Freesound Forums

I know, internet is full of software for doing all kind of sound processing, but... For example, I personally - started to create software, because for over 10 years could not find few audio tools, that would satisfy my needs. And after some time it appeared, that there are more tools, that I can't find, but... can create.

So... Market has its own trends, and obviously not too much is escaping them. On the other hand, there probably are cool apps out there, but without having proper keywords - you will not find it anyway, or these apps offer partial solutions or just have some other issues. The third aspect is related to simple in use and effective in results - sound processing.

Freesound community is somewhat specific, and I like that. It isn't about "yet another synth" or "yet another (typical VST effect like) delay", EQ or something like that. It's about creativity. Creativity involved in making new sounds (or evolving soundflows) and modifying old ones.

I can't say, that I will (or can or am able to) do all the stuff you request. But I will try to make a bridge between those who are on the other side of that river. Audio programmers. They are really creative folks in what they do. But I think that your needs can help them to narrow or extend their projects. As both - sound designer and somewhat software maker - I can say that from my own experience: both parties are important in that game.

So. What kind of sound processing capabilities do you need? What would you like to (sonically) achieve, but can't due to lack of apps for that? What is your dream, that you would like to share with others?

By opening this thread, I'm not imposing that only I have friends who do the programming stuff. Rather I'd like to inspire you; maybe you are a programmer or maybe you also have such friends. Think for a moment what good can bring such exchange of ideas.

Let me begin by saying that although I have a degree in computer science and can program, I know next to nothing about digital signal programming and the like.

Generally, in terms of software instruments, my favourites are the ones that think outside the box. Take Calf Organ, which on the surface looks like your average Hammond emulation, but in reality is a simplified additive synth which makes producing unique, rich, complex sounds (pads especially) so easy that I don’t know why anyone has thought of it before. Calf Monosynth is excellent too; it’s capable of sounding absolutely enormous, all because of some unorthodox control ideas.

Indeed, I’m tired of being introduced to ‘YAVAS’ (Yet Another Virtual Analogue Synth), and I really think that breaking out of the tried and tested formulas is what is needed in musical instrument/’sound creation tool’ design. There is so much potential in a less narrow focus on a particular kind of sound, and I wish that software instruments existed that really enabled sound designers to blur the line between all corners of the acoustic and electronic worlds. Some hardware instruments have attempted this — I think back to the Roland D-50, Korg Wavestation and the Roland V-Synth sitting proudly behind me as we speak — but generally both hardware and software instruments have fixated on rehashing the past. That isn’t always a bad thing, but it shouldn’t be the only thing.

In particular, something I think there is a pressing need for in electronic music is better drum sounds and rhythms. I’d love to have a really flexible software drum machine which encompassed sample-mangling and synthesis, and also bridged the gap between sound design and expressive musical performance (played/programmed/whatever).

In fact, this gap between sound design and actual musical composition and performance is something that often bothers me. So many electronic musicians underestimate the importance of what notes they actually play, versus what synths they use and what those synths’ controls are set to. Sometimes I wish for a way of programming sounds ‘musically’ using the keyboard, to work upward from chords, intervals and scales into sound design. I admit this is quite vague, and I’m not sure how I’d go about this, but I think there is a need for sounds that fit music, instead of music that fits sounds.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

jamesabdulrahman wrote:
Generally, in terms of software instruments, my favourites are the ones that think outside the box.

This is so true: there is a certain degree of excitment at playing around with a synth that you can't quite figure out!

As for the virtual analogues, they have their use. I think everyone should get at least one or two and learn them very well. - They are at the basis of most kinds of synths, they are actually quite intuitive and the concepts of oscillator, envelope, LFO, routing, modulation are easy to grasp and test. And the best thing is that other types of synths have these things too, so it is great knowledge to have.

Also, there are subtle differences between the various virtual analogues, and different filters do sound different for example...
Enough on virtual analogues.

