That Sound Design Thread!

[TheName]

Listen to Alarm clock by GizmoCosmic on #SoundCloud
https://on.soundcloud.com/UNaQw

 

[Crabcore]

#2 started out with some serious nerdery, I used a MIDI controller to access the 'hidden' synthesizer on my electronic drum kit (most people don't even seem to know it exists, because it's accessed on some weird channel), piped it back into the PC and made a whole sample pack out of it (I also got my workstation to trigger the notes, so I could essentially put whatever modifiers on them like arps, note length modifiers, chords and scale quantiers for rapid-fire recording). Then I coded up a little script to basically rapid-fire the samples at random rates so that they'd sound creepy as heck.

Fun times. Maybe I can make another pack out of just random-seed dark ambiance? This is getting absurd, but I love it.

 

[Crabcore]

Grinding up old foley / field recordings for resampling fuel

 

[Crabcore]

Probably in my own little world over here, but...

I made a little prototype of a random sample 'sequencer' because I thought I'd have some cool flexibility and options in the environment I chose (like decent FX, being able to change the pitch of the samples I loaded in, etc) but it turned out to be pretty boring:

(right now it just spams some of my kick drum samples every time a dingbat bounces, but the idea is here )

If anyone has any suggestions for a good game engine / IDE that can handle a bunch of sounds at any given point in time and comes with a decent amount of FX, please feel free to let me know what that might be!

Godot looks pretty capable, but I don't know how I feel about having to learn a bunch of GUI stuff just to eventually implement my logic. Maybe I should stop being so stubborn

 

[Jacks Brain]

Probably in my own little world over here, but...

I went through and listened to everything.

I've tried picking up music a couple times, but I feel like I don't spend enough time keeping up my core skills as it is. I also don't get programs where, you have a certain length of time and the time is divided up into so many segments. You drop your sound in and it has to start on one of the segments. What if I want it to start at a segment and 5/8's of a segment? It seems like I should be able to grab my sound and scoot it over a little. Maybe I should use a program like Audacity (got to be something that runs on Linux, preferably Open Source).

 

[Crabcore]

I went through and listened to everything.

I've tried picking up music a couple times, but I feel like I don't spend enough time keeping up my core skills as it is. I also don't get programs where, you have a certain length of time and the time is divided up into so many segments. You drop your sound in and it has to start on one of the segments. What if I want it to start at a segment and 5/8's of a segment? It seems like I should be able to grab my sound and scoot it over a little. Maybe I should use a program like Audacity (got to be something that runs on Linux, preferably Open Source).

Actually, a lot of music software functions on a timeline (even though I don't always record those parts), so it can be considered really similar to video editing in that way if that makes any more sense! Starting and stopping clips (or MIDI notes, or anything else) can definitely happen wherever you want!

If you ever need help getting started, you can always ask me (or anyone else who frequents this thread) for help! Reaper and Audacity both feature a timeline and don't have licensing restrictions (Reaper works more in realtime with its FX as opposed to Audacity, which is more of an editor) and there are a lot of ways to make music these days

Also if you listened to everything here, you are a champion!

 

[Crabcore]

Some fun designs for today / last night. Mostly I was just triggering drum sounds through a whole bunch of randomly-selected FX chains. Kind of like painting with effects, through the eyes of a kick drum and a hi-hat.

 

[Jacks Brain]

Amazing how everything is timed right despite being randomly triggered. I didn't realize how much of the ambient stuff was "triggered," vs composed by hand.

I'm a fan of the dark ambient genre, particularly Robert Rich. There are a few others I like, but he seems to be the standout artist in that genre. I could keep track of it better though.

I need to learn more about music, if only to be able to talk to musicians in their language. I see that Reaper is available on Linux. I'm currently using a server oriented Linux flavor, since the Ubuntu flavors introduced a bug that crashes Blender. Probably only on older hardware like mine. I'll look into Reaper, but it's probably not supported by my Linux flavor. I feel a system upgrade coming in the relatively near future - perhaps I'll be able to get back into a version of Linux that supports more of the programs I want.

 

[Crabcore]

Amazing how everything is timed right despite being randomly triggered. I didn't realize how much of the ambient stuff was "triggered," vs composed by hand.

I'm a fan of the dark ambient genre, particularly Robert Rich. There are a few others I like, but he seems to be the standout artist in that genre. I could keep track of it better though.

I need to learn more about music, if only to be able to talk to musicians in their language. I see that Reaper is available on Linux. I'm currently using a server oriented Linux flavor, since the Ubuntu flavors introduced a bug that crashes Blender. Probably only on older hardware like mine. I'll look into Reaper, but it's probably not supported by my Linux flavor. I feel a system upgrade coming in the relatively near future - perhaps I'll be able to get back into a version of Linux that supports more of the programs I want.

That's really interesting that you mention that, because there are definitely a lot of dark ambient artists who basically plot everything on the timeline for the most part (I actually used to do it this way, too, as I had a whole project dedicated to just dark ambient music!).

The program (what they refer to as a DAW) I just posted is actually available on linux as well (same with the code-based one), but I definitely would recommend starting with either Audacity or Reaper first so you can plan things out! Also, recording your own sounds (even if it's just on a phone) can really enhance this experience if you're going for dark ambient or more textured genres!

 

[Jacks Brain]

I'm working through the other music thread ATM. The generated metal stuff is fascinating. It might not be the way to do a whole track, but it could work as a transition segment for a YouTube video.

I've used Audacity before. I know I've made ambient sounds with it, but I couldn't guess where they are now.

 

[Crabcore]

I'm working through the other music thread ATM. The generated metal stuff is fascinating. It might not be the way to do a whole track, but it could work as a transition segment for a YouTube video.

That's the kicker -- I wonder what it would sound like if it's expanded upon even further with drum fills, clean guitar interludes and the like (also, better logic for the note selection). I'm usually juggling a lot of projects all the time, but this is something I really want to delve into in the future!

Audacity is actually pretty good, since it's one of the few editors that allows for multutrack recording. I've actually known a lot of people who used mostly hardware and got away with using Audacity simply because they weren't doing a whole lot on the PC end. That's another valid approach, and is kind of standard in some niche communities.

To nobody in particular: If anyone from the 'outside' wants to get into making music or sounds with their computer, feel free to post here and I'll help out where I can! I've taken a step back from spamming this thread with new design material due to a lack of interest (and mostly just putting them on Patreon instead), but I'm still here in the background for anyone who wants to get started doing things like this!

 

[Jacks Brain]

I've listened to your spam, it does not bother me.

 

[Crabcore]

I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to control my whole workstation with code and I finally figured it out -- a MIDI loopback device was apparently the missing piece, and it enables MIDI to be piped all over the place!

 

[Crabcore]

Testing out my weird little joystick contraption. The joysticks themselves don't have a lot of interpolation built into them physically, but you can get those in-between values if you try hard enough

 

[Crabcore]

 

[Crabcore]

Using an Arduino and a photoresistor to create a MIDI theremin!

I got some buddies from another forum to egg me on and suggest a project, and this is what they came up with. It needs some finetuning, but it works!

 

[Crabcore]

Just picked up Korg Gadget and I can't believe how incredibly intuitive it is. Would recommend for anyone who wants to jam or practice some songwriting without having to worry about the deep stuff!