This is a guest contribution by Seattle-based sound designer Chris Burgess. Chris has been working principally in game audio for the last several years to support his "healthy" addiction to synths. Recently he's worked on Guild Wars 2, Middle-earth: Shadow of War and République. I built my first modular system about seven months ago and dove in with an understanding … [Read more...]
Hard Patching: Modular Synths
The first time I saw a modular synth, I was taken aback by the massive nest of patching cables, seemingly flying off in all directions and connecting various devices with countless knobs and flashing lights, somehow creating all kinds of strange sounds. Coming up in a mostly digital world, such a mass of wiring was somewhat foreign to me. Sure, I had put together studios … [Read more...]
Tutorial: A compressor in Pure Data
Compressors have become more than just gain control units, they can be just as important as EQs in shaping a sound and sometimes even more so. For the mathematically inclined, a compressor works with a transfer function, or in plain speak, it changes its input in a predictable way. The controls of a compressor help specify this transfer function. The most common controls … [Read more...]