Analysis of S5E03: Audeka – Advanced Sound Design

DAW used: FL Studio
Topic: sound design, granular synthesis, field recording, workflow, bass design
 
The video is 45 minutes of Skyler from Audeka experimenting with a field recording, and a few extra elements, including designing a reece bass in FM8. There are stretches in the video where he is just testing out parameters, not much commentary during those portions. The sketch is a 100 BPM piece, and the sound design techniques shown would translate easily to dnb and other genres. His aim is to demonstrate an unorthodox sound, and he references the work of an artist named Murcof (soundcloud.com/murcof-martes/). Skyler wants to evoke cool imagery with his sounds.
 
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WATCH NOTES

01:30 – loaded into FL Granulizer the sound of a chair scrapping across the ground, which he first normalized and checked for “cool harmonics”
• Starts with adjusting the grain spacing of the sound.
• Basic info on FL Granulizer: https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/plugins/Fruity%20Granulizer.htm
• Basic info on granular synthesis: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/granular-synthesis
• Logic X’s Alchemy synth has granular synthesis as one of its available functions
• In Bitwig, there are the Christen Vogel demos that have a few examples of chains built to do granular synthesis using the native sampler plug-in
• There are free and paid plug-in options as well
• Paulstretch could be a good option, although I think I read it’s more of a FFT process than granular synthesis. Somewhere mentioned Audacity can function as a stripped down version of Paulstretch as well

02:20 – idea of modulating grain spacing can create other vibrations in the sound, thus creating additional tones or expression of a waveform
 
03:55 – settles on a sound, moves on to processing, starting with distortion using FabFilter Saturn (a multi-band distortion unit).
• Rest of the chain goes: FL Vocodex -> Fruity EQ 2 -> Fruity Reverb -> a 2nd FF Saturn
 
06:20 – decides the sound at this point could sound cool if repeated, begins experimenting
 
08:20 – EQ before distortion looked at
• “The more sound you can pump in to the low end sometimes it makes the way the whole sound behaves interesting.”
 
09:10 – using FF Saturn to explain multi-band distortion
• Instances of distorting everything versus just a particular frequency band, depends on your goal for the sound
 
11:00 – added a synth kick to test out an idea
 
13:00 – getting a sense of a bassline
• Uses a sine bass to test out ideas here
 
15:45 – testing out “what does it sound like with no low end”
• Does a bounce to get a version that still has the low end
 
18:20 – more work on the sub, to mimic the pattern of the granulized sound
 
25:00 – trying out sidechaining on the beat
 
27:00 – exploring other field recordings
 
33:00 – trying to add a reece bass using FM8
• Can follow along and try to recreate the patch.
• At 36:00 he puts out a question as to how you can loop the envelope applied to the filter. I guess sort of like a custom drawn LFO?
 
43:15 – decides the reece did not fit the sketch, but it was an example of designing a bass patch in FM8
 
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THOUGHTS & QUESTIONS
• Seems like a great way to generate a lot of ambient textures, although the idea & practice of creating rhythmic material is probably a key attribute of this tutorial, and something to experiment with. Personally, not sure if this is something big to add to my work, but worth exploring.
 
• The sounds are interesting at times, I particular like the sweeps created and some of the sound that is like guttural voices chattering. At one point the sketch made me think of Mass Effect 1 and the dance club on the main space station. Disclaimer: I do not play many video games nowadays.

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Next analysis I’ll be doing will be S1E06: Amoss – Inspired Sound Design, which might compliment this month’s tutorial. Also, S1E03: Hybris – Creative Percussion accompanies this month’s tutorial as well if you are looking for ideas using foley sounds creatively.