Sound Design and Synth Fundamentals
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the fundamentals of sound design are explained in a clear and accessible way, focusing on key concepts like basic waveforms (sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth), additive and subtractive synthesis, unison, filters, ADSR envelopes, LFOs, and effects. The tutorial is designed to help viewers understand and apply these principles across different synthesizers and software, enabling them to create the sounds they desire. The instructor emphasizes practical examples and visual aids to simplify complex topics, making it an ideal resource for beginners.
Takeaways
- 🎶 The video covers the fundamentals of sound design applicable to any synthesizer or software.
- 🌐 It introduces four basic waveforms: sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth, each with unique characteristics and uses.
- 📈 The script explains how to visualize waveforms using an oscilloscope and frequency analyzer.
- 🔊 Sine waves are ideal for bass sounds and kick drums, while triangle, square, and sawtooth waves add harmonic richness.
- 🔬 Additive synthesis involves starting with a simple waveform and adding complexity, whereas subtractive synthesis starts with a complex waveform and simplifies it.
- 🎵 Unison is used to duplicate and pan voices around the stereo field, adding richness to sounds.
- 🎛️ Detuning in unison can thicken sounds but must be used carefully to avoid a poor sound quality.
- 📊 Filters, including low-pass, high-pass, and more complex types, are essential for shaping sound by removing frequencies.
- 🕒 ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) envelopes define the shape and volume of a sound over time.
- 🔁 LFOs (Low-Frequency Oscillators) add movement and automation to parameters like filter cutoff for dynamic sounds.
- 🔧 Effects chains in DAWs or synths, such as distortion, reverb, and chorus, further shape and enrich synthesized sounds.
Q & A
What are the four basic wave shapes mentioned in the tutorial?
-The four basic wave shapes are sine wave, triangle wave, square wave, and sawtooth wave.
How does a sine wave differ from the other wave shapes?
-A sine wave is the most simple wave shape with only one harmonic, making it smooth and useful for bass sound design, especially in sub-bass and kick drums.
What is the key characteristic of a triangle wave?
-A triangle wave has a main fundamental note with additional harmonics, giving it a slight buzzing sound that is more harmonically rich than a sine wave.
How does a square wave sound and why?
-A square wave has many harmonics, making it sound more buzzy and harmonically rich compared to sine and triangle waves.
What is the difference between additive and subtractive synthesis?
-Additive synthesis involves starting with a basic wave shape and adding more waves to make the sound more complex. Subtractive synthesis starts with a complex waveform and removes parts of it to create a new sound.
What role does unison play in sound design?
-Unison adds more voices to a sound, duplicating, panning, and detuning them around the stereo field, which enriches and thickens the sound.
Why is it important to be cautious with the detune amount in unison?
-Excessive detuning can make the sound unpleasant and can also strain the CPU, so it's important to find a balance when detuning.
What is the purpose of filters in sound design?
-Filters are used to remove certain frequencies from a sound. Common filters include low-pass filters, which allow low frequencies to pass and cut off high frequencies, and high-pass filters, which do the opposite.
How does ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) shape a sound?
-ADSR controls the volume and shape of the sound over time. Attack determines how quickly the sound reaches its peak, decay sets how fast it drops to the sustain level, sustain holds the volume while a key is pressed, and release controls how the sound fades after the key is released.
What is an LFO and how is it used in sound design?
-An LFO (Low-Frequency Oscillator) is used to add movement and modulation to sound parameters, like the filter cutoff, by oscillating at low frequencies. This can create effects like vibrato or rhythmic pulsing.
Outlines
🎶 Introduction to Sound Design Fundamentals
The speaker introduces the fundamentals of sound design, emphasizing that the knowledge is applicable regardless of the synthesizer or software used. The video will cover topics such as basic wave shapes, additive and subtractive synthesis, filters, ADSR, LFO, and unison. The goal is to simplify complex concepts for viewers, helping them understand the underlying principles of sound design.
