Expressive Sound Design article in SOS

[nickmaxwell]

[I had a hard time figuring out where to put this, but I think it works in the composition forum. Please feel free to move it if there is a better place!]

Did anyone happen to catch this article in the November 2007 issue of Sound on Sound, entitled "Expressive Sound Design With EXS24"?

I can't stop thinking about this article and the techniques covered within. For the longest time I have felt like an immense, third-party sample library has hindered rather than helped my creative process. This is because I often submit to the temptation of purchasing a sample library somewhat impulsively and then not taking full advantage of it. I suspect at least a few other electronic musicians suffer from the same collector's mentality when it comes to samples, synth patches, etc.

The article talks about creating all of your sounds using small chunks of samples, of a few cycles long. The real magic comes in when you start manipulating the sample in a program like Sampler (my personal weapon of choice) or EXS24. The best part is that the sample source material is largely irrelevant, because on such a small level you are only dealing with abstract timbres rather than recognizable material.

Of course, this technique won't appeal much to people who take a more practical approach to writing music, where they need a certain kick or snare or vocal sample. But for the few of us writing music that is perhaps more abstract or lends itself better to experimentation of this sort, this technique seems to be a viable way to achieve a few things:

1) it largely decouples the artist from the perceived importance of having a gigantic, third-party sample library

2) it encourages a heavily creative approach to making unique sounds because the artist is forced to do more tweaking with sampler parameters (i.e., more work, but more interesting sound as a result)

3) related to reason 2, it reduces the temptation to take only a slightly modified preset and say "good enough." This would hopefully lead to, again, more originality in our music(?)

For a couple years now, I have had an idea similar to this floating around in my head. Ever since I read that article, I was inspired enough to try it out, and I have enjoyed the results in my own sound design so much that I have begun creating my own sample library of Ableton Live device chains using this technique. A great thing about it is that the source sound is simply a tiny segment of a self-recorded sample. I think the power to create huge sounds out of what is essentially thin air is something that we take for granted too much these days!

Anyway, I am interested in what you guys think of this stuff. This is a conversation I have been wanting to have for a few months, but I needed to get the workflow down in my own mind before I started confusing other people with it. I'm not saying this is an extremely profound or complicated technique, but what IS profound about it is its utter simplicity and elegance when compared to some of the needlessly complex software and methods of writing music that exist nowadays (IMO).

Lastly, a disclaimer: This is not some "manifesto" of what is and isn't "correct" in writing music, nor is it an attack on any style of music. This is simply me enjoying real inspiration again after a looooooong bout with writer's block.

Thanks for reading,

- Nick

[blue hell]

Nick,

a great start here

And good to read you found something that works for you.

[nickmaxwell]

Thanks for the welcome. I hope to find some likeminded people on this forum

[Uncle Krunkus]

I'm very interested in this kind of experimentation.
The only thing that worries me is the possibility that I could end up using this technique to sit here creating my own enormous, intimidating, and possibly irrelevant library of sounds. Do you know what I mean?
I think the best way around that would be to put some constraints on myself. For example; I could create 5 unique sounds using this technique and then create a piece which actually uses four of them before I move on to another project.
I'd like to learn more about the manipulation software. (Sampler etc.) At the moment I'd probably just slice and dice in Soundforge or Tuareg. What are the advantages of Sampler? Is it free? How could I do the same kind of thing in Soundforge?
I'm looking forward to chatting more about this.

[nickmaxwell]

[Stanley Pain]

RANT ALERT!!!
i get frustrated at people's attitude to presets. if the sound is good and inpires you to be productive (which is presumably your job as a producer/composer/performer) then why not use it, modified or not?

if you spend your time building sample libraries and building sounds from scratch then surely all you are doing is building your own set of presets that you will end up using anyway?

would you rather Bach had spent his time writing music or trying to better the design of the viol, the harpsichord?

when you listen to Liszt do you cringe at his temptation to write using the same tired old piano when he could have built one himself from scratch?

RANT FINISHED!!!
having said that, it is nice to experiment with new ideas, but isn't the jist of the article "mess around with a sampler"?

[Antimon]

While messing around with a homebrewed 64-step sequencer (run fast) in ChucK, I was surprised at some of the sounds I got when putting snippets from different samples in slots adjacent to each other. I think that ChucK can be great for these kinds of sample constructions on the fly.

/Stefan

[nickmaxwell]

[Kassen]

[Uncle Krunkus]

PISS TAKE ALERT!!

I'm not sure if I am a producer, composer, or performer.

I'm sure Bach did quite a good job with the instruments he had access to. I don't know whether he would have spent his time more productivly if he'd improved the design of the harpsichord.

But would I prefer to hear a completely new sound, or anything at all banged out on that tired old piano? Now that's a hard call.

PISS TAKE FINISHED

[Kassen]

Do do believe Liszt influenced the way in which others build pianos.....

[nickmaxwell]

just realized that I spelled Bach, "Back" in my latest post. Sorry for all the typos, but I get sloppy when typing long responses. Still figuring out how to use this handy spell-checker.

[Low Note]

Bach spent a good deal of time dealing with instrument design issues. There are some really good stories about his arguments for Even Temperment against those supporting pythagorean temperment.

Bach also used composition to support his position... see the Well Tempered Clavier books.

[Kassen]

[bachus]

I have several gigantic gargantuan ultra humongous sample libraries. I not infrequently use gain envelopes to fade between samples recorded on different tracks multiple times for a single note to get the effect I want.

I do find it hard to understand complaints about using "presets." I understand that many people here are primarily interested in timbre as the focus of composition and that's all fine and good. However to think that is the only way seems irrational at best.

But of course bad composition combined with unimaginative scoring sucks big time.

[Low Note]

[Low Note]

I went looking up intervals anyway, and got reconfused by the werckmeister numbering system.

I think I should sleep before thinking about tuning anymore.

I'll see if I can dig through some of my college notes on the topic to refresh my memory when i get to a computer next.

[nickmaxwell]

[elektro80]

BTW... I read that article. A nice one. It is kinda retro.. back to the days when sampling promised a lot. Too bad the PPG Waveterm didn´t quite do anything really well apart from sequencing. The most modern sampler I own is the Akai X7000 and the disk drive has been very dead for more than 10 years.

Anyways, I have meddled a bit with microsamples in ESX24 already and I reckon I´ll pick it up again for some future projects.

[nickmaxwell]

Good to hear that you will put the technique to use elektro80. And yes, I agree that it is very retro in a sense. EXS24 is an amazing sampler from the little I have used it.

[elektro80]

I agree. It seems like EXS24 is pretty good.

[Roland Kuit]

welcome nick and thanks for your article.
i'm not really into sampling techniques but it inspired me to do a piece
for Clavia's G2. Record sentences from it and create(old school tape composing) files with Sound Forge, witch i can use in Acid 3d surround.
Have a look at my page under Artists at this forum.

[nickmaxwell]

Roland, I checked out your section of the Artists forum. I found your music very intriguing, and it gave me warm memories of when I first discovered music that used samples of political speeches in interesting ways. Good stuff!

[Kassen]

[bachus]