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Sound design courses
Any advice on the best sound-design courses online to shape any sound? Paid courses are fine. Not looking for university/academic/long-term courses.
TIA
Comments
If you mean synths, check out the Syntorial app. Bunch of lessons for free, tons more for a fee.
If you mean studio production, I will have to think about it. None come to mind yet.
I’d second syntorial, I checked it out for curiosity and was impressed and it gets lots of high praise from folks learning synths. I think knowing what the knobs do and how it all works is one thing, it’s another thing to use that knowledge to make cool sounds, that’s the art part. Unfortunately I never found a course that touched upon that. But maybe there are some now
Syntorial. Try for free, buy if you like it!
Im a fan
To shape ANY sound, learn how the controls interact on your instrument and tweak them systematically.
In the meantime read SYNTH SECRETS
Unless you’re learning to read music, wanting theory, or interested in the science behind music (which of course is not what you’re asking), I have never found an educational music source that is more valuable than just spending time fiddling and experimenting. That even goes for the Synth Secrets series posted above and any other intro to synthesizers. Those I found more helpful in reinforcing my discoveries after my own amateur-ish fiddling.
Like anything else, it’s something that takes time and curiosity to ‘learn’, or rather to form your own ideas about shaping sounds and finding complements. Unlike most anything else, I think it’s best in the long term to learn willy-nilly at your own pace. Of course, you may be different. Either way, good luck!
Definitely Syntorial. It’s well worth the money if you want to learn.
For a complete beginner to understand what oscillators are, what a filter is, what ADSR means and all of the basics, there are some dated but excellent videos done by minor pop star Dean Friedman at the New York School of Synthesis. These are free to watch (3 hours total):
Not strictly necessary if you’re doing the whole Syntorial course, though.
Also, it’s worth considering the various online educational video companies. There are a few. If you have an hour a day to devote to learning, you can get through a lot with a one month pass. I was frustrated with the hit-and-hope usefulness of YouTube, so ended up subscribing to ask video for a year for about $80 on a deal, and I’m happy that it’s a good investment.
There’s so much to learn!
I can highly recommend this book...
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Design-Expressive-Effects-Cinema/dp/0941188264
It has lots to say about how our brains are influenced by the things that we hear and offers plenty of tips on how to get different emotional responses through the use of sound.
free on youtube. not just this playlist, but all of dubspot content is very helpful.
Thanks to all for your replies and ideas!
I know music and theory - the contemporary folk song I posted on YouTube 10 days ago got 100+K views (however, I don't like my patch in this song
):
I also know a bit about Oscillators, Waveforms, ADSR, Filter, etc. that I learnt on Udemy, YT and can tweak sounds a bit. So far, I was tweaking mostly presets as a head-start (too much time wasted on browsing through them) to shape my own. I want to be an expert at shaping any sound from scratch and learn sound-design rapidly rather than spend a lot of time learning on my own. I couldn't find much on sound-design on Udemy and Busy Works Beats did not respond to my request to put their courses on Udemy. YT videos are scattered and not structured. I have multiple apps and a JD-Xi but haven't explored a lot on designing sounds from scratch.
Syntorial - this is perfect! With a built-in proprietary synth (that can also be used as IAA or through Audiobus without limitations) - as an iPad app with locally downloaded video content (no Wi-Fi necessary), challenges, group challenges, hints, quizzes, on-your-own tasks, etc. for each lesson - this is a dream! Going by how they designed their challenges, quizzes, multi-user profiles, send score, favorites, user-presets, etc. obviously, Joe Hanley (the programmer, musician and teacher) knows how to build a cool app and also teach - it came out of his own frustration for a missing app gap like this in the market. Comes with 23+ hours free downloadable lessons on various other synths (Serum, Massive, Sylenth, Z3TA+2, Voyager, etc) - in addition to the 199 Essential lessons pack. They could add just one more lesson and call it 200-pack! Mac and PC versions are included in the purchase along with a desktop VST/AU plugin - Primer.
At $129, this awards-winning Kickstarter app is a bit expensive (SwarPlug app is $99 bucks). It goes on sale for about $80 at times and I heard about student discount of 50%. Maybe, they priced it at $129 so they could make about $100 from each sale after Apple's cut. It might have cost them a lot of time and money to build the app with a built-in synth and content and they need to keep their lights on from sales and also keep their investors happy. As per other reviewers, the structure, build-up, classroom-style guidance and video-based ear-training are worth it (64 synth parameters to tweak and 700+ patches to program by the end) - compared to buying apps just for preset sound libraries.
https://www.syntorial.com
https://www.syntorial.com/learn-more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntorial
http://www.youtube.com/user/Syntorial1/videos
https://www.google.com/search?q=syntorial+review
Not sure how I missed this app all these years. Either Syntorial needs to do more marketing or I need to frequent myself much more on online music forums
I'll definitely check out other resources you all have mentioned.
Just tweak and listen. It's about learning the interaction of controls versus sounds.
Enable only one oscillator, then one filter and one envelope generator to begin with, then play around with these until you feel that you're able to realise the new sound you've got in your head. I've learned it that way, but it takes time, no matter if you follow a tutorial or just play around for yourself.
Youtube does host a lot of synth tutorials as well.
If you spend enough time, you'll definitely be surprised how few different synth apps you really need to get 99% of your dream sounds.
I was surprised myself how close I could get to Moog's new Model D with Arturia's iMini - not necessarily with the same knob settings of course
Sound Design for the Electronic Musician Online Course by Berklee authored by David Mash and Michael Bierylo on the website
I'm considering an assistant audio engineer internship position in a local Roswell agency. But I'm not sure about my level of proficiency - should I take up some free courses at Udemy, Coursera or Lynda perhaps? Is the Sound Design for the Electronic Musician Online Course by Berklee worth it? Has anyone tried it?
Edit: I have a BA in Sound Design at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
I picked this up a few months ago, and think it’s pretty solid and in depth.
https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Sounds-Scratch-Practical-Synthesis-ebook/dp/B01MT3UWAM/