📊 Exploring the Four Basic Wave Shapes
This section focuses on the four basic wave shapes: sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth. The speaker uses an oscilloscope and frequency analyzer to visualize these waveforms. The sine wave is presented as the simplest, smoothest wave, often used in bass sound design. The triangle wave introduces more harmonics, giving it a buzzing sound. The square wave is even richer in harmonics, and the sawtooth wave, with its distinct slanted shape, is the most harmonically rich. The speaker emphasizes the importance of familiarizing oneself with these wave shapes.
➕ Additive and ➖ Subtractive Synthesis Explained
The speaker explains additive and subtractive synthesis. Additive synthesis involves starting with a basic wave shape and adding more waveforms to create complex sounds. Examples include combining sine and square waves or sine and saw waves. Subtractive synthesis, on the other hand, starts with a complex waveform and removes parts of it using filters to create a new sound. The speaker demonstrates both techniques, showing how they alter the waveform and sound.
🔊 Unison and Detuning for Richer Sounds
Unison and detuning are introduced as techniques to enhance sound richness. Unison adds multiple voices to a sound, which are then panned and detuned across the stereo field. The speaker demonstrates how unison can make a sound fuller and more professional, and cautions against excessive detuning, which can lead to undesirable results. The speaker also notes that adding too many unison voices can strain a computer's CPU, advising careful experimentation.
🎚️ Understanding Filters and Their Effects
Filters, a common feature in synthesizers, are explained. The speaker compares filters to EQs, highlighting their role in removing frequencies from a sound. The demonstration covers low-pass and high-pass filters, as well as more complex combing and phasing filters. The speaker shows how filters can drastically alter a sound by removing high or low frequencies, emphasizing their importance in sound design.
⏳ Mastering Envelopes and ADSR
Envelopes and ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) are explored, with a focus on how they shape the sound's volume and behavior over time. The speaker explains how attack affects the sound's initial rise, release determines how it fades, and decay and sustain control how the sound holds. The graphical representation in Serum is used to illustrate these concepts, and the speaker emphasizes that understanding ADSR is crucial for effective sound design.
🔁 Low-Frequency Oscillators (LFOs) for Dynamic Movement
The speaker discusses Low-Frequency Oscillators (LFOs) and their role in creating dynamic movement in sound. LFOs oscillate at low frequencies and can be linked to various parameters, such as filters, to automate their behavior. The speaker demonstrates how LFOs can create complex and evolving sounds, highlighting the efficiency of using LFOs over manual automation. The flexibility of LFO shapes in Serum is also showcased.
🎛️ Adding Effects for Final Sound Design Touches
The final section covers the addition of effects such as distortion, chorus, EQ, and delay to further shape the sound. The speaker illustrates how these effects can dramatically alter a simple sound, making it richer and more complex. The speaker also ties the entire tutorial together, encouraging viewers to apply the learned concepts across various synthesizers and to experiment with different settings to achieve the desired sound.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Sine Wave
💡Triangle Wave
💡Square Wave
💡Sawtooth Wave
💡Additive Synthesis
💡Subtractive Synthesis
💡Unison
💡LFO (Low-Frequency Oscillator)
💡ADSR Envelope
💡Filters
Highlights
Introduction to the fundamentals of sound design, focusing on basic wave shapes and synthesis techniques.
Explanation of the four basic wave shapes: sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth, with visual and auditory demonstrations.
Discussion on how sine waves are simple and smooth, often used in bass sound design and kick drums.
Overview of triangle waves as harmonically richer with a slight buzzing sound, useful for more complex tones.
Introduction to square waves, characterized by their rich harmonic content and a more pronounced buzzing sound.
Description of the sawtooth wave as the most harmonically rich waveform, essential for creating full and buzzy sounds.
Comparison between additive and subtractive synthesis, explaining how sounds are built or reduced to create new tones.
Demonstration of how unison and detuning can thicken and enrich sound by adding multiple voices to a waveform.
