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[NEED HELP] - How to create these sounds?

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French_Calvin

New Member
Hi everyone,

I’m a French editor and musician beginning in sound design.
I’m currently working on experimental videos and very interested with the sound design of this video:

Does anyone have an idea about the software, VST, sound banks, used to create these rather abstract and organic sounds? Honestly, I don't even know what to call them; perhaps that's why I haven't found any relevant information so far.

I am actually working on Logic Pro.

Thank you very much for your help,
Calvin
Click to read more...
 
Sounds like a bunch of samples heavily filtered, stretched, mangled etc. There are numerous ways to arrive at these sorts of sounds.

If you like to use synths, try something like UVI Falcon or Arturia Pigments, any synth that lets you import samples and then mangle them with granular synthesis, filters and effects.

Another way would be to record your own source material, take field recordings etc. or buy some samples and timestretch them using tools like Arturia’s efx_Fragments, the free Paulstretch, etc. Soundpaint is another free option that lets you import and then work with your own samples. A lot can probably be achieved using Logic’s own Sampler / Alchemy, just by loading in short percussive samples, timestretching them to lower unnatural pitches and then applying some convolution reverb, compression, weird EQ curves etc.

This particular video uses a plethora of different sound sources. Are there any specific ones you’re particularly interested in?
 
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French_Calvin said:
Hi everyone,

I’m a French editor and musician beginning in sound design.
I’m currently working on experimental videos and very interested with the sound design of this video:

Does anyone have an idea about the software, VST, sound banks, used to create these rather abstract and organic sounds? Honestly, I don't even know what to call them; perhaps that's why I haven't found any relevant information so far.

I am actually working on Logic Pro.

Thank you very much for your help,
Calvin
Click to expand...

There are a bunch of great sounds on splice.com
 
French_Calvin said:
rather abstract and organic sounds
Click to expand...
Another fantastic source for these types of sounds, especially the “faux” kind of uncanny near-acoustic sounds heard here, is physicial modeling. Well known examples of synths offering this synthesis method are Plasmonic, Chromaphone, Reason’s Friktion and Objekt and the Physical Audio synths.

Logic Pro comes with Sculpture. Use that as a source, maybe sample some of the resulting sounds and then use that as the input for further timestretching. There are great threads on physical modeling as a synthesis means on VI-C, if you’d like to further explore. As a future sound designer, I’d almost urge you to dive in deeper ;)
 
doctoremmet said:
Sounds like a bunch of samples heavily filtered, stretched, mangled etc. There are numerous ways to arrive at these sorts of sounds.

If you like to use synths, try something like UVI Falcon or Arturia Pigments, any synth that lets you import samples and then mangle them with granular synthesis, filters and effects.

Another way would be to record your own source material, take field recordings etc. or buy some samples and timestretch them using tools like Arturia’s efx_Fragments, the free Paulstretch, etc. Soundpaint is another free option that lets you import and then work with your own samples. A lot can probably be achieved using Logic’s own Sampler / Alchemy, just by loading in short percussive samples, timestretching them to lower unnatural pitches and then applying some convolution reverb, compression, weird EQ curves etc.

This particular video uses a plethora of different sound sources. Are there any specific ones you’re particularly interested in?
Click to expand...
Amazing! Thank you so much @doctoremmet for your precious help.
I will look into all of this in depth!

To answer your, I am particularly interested in the sounds at 00:03 (on the flower shot), at 00:09 and 00:10, and the hand shot at 00:13.
Any idea ?
 
French_Calvin said:
Amazing! Thank you so much @doctoremmet for your precious help.
I will look into all of this in depth!

To answer your, I am particularly interested in the sounds at 00:03 (on the flower shot), at 00:09 and 00:10, and the hand shot at 00:13.
Any idea ?
Click to expand...
They all sound like short little snippets of sampled material, played back at lower or rather higher pitches than the ones that were recorded.

