A couple months ago I started putting together a series of workshop videos on sound design and synth programming. The concept is that I pick a sound from one of my commercial libraries, break it down into its components, and explain in depth (and I mean in. depth.
) what makes it tick and how everything comes together in order to achieve the sound that I wanted. The series is aimed at intermediate to advanced sound designers and anyone who wants to get more serious about synth programming; in these first couple episodes I've been using Zebra 2, although I'm trying to keep things synth-agnostic and explain stuff in a generalized way whenever possible.I'm stoked to let you know that as of today episode 3, which wraps up the initial three-parter, is up on YouTube:
This one has me putting the cherry on top of the synth pad sound that I'd started two episodes ago in the shape of a dazzling "fairy dust" layer of aleatoric sparkles. This layer is a bit more tricky than the ones before and makes use of a couple of Zebra's features in slightly unorthodox ways, which made this episode a bit more Zebra-specific than the others; but I like to think that there's still a whole bunch of sound design nuggets in there that'll be interesting to anyone who's making sounds with bits or electrons, and I'm also taking the opportunity to go into some more detail about my personal approach to planning and mapping out more complex sounds.
So if you're in the mood for some synth geekery these days, grab a drink, sit back and join me for a session of (virtual) knob twiddling and physics musing. Hope you enjoy the show, and if you do, please share!
