Week one of Sound Design and Synthesis focused on the Fundamentals of Synthesis like the three elements of sound being Pitch, Timbre and Volume and how each of the seven different types of synthesisers manipulates each of the three elements and the original sound. I actually have previous experience with the Helm synth application before and I had it on my laptop prior to commencing this unit of study so I am familiar with the different type of waveforms that relate to subtractive synthesisers. This week also had a quiz based around the knowledge of synthesisers. I found a few of the questions easy but I was challenged by a lot of the questions as even though I have used synthesisers before I never knew how they actually worked.
This week I also set up all of my Pro Tools sessions need for the submission of my assessments. I then begun to work on my Sine Wave Assessment. I started by creating the 1 kHz Sine Wave and isolating a single cycle of the wave. I then used this to create the 4 tracks I made this week (Kick, Bass, Hi Hat and Snare). I added a SansAmp and a Lo-Fi to the Kick track to give it a little meaty feel and added some variation to the kick every 4th bar to keep it interesting. I then went to work on the snare, I added the same two plugins to this track but modified them slightly to create a snare rattle. I then sent the output to an Aux track which has a reverb on it to give it a even greater snare feel which pops. I also gave this track variation every 4th bar as well. Working on the Hi Hat, I didn’t want to make a traditional hi hat, I wanted to give it a bit of a wooden feel so I modified the Air Kill EQ and the talk box plugins to create this sound. I then added a delay to create a tiny bit of a roll effect with each hit of the note. I also lined up the variation in the hi hat with the Kick track so it adds to the complexity of the overall production. Finally, I begun work on the Bass. This track was the hardest I found to work on this week and it will probably need more work in the following weeks to come. I made a beat that fits in with the other tracks and used a SansAmp to create a sort of 8 bit, video game feel which is where I want this production to basically end up. I then added a Multi Chorus to create a Dynamic feel.
I definitely feel I have made a strong start to this assignment and I think it only becoming a stronger submission as the weeks go on.
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