Explanation of filters, including low-pass and high-pass filters, and their role in shaping the frequency content of a sound.
Introduction to ADSR envelopes (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) and their impact on the volume and shape of sounds over time.
Discussion on the importance of attack and release settings in creating pluck-like or sustained sounds.
Explanation of LFOs (Low-Frequency Oscillators) and their role in adding movement and automation to sound parameters.
Demonstration of how LFOs can be used to modulate filters, creating dynamic and evolving sounds.
Overview of adding effects like distortion, reverb, and chorus to further shape and enhance synthesized sounds.
Conclusion encouraging viewers to experiment with different synths and effects, and to provide feedback for future tutorials.
Transcripts
hello and welcome back to the channel
today I'm going to be teaching the
fundamentals of sound design so that no
matter which synth or software you use
you can start understanding what's going
on and start creating the sounds that
you really want to create all the topics
covered in this video are going to be
written in the description along with
time stamps and we're going to be
covering the four basic shapes additive
and subtractive synthesis filters adsr
LFO unison you might have heard of some
of these terms before maybe not but
either way I'm going to be simplifying
it all in this video so let's just dive
right in almost every complex
synthesized sound stems back to the same
four basic wave shapes so let's learn
them right now
on my screen I have an oscilloscope and
a frequency analyzer here to help me
visualize what's going on and I'm using
a very basic synthesizer called the
three times oscillator it's called that
because it has three oscillators now an
oscillator is pretty much an engine that
is going to create this wave form or
this sound for us so the first basic
wave form is called the sine wave so
I'll just play here it's the most simple
wave shape as you can see your basic
sine wave you may have seen this in
maths or physics but I'm not going to go
into anything technical and on the
frequency analyzer we have only one note
one harmonic that's all it's the most
simple wave and you can hear that it's
very smooth this waveform is
particularly useful in bass sound design
if you lower it down a couple of octaves
you can get a really nice sub and often
kick drums are reinforced with the sine
wave so that's all you really need to
know for now that's what it looks like
that's what it sounds like with just one
note playing the second basic wave shape
is the triangle wave here so on the
display you can see these pyramids two
sloped sides and you can see that it's
got that main fundamental note but
there's many more harmonics added which
gives it that slight buzzing sound it's
a little bit more harmonically rich you
might say
with just one note that's what it sounds
like the third basic wave shape is the
square wave so I'm gonna select it most
since we'll show it like this and it
sounds like this so as you can see
perfectly squared off wave form there
and many more harmonics added you've got
a lot more buzz a lot more harmonically
rich in the top and there and the fourth
and final waveform is the sawtooth wave
this can be mistaken for the triangle
wave it sounds very different and as you
can see there Sawtooths here only one
slanted side there's no pyramids like
the triangle wave and this one sounds
even more harmonically rich again it's
really really buzzy really really full
in the top end
different synthesizers will have
different ways of changing the wave
shape in the oscillator for instance
serum this is the oscillator looks a bit
different and there's different ways to
select your basic waveforms sine
sawtooth wave triangle wave the square
wave etc and all through the
oscilloscope showed you the waveform
just to clarify again if I record out
those sounds and I put them on to my
playlist you'll see that on the actual
playlist the waveforms are signs
triangle square and saw wave just like
this to summarize this section just
learn those four basic wave shapes try
to identify what they sound like try
playing them with single notes and also
chords and just get used to it so the
next thing we're going to look at is
additive and subtractive synthesis I've
got each type of synth just playing one
note and they're all sent to the mixer
and this analyzer is on the master
output so if I take all the volumes down
and just press play and raise the sine
wave up you can see that I have a sine
wave if I raise the triangle you can see
that I have this triangle wave here now
the idea behind additive synthesis is
that you start with one wave shape and
you make it more complicated by inducing
more waves and more sound on top of it
so say for instance I start with a
square wave but then I add a sine wave
to it you can see that the tops of the
square wave are rounded off and now we
have a combination between a sine and a
square or if I was to start with a sine
wave and then introduce a saw wave to it
