Playing samples straight through will get us there, but it sounds so much nicer if we have options to shape the sounds. A good first step is volume envelopes. In this lesson, we’ll make an attack-sustain-release (ASR) envelope and modify our sampler to use it to modulate the volume. … [Read more...]
Making a Music System – Part 1
Games and other interactive media put us in faraway worlds with unique characters, let us touch them, and delight us by showing us they know we’re there. In addition to visuals, sound effects, and gameplay, we have the unique opportunity to let people interact with the music. In this five-part, weekly tutorial series, we'll go step by step through the process of making an … [Read more...]
Focus on your design. Quickening your workflow in Pro Tools.
So you’ve just been handed in some video with no sound in it, and you’ve been asked to finish your work later tonight. Yet you don’t know whether you’ll be able to accomplish your task on time or not. This is a more common situation than you may think.You might have been in the industry for quite some time, and so you’ve developed your own methodology. If you haven’t, or … [Read more...]
Learning to Listen – Wildeye’s Sound Recording in Iceland Course
Do you want to do more field recording? Sure, we all do. Recorded sound is at the core of so much of our craft, and so the art / act of getting somewhere afield, pointing a microphone and capturing sound feels like one of those fundamental skills we all should know. You know, like fixing a flat or painting a living room. Except that I rarely change a flat--certainly not … [Read more...]
Outside the Box – Audio Hardware in a DAW Workflow
Today’s sound world is dominated by the digital audio workstation, and within that domain, the plugin is king. Modern workstations and DSP offer an unmatched level of power and flexibility compared to what was available using physical audio processing hardware. However, a quick look at the burgeoning modular scene shows that there is a renewed interest in hardware for sonic … [Read more...]
Reaper Tutorial Series – An Interview with David Farmer
Tutorials. We all watch them, we all know that at some point in time, we will be reaching for that search bar when we are trying to overcome a particular hurdle, and you can guarantee that there is an answer to be found in the darkest corners of the Internet. Although the resulting content and indeed source of the result can be, let’s say, questionable at times. So when you … [Read more...]
Michel Chion’s analog tape techniques
Guest Contribution by Michel Chion For this month's theme, french composer and researcher Michel Chion very kindly allowed me to translate a tutorial he wrote about analog tape techniques. This tutorial is actually an appendix of a book on the much larger subject of concrete music, La musique concrète, art des sons fixés (the examples given by Chion are also from music … [Read more...]