Absynth is one of my favorite tools for sound design, though I don’t get a chance to use it nearly as often as I’d like. It has an extremely deep and flexible synthesis engine, yet remains accessible and fun to work with. In just a short amount of time you can have a unique, original sound to use in almost any musical or sound design application.

In this tutorial, we’ll be working exclusively inside of Absynth 4, creating a synthetic mechanical sound by using Absynth’s amazing breakpoint envelope system.

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The drone is used throughout music and sound design as sonic bed or background upon which other sounds are laid. In the world of sound design, drones are often used to ‘fill out’ a scene, or to provide a sense of location. For example, if the scene occurs in a swamp you may have a background ambience that includes frogs, wind through the trees, splashes, etc. In this instance, the ‘drone’ would likely be the wind, with the rest of the layers as incidental sounds.

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As with many sound design techniques, there are an infinite number of ways to create compelling creature sounds. However, as with all sound design, the best products generally result from great source material. Starting with your own recordings of animals and humans means that your product will sound unlike anyone else!

In this tutorial we’ll look at a few simple techniques that can be used to create interesting creature sounds with a wide variety of uses. We’ll use Sony’s Sound Forge (we’re using version 8.0) and some of the built-in effects to create these sounds.

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FMOD Ex is one of several audio middleware systems that are used in modern game development. It is integrated alongside an existing game engine technology (such as Unreal or Gamebryo) to add or extend audio playback functionality. One of the primary benefits of using a technology such as FMOD is that it shifts much of the systems design and implementation into the hands of the sound designer, rather than relegating it to a programmer, who may or may not be as well versed in audio.

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The raygun or laser beam has been a defining sound for many a science fiction movie. How many of us can still hear the sound of the Rebel forces as they fend off the Stormtroopers? In this tutorial, we’ll look at creating a simple ‘raygun’ effect, using some fun plugins and samples with Logic 8.

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In the world of sound design and music for media, there are two basic classifications of sound: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegitic sound or music occurs within the story, i.e. a piano being played on screen, a boom-box playing a hip-hop beat. Non-diegetic sound occurs outside of the world of the story, and is perceived only by the audience, rather than the story’s characters.

With this in mind, this tutorial will look at creating a transition sound-effect in Logic Audio. These sounds can assist in helping the audience change focus from one scene to another, from one virtual space to another, etc. These techniques can also be used in music, where one might want interesting transition between musical sections.

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The use of Gate Effects has become increasingly prevalant in today’s music scene. Typically used for supressing noise, gates are also useful creative tools for creating choppy, glitch effects. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create a triggered noise gate effect in Logic Pro (though the principles would be the same in any DAW).

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For our first Sound Design tutorial, we’ll introduce the concept of ‘Animating the Inanimate’. We’ll make a wind sample ‘come alive’ by using EQ, convolution, reverb and some simple editing tricks in our DAW/multitracker. We will continue to revisit the theme of ‘Animating the Inanimate’ over time, giving you a wide variety of tips and tricks for breathing life into your sound effects.

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