you can see that I'm getting all that
buzz enos and we're combining those two
wave shapes this is really the basic
principle of additive synthesis I'll go
into it more in more detail later now
let's look at subtractive synthesis
which is the opposite of additive this
is where you start with a complex
waveform and you take away from it to
create a new sound so if I start with a
saw wave and
I put in EQ and filter off the top and
you can see that I'm subtracting
frequency away and I've changed what it
sounds like so it's not no longer as
harsh in the top end but instead of
having to use external plugins like eq's
many synthesizers have these all built
in they have various filters and effects
which allow you to modify the sound from
within the synth itself the next topic
that I'm introducing is unison because
this is a really quick way to completely
change the sound so we're still only
playing one note and I'm working inside
serum and this is the oscillator so
don't worry about everything else here
it's not important this is what's
creating the sound you know you've got
your volume your pan and whatnots and
what I'm gonna do is increase the unison
and this adds more voices to the sound
so instead of having just one saw wave
just buzzing it's going to sort of
duplicate pan and D tune them around the
stereo field and if you look down here
to the ozone imager this vectorscope is
going to help you see the stereo
information change but you'll be able to
hear it so as I increase the Unison
amount listen and look here and see what
see what changes
you can add unison to any of the basic
wave shapes so if I was adding unison to
a sine wave it would sound like this or
to a saw wave to triangle wave or to a
square wave and that really goes a long
way in the making the sound a lot more
rich and getting it sounding really
professional so far we've just been
playing one note so I'm going to change
it play some chords to make it more
interesting and the next closely tied
thing to unison is D tune and so far we
you know we've got we've created all
these extra voices and we've panned them
but to make them sound thicker and
fuller you slightly detuned them from
the original voice but you've got to be
careful you don't detune them too much
I'll show you what I mean so I'll play
this chord and I'll start adding some
unison it'll make it sound a lot better
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
now if I change the detune amount
at one point it starts sounding really
bad so you've got to be careful you
don't do too much detuning and while
more voices of unison sounds good when
you start off it can be common just to
add sixteen voices or as many voices of
unison as you can to everything
definitely experiment some of the best
sounds I've made only have three voices
of unison some have seven adding too
much unison can also just really hammer
your CPU of your computer so be careful
with that
the next topic we're going to look at is
filters almost every single synth has a
filter they all act in slightly
different ways but they follow the same
basic principles
so usually you select a filter type and
if you don't know what a filter is
you've probably heard of EQ where you
can remove frequencies from a sound a
filter does pretty much exactly the same
thing so in this case I have a low-pass
filter try to ignore everything else in
the synth it's not very important right
now
I've got this oscillator creating the
sound here and I've got this filter
that's all that's really important I
have a low-pass filter so as I move the
cutoff it's going to allow the low
frequencies to pass and it's going to
cut away the high frequencies so let's
take a listen to this now you can only
hear the low frequencies of the sound
the high frequencies are cut off now I
can introduce them again
and usually you can select different
filter types so I could actually select
the high pass filter which instead would
cut away the low end and only let the
high end through like this and as well
as those normal filters you've also got
all sorts of crazy combing and phasing
filters that sound like this
[Music]
so there's all sorts of different
possibilities I'm just going to quickly
set it back to that low-pass filter
because I quite liked it
the next topic we're going to look at
our envelopes and adsr which stands for
attack decay sustain and release and
this determines the volume and shape of
the sound when we press the keys and
then when we take our fingers off the
keys so we have attack decay sustain and
release serum also has a value called
hold I'm going to use this because this
has a really graphical way of showing it
looking at this graph from bottom to top
we have no volume all the way to the
maximum volume at the top and then from
left to right we have zero seconds and
then we go along in time so one second
two second three seconds so if I have an
incredibly short attack and I hold my
fingers on the keys like this the sound
is just going to jump up to its maximum
value instantaneously but if I have a
much longer attack it's gonna take more
time for the sound to develop and grow