There are other types of synthesis out there: additive, AM, FM, wavetable, and less-know more-inovative FFT synthesis or re-synthesis, morphing oscillators, and others.
Then, of course, there are samples... And we should not forget or underestimate these. Not only because some samplers now offer many of the functionalities of synths (envelopes, LFOs, filters, built-in effects) and some even include granular processing of samples...
... but also because sampled sounds are often very complex, more complex than most sounds generated by synths (especially of the virtual analogue variety).

When it comes to creativity, "what you do with" the sounds is almost as important as the sounds themselves. There are effects for miriads of types of mangling, distortion, etc. Sounds can be pitched up or down, stretched, layered together. Just by taking sounds from a virtual analogue, blending those with real sounds (guitar, voice, trumpet,...) and processing them together, an imense variety of new sounds can be produced.
The same can be said of hardware. I have a Korg Monotron Duo. It is difficult to imagine a simpler synth. This one has no envelopes or LFOs. Unless you are tweaking the knobs in real-time, it really is a tone generator. - I have produced amazing sounds with it by feeding it into sometimes fairly simple chains of free VST effects.

jamesabdulrahman wrote:
In particular, something I think there is a pressing need for in electronic music is better drum sounds and rhythms. I’d love to have a really flexible software drum machine which encompassed sample-mangling and synthesis, and also bridged the gap between sound design and expressive musical performance (played/programmed/whatever).

Specifically to this, I have 2 points.
1) The best drum synth that I have and use when I really want to create drum sounds is Kong (from Propelerheads Reason). Includes sample players, several physical modelling modules (bassdrum, snare, tom, hats) and several synth modules (also bassdrum, snare, tom and hats, if I recall correctly).
Gives you a total of 16 pads = 16 different modules/samples. On top of that there are 2 effects per pad and also a global effects section.
2) I received praise from several people on drum sounds on a particular track. Most of the drum sounds on the track had been layered. They were mixtures of the sounds of me hitting cans and plastic bags with acoustic snare/tom drums. - so, creativity can get you a long way, even if you don't have great tools

+1 for ‘sample and synthesis’. There are so many possibilities, from just good old layering and subtractive editing to the granular, morphing and re-synthesis stuff: Paulstretch, Roland Variphrase and so forth.

Yes indeed, let’s not underestimate effects! Especially when combining tempo-synced effects with something rhythmic. In fact, any kind of effects on drum tracks can produce very complex sounds — ask whoever produced Black Uhuru’s Dub Factor (I forget) who turned roots reggae into something that sounded like a steelworks.

I don’t want to give the impression that I hate analogue/virtual analogue synthesis, I use it all the time. I just get fed up of the people who practically worship it to the exclusion of any other kind of sound creation. For instance, lately I’ve got really into the open source LV2/AU/VST plugin Dexed, which is a FM synthesizer in the style of the Yamaha DX7. Most of the ‘anything analogue is best’ people are convinced that FM synthesis can only produce a ‘thin’ or ‘cold’ sound, and yet here I am producing sub bass capable of loosening teeth.

As for unorthodox percussion... check out my ‘beats’ bookmarks

Would personally like to see less Virtual Analogue VST plugs, and classic emulators. I'm not knocking those types of synths because they obviously have use amongst a lot of people, but for me it's old news. However, I did find H.G. Fortune VSTS to be fairly delightful. The only things I saw missing from his particular plug-ins were samplers, and basic wave forms. Yes, you may be able to use sound fonts, but for me that seemed very limited compared to being able to import your own recordings in wav. Your pretty much stuck with someone else's fantasy. No matter how much processing I did to the synth, the sounds just never felt like my own. Awesome plug-ins for them being free though.

It'd also be interesting to see more sound generator type tools like Reaktor's "Metaphysical Function", but with SMS capabilities as well.

