Sound design walk-through wanted

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koenig
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Joined: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:03 am
Location: Sweden
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Sound design walk-through wanted

Post by koenig »

Hi,


I have my Solaris since late September and I have been playing around with the presets and the sound banks made by all you people. Love it!

However, this has not only impressed me with the instrument's capabilities but also made me want to play around myself. The manual is a bit compact, to say the least, and what I find I lack is a guided walk through as to how to approach this beast.

My problem is, as with most people these days, a lack of patience… :D I have been browsing the manual and playing around with the settings, starting with the INIT patch, but it mostly leads to disaster. With a more traditional synth (like monophonic analogue ones) I think I know my way but the sheer amount of modulation possibilities and the staggering amount of parameters makes me feel like Atlas with a world on my shoulders.

So, what would be nice would be, either in written or in Youtube form, a sort of guide from an INIT patch to something usable, preferably several similar approaches one for each general category of patch: pad, lead, string, bells, FX, you name it.

Anyone feel that they would like to write such guide? I would imagine that something like that would easily find its way into the manual as an addendum, or what do you say John? :wink:


Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Are there resources I have missed? I would very much like to be wrong and would happily stand corrected, as long as I get some way to start creating sounds. I mean, it cannot be fair to leave all the fun to some chaps, can it? I would really like to pitch in here, only I just can not find my way into the machine… :lol:

Cheers mates!

K
niversen
Posts: 67
Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:29 pm
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Re: Sound design walk-through wanted

Post by niversen »

http://www.syntorial.com/

Highly recommended. You need to know what sound characteristics come from the oscilators, filters, and envelopes.

You can also check out the Sound-on-Sound archives.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm

They had a series of articles called "Synth Secrets" that ran for several years about programming different types of "standard" sounds. You can learn a ton from that.

There are dozens of books on Amazon, some on FM, many on subtractive, and so forth.

I would suggest that you concentrate on learning synth programming generically. The Solaris just happens to have one of the most powerful architectures currently available outside of a well-specified modular. It that sense it is just a tool. (A very, very nice and powerful professional tool, mind you). Like any skill, you will likely need to learn the basics, and as they solidify, creativity will spontaneously emerge and you'll realize how to combine ideas, morph them, etc.

I'm afraid you will have to have some patience and discipline to extract sonic gold from the Bowen. It isn't that the Bowen is hard to use (it is in fact easier than most things), or that it is complex (you only have to use what you need to accomplish a particular goal). It is that synthesizer programming is a complex craft, requiring exploration over many years to master. I am not a master compared to the sound designers in Hollywood, but I am enjoying the journey and often find myself on other synths wishing there was a proper mixer or rotors, or feedback paths, etc.

It may be more helpful to think of the Bowen as a capable companion for years of sonic exploration and learning than as a "box of presets". It is more like a box of crayons than a coloring book. What you hear clearly in the presets is how focused the programmers taste is - they made lots of what works for them.

Clearly, you hear different things in your head, which is good! I believe it will be worth it to you to choose to start down the path of really trying to master synthesis. It is a craft. And as such, can be learned with time and effort. You own one of the best synthesizers money can buy. The Bowen will support this journey, and will make short work of programming the examples you find in tutorials. But it will also have deep reserves that you can explore later on as your skills advance.
John Bowen
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Re: Sound design walk-through wanted

Post by John Bowen »

Here are some beginning tutorial video links I've sent out to all previous pre-order customers - they are nothing professional or 'fancy'; just me going on about the User Interface. Please watch when you can, as I think you'll find them helpful. While I don't walk you through how to program any particular sound, perhaps you will find some information of use to you:


User's Guide #1 - Loading Presets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt_EJyNgikg

User's Guide #2a - The INIT Preset
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAxeuWNug4w

User's Guide #2b - Using the Sequencer's INIT Preset settings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSlt-_o3WjY

User's Guide #2c - INIT preset - FX setup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnu44oOarRQ

User's Guide - Sample Play Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9n7GXZ_1zY

User's Guide - Sample Play Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4k_CEd7AZE


There's also these 2 screen capture videos showing how the CF card files are set up:
http://www.screencast.com/t/MDE0NGYwZ


Let me know how it goes, and any questions as they come up, of course....
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