Synthesizer sound design pdf Continue Just over 3 years ago, I was a complete beginner. I struggled to create sounds that I loved and heard in my favorite songs. Since then I have become comfortable with sound design and have a strong understanding of this - to the point where designing sounds has become a big part of income and allows me to feed my family by doing what I love. Getting there wasn't easy, but it was fun and well worth the investment time. A good sound design is at the heart of any successful recording. Therefore, it is extremely important that you, as a manufacturer, understand the basics of sound synthesis and sound design. This will not only help you with designing sounds, but also improve your mixing and understanding of signal flow and processing. All that aside - sound design is also just incredibly fun to experiment with, so learning sound design is worth your time! In this tutorial I will cover 10 fundamental topics that will help you develop a basic understanding of sound design. I will also provide some useful resources that were a huge help to me when I was just starting out in the world of sound design. Oscillators and Five Major WaveformsThe ADSR Envelope ExplainedFiltersFiltersModulationLFOMonophonic and PolyphonicUnison and DetuneHow to make PluckKa how to make PadHow to do leadHow, How to Make Reese BassThe Best Way to Practice Sound DesignThe five major Waveforms In almost any synth you'll have access to the following five basic wave forms: SineTriangleSquare/PulseSawNoiseI recommend listening to each of these sound waves and taking a mental note of the characteristics. Sinus wave is a very pure sound, it has no harmonics, only one fundamental - think of the heart rate monitor will be a beep, beep, beep. The triangular wave has a similar sound to the sinus wave, but it has some added harmonics - think of the flute. The square wave is packed with harmonics and has a sound resembling an 8-bit video game. Saw Wave is rich in harmonics and has a rather coarse and sharp sound to it - some words that come to mind - sandy and buzzing. The noise of completely random frequencies spread across the spectrum and sounds like TV or radio that were not configured - TSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Noise is extremely useful for sound engineers and can be used to do anything from cottons, to Sweeps, to Hi-Hats to add top-end synths and loads more. The ADSR ExplainedADSR envelope means attack, disintegration, support and liberation. We use the ADSR envelope to control the amplitude of our wave shape over time. When we press the key on our synth, the very first stage that works is the Attack stage.The attack will control the amount of time it takes the sound to reach its peak volume level when pressed Think of the piano, when you press the key you instantly hear the sound, which means that the attack is on 0.What about about You press the key on the sound pad, it can take 2 seconds for the sound to reach its maximum volume. In this case, the attack will be set for 2 seconds. Here's an example of a short attackHere sound being an example of a long Next stage sound that works when we press The Decay.Decay. Decay is the amount of time it takes the sound to reduce the volume to The Sustain level.If the support is set at maximum, then the decay parameter will have no effect on the sound and becomes obsolete. Here's an example of sound with a short decayHere is an example of a sound with a long decay Sustain is the level that the sound will stay while we hold the key down and the break-up stage is over. Here's an example of a sound with maximum sustainHere is an example of a sound with low sustainRelease is the amount of time it takes for the sound to reduce the volume until it is silent. This stage starts only after we release the key. Here's an example of a sound with a short releaseHere is an example of sound with a long releaseFiltersLow PassHigh PassBand PassNotchThink filters like the tongue and lips of your synth. We can move them up, down and around to form our sounds so they appear ahead and loud or push them back into the mix. There are a ton of different filters available in today's popular synths such as serum and massive. But I'll go for a few basic filters that will be enough to make almost any sound that you can think of. Low pass filter - removes all frequencies that are above the cutoff point. Most commonly used to rip off, pads, leads and basses. High Pass filter - removes all frequencies below the cutoff point. It is most commonly used for growls, and other sounds that need a vowel character. Band Pass - Removes frequencies that are above and below the cut-off. Great for sweep effects and in some cases leads. Notch - Scoops from frequencies at the cutoff point. Good for creating distorted bass sounds. Modulation Is Modulation As using one thing to control the movement of another. With modulation, we usually use an ADSR or LFO envelope (explained below) and match it to another parameter like volume, step or cut-off filter. Here's an example of a saw wave with a Low Pass filter on it, a low pass Filter Cutoff is being modulated by the ADSR Envelope to create a nice little WUB sound. LFOLFO means low-frequency oscillator. It's really just an oscillator that is played a lot slower than usual and then gets used to modulating other parameters such as pitch, volume, filter cutting, etc. The easiest way to think about LFO is to think about an ADSR envelope that isn't limited in stages once the key gets the entire form of the LFO cycles through on repeat until you release the key. LFO LFO good for creating rhythms, or things that require repetitive movements like vibrato, or make dubstep growl that constantly changes. Here's an example of the Sine Wave LFO used to modulate the pitch saw Wave.Monophony and PolyphonyMost synths will give you a choice between mono and poly. It just dictates how many notes can be played at the same time. Mono, that is one, and poly, which means a few. So if you create lead and don't want the notes to overlap, the mono will work. However, if you create a patch that will play chords you will need a polyphonic synth. Unison and DetuneUnison this number of votes the oscillator will put out. If you have a saw wave and set unison to 2 - when you press the key down the synth will put out 2 saw waves both on the same field. They're called voices. If you played a chord with 3 notes and 2 voices unison synth would output a total of 6 waves, 2 for each key that is pressed. Most synths tend to offer unison in values 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. However, the new synths and many of them you will use will offer up to 32 voices per oscillator. Remember how I said that increasing unison would cause the synth to pull multiple waves on the same field? Well, there is another parameter called detune that will shift the pitch of each voice a bit so that they are all out of tune with each other. The further you press detune, the more the synth timbre becomes dissonance. A large number of Unison combined with Detune is the basis for sounds like the very common Supersaw.Unison and Detune can also be used to make sounds wide. If the synth you use has a width parameter, it can do nothing until you feed it some unison and detune. The serum, for example, is configured to be broad by default, but will play everything back in mono until you zoom in unison and detune, or add effects to it. Here is an example of a saw with 16 unison votes and a generous detune. Notice how the sound spreads really wide as we increase unison and detune. We can also use detune to create a pulsating effect, here is a saw wave with 2 voices unison that are tuned until we hear the pulsating effect. Let's create some common sounds... PluckCommonly called Deadmau5 pluck. Follow this process, to create Deadmau5 pluckSet both oscillators to have seen waves, both with 4-16 voices unison and a little detuneEnable low pass filterMap ADSR envelope to filter cutoffSet attack 0Set maintain 0Set decay about 200-700ms depending on how long you want to pluckThe release can be set at 0 as it will have no impact on the sound due to maintenance time how do I set the breakup after sustaining it's because set to max by default, so that the breakup adjustment before maintenance will not produce any changes Sound. I always want to listen to the changes I make. If the steady setting of your synth is set at 0 by default, then by all means, you can customize your breakup first. PadThe steps to build a base pad are as follows: Set oscillators to saw waves with high unison and detuneEnable low pass filterSet clippings of about 600-800 Hz or just until you hear all the harshness disappearSet your attack about 1.5s or longer if the desiredgrid your Sustainset is about halfway through your decay about 1sSet your release about 1sAsign envelope we just created and make sure the amount of modulation is very low, so the clipping only moves a very slightlyAdd generous amount of reverb with a long decay and large room size and try other effects such as delay, phasers, flangers, chorus, etc.