KVR Audio

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:42 pm

NewSc2 wrote:I think I've come to see is the "atmosphere" part of the drone is what I don't get. The airy, moving top end you get in a lot of ambient/soundscape patches. I've tried adding noise to my sounds but it isn't the same. Maybe these are artifacts from the stretch, or characteristic of weird filters and resonators? Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Not sure if this is what you mean, but I get this characteristic from a reverb with lots of movement in the tail end of the reflections, maybe some subtle saturation on top of that.

vespers75 · Post by **vespers75** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:12 pm

NewSc2 wrote:I think I've come to see is the "atmosphere" part of the drone is what I don't get. The airy, moving top end you get in a lot of ambient/soundscape patches. I've tried adding noise to my sounds but it isn't the same. Maybe these are artifacts from the stretch, or characteristic of weird filters and resonators? Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Yeah...

Aside from the stretching, pitch-shifting, excessive reverb, blah, blah, blah, that has already been mentioned...these guys are missing something here: convolution.

Not with standard reverb impulse responses, but with wavs and special effect IRs.

(I guess after the Justin Beiber/paulstretch hoax, dark ambient is going to be the 'in thing' for the next few months

)

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:15 pm

vespers75 wrote:I guess after the Justin Beiber/paulstretch hoax, dark ambient is going to be the 'in thing' for the next few months

So this is our big chance for X-Factor/Idol glory, then? Our time has come...

vespers75 · Post by **vespers75** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:18 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:So this is our big chance for X-Factor/Idol glory, then? Our time has come...

Yeah, we can fit one, or perhaps two of our tracks into our 15 minutes of fame.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:21 pm

"American Ichor XXX Factory"

JediMind · Post by **JediMind** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:33 pm

I would like to add arcDev Cyclotron to what has been said so far. I found it extremely useful, especially if you have some sort of X-Y controller.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 6:54 pm

JediMind wrote:I would like to add arcDev Cyclotron to what has been said so far. I found it extremely useful, especially if you have some sort of X-Y controller.

That brings up another good point. Control. Sure, you could draw automation in your DAW, but that's for nerds.

Real men (and women) use some weird controllers. I mentioned it before, but it's really the best bang for the buck.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GOOD-CONDITION-ESSE ... 495wt_1003

It takes some time to set it up, but there are drivers that convert it's output to OSC which Reaktor natively understands.

I'd also like to point out the value of a store like Lark In The Morning or other "exotic" import style stores. The instruments are rarely professional condition, but if you buy their low end stuff it's very usable as sound sources for what we're talking about. Keep your eyes and ears open. I even find great stuff in Halloween stores that pop up next month. I once got these things that are basically cylinders with drum skins on one side hooked to long thin springs. We used them once in an ambient "unplugged" show we did and they were prefect. Sound effector toys are good too sometimes. I have these weird ones that have some samples but also voice effect things and if you manipulate your hands right you can get them to feed back on themselves in amazing ways.

Brickwall Audio · Post by **Brickwall Audio** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:49 am

I might know of a little something to get you where you want!

vespers75 · Post by **vespers75** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:29 pm

Brickwall Audio wrote:I might know of a little something to get you where you want!

I think the OP is wanting to learn how to do such sound design himself, though.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:37 pm

vespers75 wrote:
Brickwall Audio wrote:I might know of a little something to get you where you want!
I think the OP is wanting to learn how to do such sound design himself, though.

Rule 1 of pimping a product ; its always relevant to pimp the product...

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 5:55 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:
vespers75 wrote:I guess after the Justin Beiber/paulstretch hoax, dark ambient is going to be the 'in thing' for the next few months
So this is our big chance for X-Factor/Idol glory, then? Our time has come...

spangly robes?

NewSc2 · Post by **NewSc2** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:39 pm

A_SN wrote:
NewSc2 wrote:See the thing with PaulStretch (I have it) is the semi-unpredictable results. It sounds cool and all, I would just prefer to have more control over sounds. More often than not I'm hit-or-missing with PaulStretch or similar sound-manipulation techniques.

Comb-filtering does sound like a good trick... I have Komplete (v5), and have messed around with Absynth, although its envelopes and modulations kind of weird me out. Absynth doesn't look too difficult, it just doesn't seem very intuitive.

I think I've come to see is the "atmosphere" part of the drone is what I don't get. The airy, moving top end you get in a lot of ambient/soundscape patches. I've tried adding noise to my sounds but it isn't the same. Maybe these are artifacts from the stretch, or characteristic of weird filters and resonators? Anybody know what I'm talking about?

In the meantime, I'll look into Alchemy.
Just a wild stab in the dark, maybe it's amplified harmonics, like, a bunch of harmonics really high up?

how would I best get amplified high harmonics? Saturate/distortion + HPF or low shelf eq cut?

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 1:39 am

I like Alchemy, Gleetchlab, I use some of the NI stuff with Kore, KT Granulator, a bunch of delays and reverbs, some spectral plugins, varispeed, time stretch, etc... found this last night and it's pretty cool:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... &start=105

i also like to use some of the generator apps like autoglew, om green player, and grain main frame is really cool (made by a kvr'er). process to death and call it a day.

now to read this thread top to bottom and pick up some new tricks.

MolotovSound · Post by **MolotovSound** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:28 am

NewSc2 wrote: I think I've come to see is the "atmosphere" part of the drone is what I don't get. The airy, moving top end you get in a lot of ambient/soundscape patches. I've tried adding noise to my sounds but it isn't the same. Maybe these are artifacts from the stretch, or characteristic of weird filters and resonators? Anybody know what I'm talking about?

In the meantime, I'll look into Alchemy.

Comb filtering will get you what you want. The thing is that most natural noisy sources have a lot of movement and modulation in it, but don't sound very musical. A comb filter can make it tonal but retains the natural movement of the sound. Don't be afraid of heavy filtering, if not even brickwall filtering (extremely steap cutoff) after the comb filter, it can be very full-range.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:42 am

one word: Absynth.

Advanced dark soundscape design?