Creating your own sounds PT3

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Strange Fruit

Sound can be found anywhere. Just walking around with a pocket recorder turned up and listening can be a great way to find interesting new sound. Try walking around the house with headphones on and sticking the mic in different areas. Keep a keen ear out for interesting frequencies.

What are some other interesting sources to sample that you have just around the house???

Let’s start in one of the more acoustically interesting places of a house, the bathroom.

First and foremost is the bathtub. It has a huge range of sounds that can be found from this shape. And don’t forget the shower head. Using mallets against the tub with varied amounts of water in the tub. Continue reading →

Creating your own sounds pt2 (Source your sounds)

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Source your Sounds

Some Ideas for basic sound design are starting with not just where the sounds are going to be coming from but HOW they come from that sound. As an example say you want a nice round organic thumping kick sound. So you decide a nice car tire will do the job. This is a great place to start but where do I record the sound at to get that real thump? Try different techniques such as placing a mic behind the tire close to the middle of the rubber on the side wall to get the reverberating 808 style sub bass. And if then mic up the tread to get the higher smacking sound as you hit the tire with various instruments, a rubber hammer, your palm, a drum stick, a wooden spoon, a piece of metal rot iron. Etc. once you have these sounds you can take them into your DAW or sampler and layer the sounds on top of each other. Make sure to pay attention to the phase of the sounds so that you don’t cancel out your bass waves.

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NAMM speculations!

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[polldaddy poll=6758289]

With NAMM fast approaching I thought I would toss up some speculative polls to see what you all thought might show it’s face at NAMM this year?

there Is A LOT of speculation this year.

are you heading to NAMM? let me know (I’m still trying to obtain my pass for this year!)

Creating your own sounds Pt1

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All your drums are belong to us.

Ok so you’re about to drop a cool $300 on some new sample set that has about 300 new drums in it, seems like a deal right? Hmmmm not so fast.
For that same $300 you could get yourself a great portable digital recorder and actually make an infinite number of your own custom sounds. Allowing you to break out of the norm and finally have some sounds that no one else has. The added value to this is that once you learn to create your own sounds you can better understand what it is about commercial libraries that set the ho hum from the amazing. This will allow you to better spend your money in the future on sound sets that are actually valuable to you. So you’re wondering if you have enough proper knowledge to create your own sound set. Well that’s half the fun. This should be a learning experience, an opportunity for your knowledge of sound to really expand and translate into your music. Mistakes are not always a bad thing unless you don’t learn from them and there is only one way to gain Experience.
Creating Drums of your own should mean creating a signature sound of your own. Some drums are not meant to be used over and over. Sometimes it’s just good to have a signature sound all your own for just that specified moment. Don’t get to hung up on perfect, worry more about YOUR sound.

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