You can create sounds like this by sampling bits of your own music, or imported other sound sources, and then loading chunks of WAVs from those sources into Logic’s sampler. Then what you do is you manually scrub *) through the waveform, by setting sample start- and endpoints until something “interesting” appears. It’s a bit of a trial & error thing really, but I am confident it will render interesting results. Once you have identified little interesting bits of samples, cut them, stretch them across your keyboard, play them at a lower pitch, maybe timestretch them to get all sort of aliasing and digital artefacts and see where it goes.

Finally, once you have dozens of these snippets, see if you can load them up in a generative step sequencer or arpeggiator plugin (maybe Logic comes with such a thing natively, I’m an Ableton guy - sorry), and make an interesting sequence, automate effects, etc.
 
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doctoremmet said:
They all sound like short little snippets of sampled material, played back at lower or rather higher pitches than the ones that were recorded.

You can create sounds like this by sampling bits of your own music, or imported other sound sources, and then loading chunks of WAVs from those sources into Logic’s sampler. Then what you do is you manually scrub *) through the waveform, by setting sample start- and endpoints until something “interesting” appears. It’s a bit of a trail & error thing really, but I am confident it will render interesting results. Once you have identified little interesting bits of samples, cut them, stretch them across your keyboard, play them at a lower pitch, maybe timestretch them to get all sort of aliasing and digital artefacts and see where it goes.

Finally, once you have dozens of these snippets, see if you can load them up in a generative step sequencer or arpeggiator plugin (maybe Logic comes with such a thing natively, I’m an Ableton guy - sorry), and make an interesting sequence, automate effects, etc.
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It is very interesting, still a bit abstract and complicated for me but I will deep dive into it.
Just a question: What kind of sound sources should I import into Logic to then rework them? I imagine that if I import a piano sound, a guitar sound, or a complete track, it won't yield the same result. In your opinion, what would be the best approach to closely match the sounds from the video?
 
French_Calvin said:
What kind of sound sources should I import into Logic to then rework them? I imagine that if I import a piano sound, a guitar sound, or a complete track, it won't yield the same result. In your opinion, what would be the best approach to closely match the sounds from the video?
Click to expand...
The sounds in the video have dozens of different sources.

I hear:

- acoustic instruments, not played at their regular pitch
- sounds made with subtractive synths etc, (use whatever stock synths Logic offers)
- “glass type” sounds from sound packs or maybe a physically modeled synth
- acoustic percussive sounds, like little shakers, rice eggs etc.
- “found sounds” that are likely taken from either sound FX libraries or actually recorded in and around the house (field recordings)
- breathing sounds

and all sounds are pretty heavily processed, samples have been reversed, granularized, heavily reverberated etc. - so your guitar or piano samples could in fact be great sources. Once you take a sample snippet out of context and play it at weird pitches, they typically get a life of their own.

So, as a source, I’d look for some recordings or little loops of acoustic instruments, record some synth patches (pads as well as more percussive transient heavy patches), try and find (or record) some percussive sounds (see what you have lying around the house), and maybe some vocals, breathing noises or something. Anything goes.

Put all of those sounds across various tracks in a new Logic project. Render everything to audio, in other words. And then approach each track as a scavenger and see what little “gems” are in there, in terms of little sampled snippets. Load them all in Samplers or Alchemy or whatever, and mangle them until you hear something interesting.

If you need sources, sample an old record. Look for free samples online. Download the free IRCAM OrchideaSOL orchestral samples and drag those WAVs into your DAW. Download millions of free sound FX from Bandcamp. Etc. Be creative!

sources:

Freesound

Freesound: collaborative database of creative-commons licensed sound for musicians and sound lovers. Have you freed your sound today?
freesound.org freesound.org

OrchideaSOL | Ircam Forum

forum.ircam.fr forum.ircam.fr
 
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With regard to why your example video sounds so cool (it does, doesn’t it?)… I think a lot of it has to do with sound but at least half of it is also the sequencing of the various bits, so in a way “the composition” which is done extremely well I think. So part of why this approach works here, is in the quick and interesting way we hear the various sound snippets.

