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  #1  
Old 06-18-2006, 05:47 AM
D_Whiz D_Whiz is offline
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Default Sound Design

We do a lot of Sound Design for film in India where its a constant fight to deviate from the traditional technique of lifting sounds from CD and such archived content.

Having just finished working on what has been one of my toughest projects yet where a lot of sounds had to be concepted and developed I still very constrained and limited in comparision to some of the designers like Gary Rydstrom, Walter Murch and the many more who have been an inspiration.

I am at a point where I want to setup sequencers and samplers for design..... Pointers, advice, help?
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  #2  
Old 06-18-2006, 08:06 AM
Charles Deenen Charles Deenen is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design


it seems you're in a world where you want to do design, but still need to do fast turn-around, pretty much my same world.
I've found using soundminer that I'm designing a lot inside of soundminer before transferring to protools. It's fast to make new elements etc. Also, there are so many really cool -free- sound design plugins available in VST that it's also much cheaper in the longer run.

cheers
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  #3  
Old 06-18-2006, 08:30 PM
D_Whiz D_Whiz is offline
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Default Sound Design

Work anywhere in the world is such especially for sound where everything is needed yesterday. I just finished work on what I would term as India's first sci-fi film "KRRISH". Its the first time that a Production has given me 20 weeks for Post.

Stemming from out of this film were so many handicaps in the realm of design that I want to plug and be better prepared for coming into the next feature. Also not a lot of the studio technicians use tools for design and most of what i keep asking for or telling them bounces off of their heads.

I should setup up Soundminer and check it out. I am also thinking of using a Virus, Bruno/Reso, Koblo.

At the same time I have setup Nuendo and have load of VST's in there. Now its time to get a keyboard like the Oxygen (wish I could have a Synclavier like Gary R - and yet I dont know if I would be able to deliver, like having a Maybech and crashing it into the wall)
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  #4  
Old 06-19-2006, 07:24 AM
FajitaTone FajitaTone is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

I use Kontakt at work and I have an AKAI-s6000 and Korg Triton Studio at home. Samplers are the way to go. If you can afford a Kyma/Cappybara rig, that is THE ultimate sampler/sound design tool. Look at Meta-Synth as a stand alone sound manipulation tool as well. Plug-ins like GRM Tools and the Sound Toys bundle are a blessing. Good luck in Bollywood!
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  #5  
Old 06-19-2006, 10:49 AM
sidereal-studios sidereal-studios is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

I'll second the MetaSynth suggestion. I've gotten sounds out of that software that are absolutely amazing. Stay away from Koblo. Is that even still around?

Within Pro Tools, I've been using Cakewalk's Rapture as an RTAS instrument track plug-in recently and it's a great texturizer. It has some interesting patches for building those great intensification sounds that lie somewhere between FX and music.
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  #6  
Old 06-19-2006, 01:34 PM
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minister minister is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

the suggestion of Soundminer is a good one. there are people, including myself, who still us Gallery's mTools. for me, it is fine. but, most would recommend soundminer.

but that is not all of what you are asking. you seem to be bemoaning the, what i call, "hit and run" technique of sound design. like Col. Kilgore tossing playing cards onto dead bodies.

look, people like walter murch do a lot of thinking. this should get you thinking too. you need to dig into the film and develop your own ways of thinking about the sound. what atmospheres will you use and why. hey, even though technically they were not fantastic, satyajit ray had some conceptually effective soundtracks. buying a bunch of new toys and plug-ins may help, but there is a lot you can do even if the money is tight, just be ingenius, and unique!

use some recording gear and record ALL of your own sounds : backgrounds, effects, foley. listen for unusual things that you can find in shops, second-hand stores, on the street, around the house, in someone's workplace. pull out that old analog machine for all kinds of games that you can't play with digital. dig deeper into the tools you already have. PEAK has a built in convolve function; use a convolution reverb in an unusual way; get free plug-ins like Tape-Head; explore the plug-ins and pull out those old digital boxes that you already have. experiement with them. find new ways of using them. use them "wrong". record with tubes and buckets on the mic. think metaphorically. put in sounds that fit conceptually but do not match concretely.

designing is a state of mind, not contest of how many toys you have.

reember, walter murch did "american graffitti" in mono.

