Any advice for nice (free) sources to learn sound design?

[rothdu]

I've played piano for a number of years and did some classical composition classes (i.e., score writing in Sibelius) while at school. The road block I've hit at the moment is that I can't find a good way to learn sound design / how to properly use synthesisers. I really love the sounds you can get out of synthesisers, and the main thing I want to do with my audio setup at this stage is "play" digital / electronic music from my midi keybard.

I've managed to pick up on the basics of subtractive synthesis (playing with single/double oscillators, lowpass filters and LFO). I just really don't feel like I have enough knowledge about sound design techniques to get creative with it.

I'm not really in the market for a paid course, so I'm wondering if anyone can reommend good (free) resources to learn the basics and follow on to intermediate sound design?

[lilith]

One possibility is to check SunVox. It´s a modular synthesizer with a tracker sequencer. It´s not as abstract like puredata, but more basic than a typical VST synth.

You have already pre configured oscillator modules, reverb, delay, lfo, etc., but you can build almost everything and save it into a meta module that you can use in your projects. As there are no presets you are forced to build your sounds from scratch which is a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxlujEPn_lo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmrt66y1mVI

[sysrqer]

In the same vein of lilith's suggestion, you could try VCV Rack or Cardinal. modular is a good way to learn because you can concentrate on one specific aspect of synthesis and use scopes to see what is happening and the concepts will transfer to all synthesizers.

I would recommend watching videos by Omri Cohen, even if you don't end up using VCV Rack, because he is great at explaining from the ground up. All his videos are worth watching but there are some playlists which might help:

He has a playlists for building real synths in VCV Rack, such as Moog Labyrinth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmNRNwB ... 8w&pp=iAQB

Lots of beginner friendly videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0o7zF9 ... nX&pp=iAQB

And general techniques - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQWQaXX ... 4U&pp=iAQB

[rothdu]

Thanks @lilith and @sysrqer for the suggestions, I'll definitely check them out.

use scopes to see what is happening.

Always nice to understand what is happening on the back end . I also have a reasonable knowledge of general signal processing techniques from my degree. I just don't quite yet understand how a lot of the theory correlates to timbres... excited to find out.

[asbak]

Read Howard Scarr's Programming Analog Synths (Programming Tutorial)

https://www.virus.info/downloads/2/Manu ... 0Tutorials

[LAM]

This video is quite long, but contains a lot of stuff that can be interesting:
Sound Design COMPLETE course - EVERYTHING you need to know to craft any sound.

Contrary to what some others have suggested I would not recommend to tie your knowledge to a specific software. In sound synthesis/design the same concepts can be applied on a multitude of different plugins/software/hardware.

Choose what you feel comfortable first, there is always time to discover more after you get some basic knowledge. My suggestion is to start simple, maybe with a synth plugin of your choice, better if there is an UI feedback on modulations and other parameters (like Helm or Vital/Vitalium). From there you can expand and further discover more software and techniques.

Another suggestion is to focus on a few categories of sounds in the beginning, sound synthesis/design it's an huge topic, or if you are focusing on a particular genre/subgenre of music try to watch/read resources about the most common type of sounds of that genre/subgenre.

One last thing: try to limit your choices, you get more creative when you have a limited set of tools, and you learn a lot faster.

If you are into FOSS, one good training is to participate to the monthly Libre Music Challenge, held every month here on the forum.

[tavasti]

https://noisesculpture.com/how-to-make- ... ogramming/

https://www.soundonsound.com/synthesize ... 971&page=1

[rothdu]

Lots of great resources in this thread - thanks everyone. I'm thinking I'll try one of the books first, I quite like text-based resources because I can go at my own pace.

[tavasti]

Old playlist for zynaddsubfx. Zyn UI has changed, but yoshimi still has same ui, so with that you can do same things.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... eJqxW4qJLH