Sound design is the bridge between what you want to produce and how it actually comes out, so definitely a skill you want to make sure to master…
4 THOUGHTS FROM ME
1. Train your sound design skills by recreating presets on Youtube. Go to your favorite channel on Youtube (Abstrakt Music Lab’s, of course) and start recreating them with no particular order. Then, go to Cymatics’ or Rocket Power Sounds’ channel and recreate some growls and weird sounds, even if you don’t plan to use them in the future. You need to understand synthesis and Dubstep will push your understanding of sound design beyond what you can imagine. When it comes to practicing sound design, doing only what you like is staying in the ‘comfort zone’ and that’s why you need to recreate everything you see in front of you.
2. Differentiate your songs with sound design. After you’ve mastered your sound design, you can start applying what you’ve learned to your songs and make them stand out with a differentiated Sound Design. Pick techniques that you may have learned from Dubstep, for example, and try incorporating them into your genre to create a unique sound. But how important is this? Jody Wisternhoff said in an interview what he loves about Frost’s ‘Overtones’ is how unique its sound design is and that’s probably why Anjunadeep loved it. Therefore, if you use it to your advantage, it can definitely set you apart.
3. Learn sound design when you’re not feeling productive enough to compose. Sound design doesn’t need composition skills… you don’t need to feel ‘like creating a track’ since it’s only one preset and you can do it at any time. If you’re not feeling like making a song or if you’re in a rut creatively, sit and just recreate synths on youtube. More often than not, doing this will spark some creativity, and even if not, you’ve learned some important skills to use when your flow gets back. This way, you can use the time that would go to cat videos to enhance your skillset.
4. Focus on one synth and master it. Instead of understanding half of a dozen synths averagely, crush one synth inside out. I recommend Serum or Vital because I feel they are the most versatile, but DIVA also has a lot of taste to it as well. In the end, they all can do the same (sort of), and it comes down to who’s driving the machine rather than the machine itself. Therefore, choose your ‘one’ and focus on getting PRO with it!
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
How can you start learning sound design if you don’t know where to begin? Here are a couple of channels that teach sound design:
1. Abstrakt Music Lab, as you probably know, we do weekly sound design videos and you can learn how a lot of different sounds are made with us.
2. Synthhacker was the channel that inspired me to learn sound design and I recreated all his presets, regardless of whether I would use them or not, and you should do it too.
3. Rocket Powered Sounds is a really good channel if you want to push the limits of your sound design. Technically more focused on Dubstep, but this is how you’re going to learn Sound Design inside out (RIP Cymatics Channel, which is where I mainly learned everything from)
A great article Leo, something we will all face and the above gives some good pointers to help elevate that frustration that comes with trying to create when it’s just not in you at that time.
Thank you so much for the comment James!!