore I have re-rendered the piece to illustrate how it changes.

This brings up an issue that I have encountered on several occasions. When audio processing creates some sort of randomness in a mix, how can you get exactly what you want? What if after you export the audio there’s some chunk of randomized audio that just doesn’t quite work?

My solution is to render the track that has the random processing on it several times. For Precambrian Resonance 0.2 I rendered the processing eleven times. After that I’ll listen and compare the renders, or if I hear one that I like during the rendering, I’ll just choose it. Ableton Live makes this easy with the “Freeze Track” option that essentially renders the track while allowing you continue making adjustments.

Sometimes it is not that easy. I have encountered situations where version after version of the randomized processing doesn’t quite fit. At this stage what I do is carefully listen to the audio for phrases that have something interesting going on. The next step is to sequence the selected phrases into a complete track, effectively herding the random behaviors into what I’m after. I suppose that this is similar to using genetic algorithms to hybridize the audio in a semi-manual way.

Precambrian Resonance 0.2