Your favorite sound designer?

[MirkoVanHauten]

Bigtone or Aiyn Zahev, Howard Scarr, sure. Unfortunately imo Manuel Schleis, Mirko Ruta, Kevin Schröder and such just sound the same no matter what synth or genre.

[surreal]

You know Guys ....I also wanna give a Shout Out and Appreciation to our own Sound Guru here at KVR ...Choos... thank you for your excellent sound design skills, time and service and you give us here at KVR.. you are definitely among the Best Here!!

[GMusic]

Also Jaap Visser, from Triple Spiral Audio.

Yes! Totally. Jaap’s work using nature recordings are phenomenal. His Fields expansion for Omnisphere is beautiful.

[UncleAge]

grain of salt...most of my exposure has come via u-he synths.

I don't just like pretty sounding presets I like ones that I can dissect and learn something. As such my list of sound designers that I seek out changes over time. Early on for me it was Michael Kastrup and his Zebra 2 presets that I learned a lot from. With that said, there are quite a few that I've learned from over the years. Lately the list looks like this (alphabetical order only):

BigTone
Enzalla
Michael Kastrup
Kyhon
Rob Papen
Eric Persing
Howard Scarr
Victor Weimer (TUC)

I am hoping this list grows.

[BONES]

This is like asking who my favourite checkout operator is at the local supermarket - sure, some are better than others but, at the end of the day, I'm just as happy using the self-serve checkout and doing it all myself because it's not such a difficult thing that I need someone to do it for me.

[GMusic]

This is like asking who my favourite checkout operator is at the local supermarket - sure, some are better than others but, at the end of the day, I'm just as happy using the self-serve checkout and doing it all myself because it's not such a difficult thing that I need someone to do it for me.

So I guess you are your favorite sound designer? That's fine

[mcnoone]

This is like asking who my favourite checkout operator is at the local supermarket - sure, some are better than others but, at the end of the day, I'm just as happy using the self-serve checkout and doing it all myself because it's not such a difficult thing that I need someone to do it for me.

That's not an appropriate equivalent.
Most cash registers are the same these days. Synthesizers are not. Some people know the synthesizer better than others and are more capable of finding its best features, secrets, and abilities, than others. It is more equal to an artist painting. Some people can paint better than others because they are more experienced than others at doing it. Yea sure, you can come in and draw your stickman and call it art. But a billion hack artists can draw stickmen, for every one that can paint a masterpiece.

There's also the idea of diversity in sounds, which one who never listens to other sounds from other designers, will be lacking in, due to a lack of exposure and influence from other sounds and designers of them.
It is analogous to one that lives in their own reality bubble. Never willing to see some other point of view. That person never learns or grows. They become stagnant, and so does their sounds.
Sound design is the equivalent of creating new instruments.

[Teksonik]

Unless you are the best sound designer on the planet and none of us in this thread are then you can benefit from the skills and talents of others.

Sure you make the sounds that fit your music best but then your music can become inbred....handcuffed by your own limitations.

For decades I have made my own patches and reach for them first since as I said they are obviously designed to fit the style of music I make but I'll use patches created by someone else in a heartbeat if I find them inspiring without the tiniest feeling of guilt.

Having said that one of my all time favorite sound designers although she seems to have disappeared is Ann Nolwenn.

http://ann.sounds.free.fr/

For active sounds designers Kevin Schroeder has to be at or near the top for me although there are many others as well whose work I find inspirational.

[Michael L]

I don't just like pretty sounding presets I like ones that I can dissect and learn something.

Yes.
For that reason, I vote for Patchpool because Simon included written notes with his Alchemy and Iris patches.

[BONES]

That's not an appropriate equivalent.

Of course it is. Both jobs are menial, requiring no special skills.

Some people know the synthesizer better than others and are more capable of finding its best features, secrets, and abilities, than others.

Rubbish. If you can patch one synth, you can patch any synth, except maybe a DX-7. You might have to RTFM but if you can't be bothered doing that, then I can't imagine you'd be willing to put enough effort into any other part of the production process, either.

It is more equal to an artist painting. Some people can paint better than others because they are more experienced than others at doing it.

No, it's more like mixing paints to get different colours. Painting itself would be more like performance, a finished painting being like a finished song.

There's also the idea of diversity in sounds, which one who never listens to other sounds from other designers, will be lacking in, due to a lack of exposure and influence from other sounds and designers of them.

Right, because we all go through our lives only listening to our own work.

Sound design is the equivalent of creating new instruments.

No it's f**king not and it is absolutely ridiculous that you'd think it was. Go and try to make your own instrument if you doubt me. Spend a month or two with SynthEdit and see what you come up with.

Unless you are the best sound designer on the planet and none of us in this thread are then you can benefit from the skills and talents of others.

This would be true if I was paying someone to work to a brief but in a broader sense it is pure hit and miss whether or not you will get any benefit from any individual synth programmer. I reckon my hit rate, when going through a bank of patches, probably averages out to about one good one for every 100 I preview.

Sure you make the sounds that fit your music best but then your music can become inbred....handcuffed by your own limitations.

Except that by doing it yourself you will get better over time - practice makes perfect. OTOH, if you just let everyone else do the work for you, you will never learn and grow and that is how you will stagnate.

[Synthack]

.......

[CLIOENLLAMAS]

Aubit has been making a really good work on his patches!

[awol9000]

Mikael Adle
Leap Into The Void
http://liv.mikaeladle.se/index.html

He's made me completely relook at synths and how they're used eg. performing with Massive macros.

[mcnoone]

Sound design is the equivalent of creating new instruments.

No it's f**king not and it is absolutely ridiculous that you'd think it was. Go and try to make your own instrument if you doubt me. Spend a month or two with SynthEdit and see what you come up with.

This took me about 3 hours in Hive.
This instrument cannot be heard in the real world, with any real world instrument.
This synthesizer sound cannot even be heard on another synthesizer, because it is unique to this synthesizer, and its exact settings, previous to it being created.
The plucked sound is only one aspect, that may be similar to a real world instrument, but that instrument would not be able to reproduce the velocity settings influencing tonal changes, and neither be able to replicate the modulation controls influence on the sound, which is a backwards recording effect. It's a unique instrument, and your assumption is refuted.
https://app.box.com/s/836jrn7oz6lpj0hbt3i8r9rsdwhfhc6w

[Michael L]

Some sound designers and DAWs (eg Logic) call their patches "instruments" particularly when they include an original audio sample.