to its maximum
so you can see that might be better for
like a pad sort of sound the next
important parameter I would say is the
release so this determines how the sound
dies away once you release the keys or
once the MIDI stops if I have a very
very short release it just cuts away
immediately the sound just dies away
very sharp and sudden if I have a longer
release the sound dies away quite gently
and gradually and usually you can adjust
the shape of these curves as well so
maybe I have a longer release but it's a
more sharp curve you know so you can
really fine-tune it using serum which is
why I like using serum the decay and the
sustain in the middle are very very
closely linked so what the sustain is
says okay after we've reached that
maximum value what value do we actually
want the sound to hold on so say for
instance I want the sound to rise up to
the top and then cut down to a certain
value and just just sustain there whilst
I'm holding the keys let's play this
[Music]
and the decay is about how long it takes
to decay from that top value to where
it's going to hold so in this case let's
just take a listen in that case it
decayed very quickly to the sustained
value but say for instance I want it to
start very loud slowly decay and then
hold at this value here in my opinion
simply adjust in the Unison filter and
adsr is where you really create the
majority of your sound like at least 80
or 90% of it so instead of having
sustained sounds if you adjust the
attack and release like this you can
have a nice little pluck sort of chords
sound just like that it's now time to
look at LFOs which stands for low
frequency oscillators and this is where
people can often go quite wrong when
you're starting out low frequency
oscillator it doesn't mean that it's
affecting the low-end of our sound or
the bass it means that it's oscillating
at frequencies which are relatively low
so you know maybe 0 to 30 or 40 Hertz
something that we can recognize if I
have this LFO here again the graph is
exactly the same as the adsr is zero to
maximum and then this is time and the
LFO is just going to keep going
backwards and forwards the way I like to
explain what an LFO is is it can add
movement and automation to mode well in
serum any parameter in the synth really
but usually the filter instead of having
the filter just be static in this case I
have it set to this value and it stays
there it just stays there all the time
what you can do is you can assign an LFO
to the filter and then have that cutoff
move all the time in serum you just drag
it together how I create this link
doesn't matter it only really matters
that it can be linked for the sake of
this tutorial what you'll see is that
the cutoff starts very closed and then
it opens up and closes back down again
and you can adjust how quickly it does
this so right now it's every four bars
now it's every two bars and you can
start creating all sorts of complex and
interesting sounds and right now I have
it triggered to the BPM but you can
actually just set a certain value of
Hertz like this and the reason LFO so
great is because to achieve this sort of
modulation or automation you would
usually have to create an automation
clip on your playlist and assign points
and then link the two controls together
which can be done but if you do it with
the LFO it just saves you an awful lot
of time and what's great about the LFO
and serum you don't have to have it
follow a shape like this you can have
any sort of shape you want so say I just
want it to rise very slowly over the
course of two bars you can just set it
to have any shape you want which could
be awesome for sidechaining or any sort
of sound design really and the final
topic I want to look at is just adding
extra effects on to this because sound
design doesn't just stop with the synth
engines so in your DAW or in the synth
there's usually an effects chain where
you can add distortion chorus EQ delay
all sorts of stuff so in this case I
have this simple plug sound and I can
introduce some distortion some
downsampling distortion just add a
little bit of reverb simple some chorus
and you've highly affected the sound
there if I turn off these effects you'll
match something very very simple so
there's all sorts of different ways to
design your sound but that really is it
for this basic tutorial but it was
hoping to achieve with this video is
that no matter which since you use serum
three times oscillator an analog modeled
synth that you'll start recognizing what
these names are the adsr the envelopes
the oscillators and you'll start to sort
of understand how they're linked and
what they do to the sounds so hopefully
that's worked please do let me know in
the comments how it went or it was all
just too confusing I want to make more
videos like this I want to keep
making them really really helpful so
feedback is much appreciated but anyway
thank you for watching I hope you have a
great week please do leave a like if you
enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next
video bye for now
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