I don’t know why, but your example reminded me of this particular Machinedrum song, where they use lots of different synth sounds in quick succession, which really makes the whole thing very enticing and interesting (I feel). So just posting this as an example of what I think is how the sequencing of sounds can be an interesting part of sound design, almost as its own “technique”. It’s almost a bit like “mosaicing” sounds together.

 
Final tip: watch Mr Bill videos ;)

Here are four producers “flipping” a sample:



and this is Mr Bill who explains how he (ab)used that sample:

 
doctoremmet said:
The sounds in the video have dozens of different sources.

I hear:

- acoustic instruments, not played at their regular pitch
- sounds made with subtractive synths etc, (use whatever stock synths Logic offers)
- “glass type” sounds from sound packs or maybe a physically modeled synth
- acoustic percussive sounds, like little shakers, rice eggs etc.
- “found sounds” that are likely taken from either sound FX libraries or actually recorded in and around the house (field recordings)
- breathing sounds

and all sounds are pretty heavily processed, samples have been reversed, granularized, heavily reverberated etc. - so your guitar or piano samples could in fact be great sources. Once you take a sample snippet out of context and play it at weird pitches, they typically get a life of their own.

So, as a source, I’d look for some recordings or little loops of acoustic instruments, record some synth patches (pads as well as more percussive transient heavy patches), try and find (or record) some percussive sounds (see what you have lying around the house), and maybe some vocals, breathing noises or something. Anything goes.

Put all of those sounds across various tracks in a new Logic project. Render everything to audio, in other words. And then approach each track as a scavenger and see what little “gems” are in there, in terms of little sampled snippets. Load them all in Samplers or Alchemy or whatever, and mangle them until you hear something interesting.

If you need sources, sample an old record. Look for free samples online. Download the free IRCAM OrchideaSOL orchestral samples and drag those WAVs into your DAW. Download millions of free sound FX from Bandcamp. Etc. Be creative!

sources:

Freesound

Freesound: collaborative database of creative-commons licensed sound for musicians and sound lovers. Have you freed your sound today?
freesound.org freesound.org

OrchideaSOL | Ircam Forum

forum.ircam.fr forum.ircam.fr
@
Click to expand...
@doctoremmet, you made my day.
Thank you so much for your time and all your advices, it's very precious for me.

I'm taking advantage of your expertise one last time to ask if you have any idea how this synth sound is made :

It seems like a somewhat metallic synth.
Any idea?
 
Haven’t really analyzed the sound yet, but -again- my bet is they took some audiofile and then REALLY timestretched it using Paulstretch or something.

So I’d use a harmonically rich sample, timestretch it to some ridiculous length and then put on a shimmer reverb for the sparkling highs. Then take the results from that as a sampled source, put it in Logic’s sampler and use that as the start of ‘playable patch‘ creation evening ;)


like this:



original:



tool:

 
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Cool stuff in that video, and I think this thread is full of good specific advice.

One thing I would say in addition to others is it would be a good idea to take some online classes on synthesis from the ground up, including subtractive, sampling, and granular synthesis. With such a foundation you can create sounds like this all day long and be as creative as you want without relying on presets or generic samples. Good luck!
 
French_Calvin said:
Thank you for you help @wing.
Any good tutorials you have in mind?
Click to expand...
Sure, there's a really good book (in English) called Refining Sound which taught me everything about synthesis. The Kindle version is available in France here.

Also some really good and free YouTube resources:




(Definitely recommend the first thing he mentions by Sound on Sound, it's free to find)



(longer class from the 80s but the information is just as relevant today, the principles have not changed)


(Kilohearts makes awesome software but even if you don't use their products these short tutorials are fantastic because you can apply the same ideas to many different tools)

A lot of what's happening in your original video involves classic subtractive synthesis (simple synth waveforms modulated in specific ways to picture for effect), but also the principles of learning synthesis will teach you how to mangle field recordings and samples in endless creative ways, even when not using a synth (many plugins and effects will use things such as envelopes/ADSR, LFOs, etc., so understanding these principles gives you a lot of power and control over designing new sounds).

Have fun!
 
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