(that said, i can be a snob about using good gear. my ears hear the difference and i love using the best. so start with a Sound Devices unit and some Schoeps or Sanken or DPA microphones and collect your own stuff)

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  #7  
Old 06-20-2006, 12:18 AM
martian martian is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

Quote:


designing is a state of mind, not contest of how many toys you have.

reember, walter murch did "american graffitti" in mono.

(that said, i can be a snob about using good gear. my ears hear the difference and i love using the best. so start with a Sound Devices unit and some Schoeps or Sanken or DPA microphones and collect your own stuff)


you might already have all the tools you need.

Think you would have got reason with ya PT rig - which includes a smapler , and miscellaneous FX units - eq's delays etc... MIDI map a control surface to this and you literally can play the sounds realtime - capture the ones you want thru rewire....

Or you can go for more murchesque solution - like the worldizing as he called it of american gratti sound track - whereby he played tape thru all sorts of speakers and recorded it back...

I think you can go too far with gear snobbery - but this is the DUC afterall alot of the best moments in sound design were mono and on optical.... worrying about whether you door close is 24 bit and 192K and from a 5.1 library is obviously detracting form the real issue which is that if you are doing your job the viewer isn't really aware of it.

it really is a state of mind - you need to look at the screen - what is your character hearing - just because you see a car pass wouldn't necessarily mean you need to hear exactly the sound of a car going past... If fact you can really play with people here - if a sound is in sync with onscreen movement you may move from real to abstract very easily - I would love to do a sci fi film btw..

Having worked on a lot of Chinese movies - both new and old I suspect that there is a cultural difference - we are all in fluenced by our childhoods and what we are constantly consuming - so if you watch a lot of poorly dubbed cheaply mixed shows from childbirth to adult and then decide to become a movie director your expectations of sound may not be as high..

Regarding indian cinema - and I did a documentary last year on bollywood ( sunset bollywood ) it some had really terrific music - and mixed levels of sound design - altho I was looking at stuff going back 30 or more years - I think it may be like hong kong where standards vary widely - and is related to budget - more specifically the length of time given.

20 weeks sounds like a good schedule !

try and enjoy it!

If you need any sounds consider looking at and contributing to freesound

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php

who knows if you ask something may show up.
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  #8  
Old 06-20-2006, 08:51 PM
D_Whiz D_Whiz is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

Tom for most of the production mixes we use the DEVA recorder clubbed with a mix of the Schoeps/Sanken/Nuemann/DPA/Senheisser situational dependent. Cooper and the Sound devices are at my disposal too. A lot of the run of the mill stuff gets recorded apart from the wild, wierd, the sounds crazy but i can use it somewhere stuff.

I think my post got a little misdirected and I am totally responsible. Well I started out with this post because I want to explore the use of s/w for Sound design and get input from people on the forum.

My deviation from the above point was a sound editors complaint i guess anywhere in the world.... tough time frames, budgets, quality, blah, blah, blah


Though its like mom repeating the same thing over and over, i think its also great we keep reminding ourselves about the basics, it about the film and not about the tools and I agree totally. Also since most people like me remind Walter Murch for the obvious yes it is notable to remember the era when Mono sound was prevalent. I grew up and worked in the Digital era where dubber and multi-tracks were phasing out and mono sound was for the insane. Yet at time when I look back and watch some of those films it always amazes me, they got all that sound out of 1 Channel.

Yes we do Sound Visualize our scenes to give it a charachter and a definition. We have a problem getting a film-maker on the same page some time because he is so used to standard stereo types, but heck we keep trying like dogs with crooked tails.
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  #9  
Old 06-21-2006, 06:36 AM
Sonsey Sonsey is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

My favourite sound design tool

And it's free... Classic mode only though...
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  #10  
Old 06-21-2006, 07:30 AM
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minister minister is offline
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Default Re: Sound Design

baylon,

alright i understand.... and we all uynderstand time constraints....

here are two other ideas -- toys, really, but useful at times.

PLUGGO

SOUNDHACK
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