I'm a "learn it myself" type of person, and I think it's partly because a lot structured/formal education is not great quality. That said, I'm a bit surprised (or not?) that people on KVR took the time to write tomes criticizing the OP for being interested in a structured/formal course on a subject, and "set him straight".

Really? If Howard Scarr did a course on sound design, that would be of no value? The problem with self-learning is that, while everything you need to know is easily available (true now for almost any subject thanks to the web), it's not always clear what's most important and in what order, and there's little feedback (soundcloud comments don't count for music - "Dope!" "I like ur beatz" ). A good formal course can help set you on the right path.

I think the reason there's little available for sound design is that it's somewhat of a niche - not that there aren't millions of people doing it, just maybe not at a level where a solid course would have a good return on investment.

Of course, you can get help on KVR. Just ask a question, and half of your peers can tell you why it was stupid.

[quote="JoeCat"]

KVR is great for technical questions imo, like how do you route this in Cubase or so on, or where can I find this kind of resource or who makes this kind of product, but rarely do people give detailed answers on sound design and provide examples patches etc.

It's not always straight forward to do so either.

I had some formal training in sound design and aesthetics back in the days when I was still planning to go into academia, before I discovered more fulfilling (aka lucrative) project management work. I found it HUGELY useful. My best tip for structured learning would be to learn various types of synthesis inside out at as low a level as you're comfortable and combine that with some reading on acoustics and psychoacoustics. Once you know how various objects actually generate sound and how we hear it, replicating sounds and imagining new sounds/transformations of existing sounds becomes a lot easier.

I think you said it pretty well with your own comment:



When you know the toolset inside out, making it do the things you want is that much easier.

Given your programming inclinations, how would learning a low-level system like Pure Data, Max/MSP, or even Reaktor appeal to you?

Having said all this, I'm perfectly confident with sound design, but I still can't mix to save my life.

Yeah, I like MaxForLive and Reaktor. In fact, I've got several MFL patches up on maxforlive.com

I'd really love to do a course on these platforms but, it's hard enough to find a course on basic subtractive synthesis.



Yes. This I can agree with. I think a lot of people get burned by formal education and then just don't want to touch it again. I can totally understand that. I haven't heard great stuff about the courses that are out there.

OK. You have to #$##ing do this course!

Go to:
https://www.coursera.org/courses

And search for "Introduction to sound design". It is awesome! Do it! It's free.

+1

Very good!

This guy is awesome. The kind of guy you'd love to have a coffee with!

Yeah, I had a lot of honey-tea with him today!
Looks like first part of the course is philosophical.
I will see next week...

If you watch a tutorial on Youtube and you learn something from it, then it's good.

There are thousands of good tutorials on Youtube.


And I literally cannot be bothered to prove it.

Thank you for this!

Well, I ordered the Rob Papen course, I will report back on how good it is.

As for formal education it can have it's place. I took a couple of courses at the local community college (mixing and music theory) and I think they were helpful. First you learn the theory, then you practice till you actually understand it.

I would like to hear all thoughts on it. I'm quite interested but can't find much in the way of real world reviews. There was the Ian Boddy commentary but it didn't sway me.

I've finished the first dvd (1 out of 4) and so far I've definitely learned some stuff. In particular some of the stuff on pulse modulation, and hard synch. Also, some good points on problems with multi oscilators in base.


In the DVD he covers a number of different synths, but his main one is predator. I went ahead and purchased that so I could follow along. I'm trying to watch the DVD then try the lesson, so I remember it better.

Anyway, so far so good, of course depending on your knowledge you will get less or more out of it.

I'm familiar with synths, but definitely learning


On too DVD 2!

Surprisingly this is an amazing course. This is a great place to begin with. Lots of resources throughout.

Yeah, it's been pretty good (finishes this week). It didn't go into great depth, but it's a good intro, quite inspiring and there are lots of useful links & jumping off points supplied. The 'comunity' involved with the course (48000 students!) has been pretty interesting too (apart from the obesssing over the tests), Steve Everett is an engaging speaker (you've just got to ignore the throat clearing...).