CadereSounds wrote:
Yes, you may be able to use sound fonts, but for me that seemed very limited compared to being able to import your own recordings in wav. Your pretty much stuck with someone else's fantasy

Why not putting your wav's into a soundfont yourself then?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/polyphone/

It is not exactly sound processing application, but tool for morphing between plugins' presets,
but I dream about Windows version of pMix: http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/02/05/oli-larkin-releases-pmix-free-plugin-preset-interpolator-for-mac/

CadereSounds wrote:
Would personally like to see less Virtual Analogue VST plugs, and classic emulators. I'm not knocking those types of synths because they obviously have use amongst a lot of people, but for me it's old news.

Pretty much what I’m saying — nothing wrong with VA in itself, but emulations that slavishly copy the original hardware are usually not very interesting. I didn’t know there was still a market for software emulations nowadays (been away from Windows and proprietary DAWs since 2006). Vintage gear nuts will just buy the hardware even if it bankrupts them, and I wouldn’t have thought that most young people who are just getting into electronic music would care less about vintage gear. I digress... it’s not important really, just wondering.

I think it’s more of an issue in the hardware world. For instance: http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/15-of-the-best-affordable-hardware-synthesisers-585436 I’m sure they’re all fun to play and usable, but... there just seem to be so few new ideas. Ditto with the Roland Aira TR-8, which from a purely practical point of view I couldn’t see the point of over the 808 samples that come with Hydrogen.

Of course, people obviously like this stuff and nobody’s forcing me to buy it, so who am I to judge. It’s just that I would be so much more into hardware instruments that allowed more unique and expressive ways of creating sound. A V-Synth/WaveStation type hybrid instrument the size of a paperback book, with a zillion oscillators, infinite polyphony and capable of integrating seamlessly with Linux audio? Now we’re talking

While I'm stuck to Windows/PC programming, I see an interesting trend that is not being "ported" to PCs, but it has a great potential of being creative and easy to use. I recently started to play with small i-devices (smartphone), and it indicated to me something I like (although I don't like the poor quality i-crap offers, and limitations of iOS). Because these devices are really small - software makers must achieve two things: simple and intuitive interfaces combined with extra features (creativity that does not require extensive knowledge on how to get good effects). Usually it ends up with "push the button" monkey style apps, but there are exceptions. Among examples. Gestrument. Aura and aura flux. dot Melody (somewhat similar to Nodal). Node beat. Otomata (also web version) and cellular generators. Bloom. Figure. And maybe few more. Different approach to automating things and getting the sound or ideas. I don't see too many such developments on PCs. Maybe that's one of the directions such software should take? PCs offer a lot.

Another concept that comes to my mind - is a combination of chaos and harmony, where the harmony can be automated in a way, that it isn't becoming intrusive nor too simple nor non-detectable?

ayamahambho wrote:
Another concept that comes to my mind - is a combination of chaos and harmony, where the harmony can be automated in a way, that it isn't becoming intrusive nor too simple nor non-detectable?

I used to have a book on BASIC programming for the BBC Microcomputer which featured a program that generated totally randomised, yet clearly musical pieces in the baroque style. If I remember, it was done in a large part through probability analysis (perhaps formalizable in terms of Markov chains or some sort of finite automata). I think a lot of people would be into something like this that is easy to use, like a kind of über-arpeggiator. I can see this sort of thing being quite educational as well, in helping demonstrate the harmonic and melodic properties of particular intervals.

jamesabdulrahman wrote:
I used to have a book on BASIC programming for the BBC Microcomputer which featured a program that generated totally randomised, yet clearly musical pieces in the baroque style. If I remember, it was done in a large part through probability analysis (perhaps formalizable in terms of Markov chains or some sort of finite automata). I think a lot of people would be into something like this that is easy to use, like a kind of über-arpeggiator. I can see this sort of thing being quite educational as well, in helping demonstrate the harmonic and melodic properties of particular intervals.

I know something similar: http://codeminion.com/blogs/maciek/2008/05/cgmusic-computers-create-music/

I’ve also learned of David Robillard’s Machina (still in development): http://drobilla.net/software/machina/

This is very close to what I had in mind.