Best DAW for Sound Design

How to make that sound...
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

telecode wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:18 pm why do you need a DAW for sound design though? dont you just need a fancy stand alone VST synth?
Here is where we need to define "sound design".

In the strict sense of synthesizer programming, any synth will do.

But in the larger context of film/TV/game sound, some knowledge of recording, tracking, mixing, etc. would be involved.
Windows 10 and too many plugins

Post

psydave wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:13 pm I would go for Bitwig Studio.

It is the most modular DAW and with the in built modular Grid coming soon with v3 you will have endless possibilities for Sound Design.
chk071 wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:25 pm
telecode wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:18 pm why do you need a DAW for sound design though? dont you just need a fancy stand alone VST synth?
I wonder too.

Other than that, Bitwig seems to allow for a lot of things concerning modulation and routing of VSTi's. Againg though, you do sound design in the soft synths (or effects), not in the DAW.
+1 for Bitwig

It's a very versatile DAW with a lot of freedom. Also the Instruments that are already integrated are just awesome. :tu:

Post

Its all about the instrument, and how its processed, not the DAW that it sits in. Ultimately its your creativity thats going to make things interesting so just pick one that you enjoy using and have fun!

Post

Bitwig or FLStudio are kind of King so far.
:borg:

Post

whyterabbyt wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:22 pm If you want a job doing sound design in the film/broadcast/games industry, (which Im taking to be the case from your other post) and you're not actually applying for the job of being the person in charge of deciding what your company buys, then the defacto industry standard is ProTools.

If you do get to be in charge, you can use what the hell you want. Until that point, expect to use PT.
I always considered that Kyma/Capybara is the king of sounddesign in that „price doesn‘t matter“ cinematic area. Of course afterwards the sounds are loaded into ProTools...
I know KVR members might never have heard of it...

Post

woggle wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 7:58 pm Sound Design is a very broad term. I am designing work for an art gallery tour at the moment. Pretty much all of the sound is derived from field recordings I made on site or nearby the gallery. I am using Izotope RX7 and Spectralayers for the initial trimming, segmenting and processing. That material will go in to Reaper for assembly, further processing and mixdown.

Someone mentioned Audition - an excellent tool but my copy will no longer work on my machine without switching to a very expensive subscription - I've got rid of all Adobe products now they annoy me so much as a company. But if you have Audition or can get it cheap then go for it.
If I was given this job and I had choice of using whatever I would use Wave Lab (Think Audition but 10 times better) and Nuendo (For post production work). The work flow is great for things like this. The bad is how stupidly expensive they are. Nuendo is $2,000 and Wavelab $750 MSRP and Street price is $1,800 and $550.


Wavelab
For music production and broadcast audio alike, the Steinberg WaveLab Pro 9.5 is a powerful and complete mastering solution. Benefit from a range of powerful plug-ins, along with spectral editing, advanced restoration tools, and mid-side processing. Achieve precision control over your audio's frequency balance, dynamic range, and stereo imaging. Deploy your favorite third-party plug-ins for mid-side processing, even if they don't natively support M-S. And with a refined user interface, integration with Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo, and the MasterRig mastering processing suite, Steinberg WaveLab Pro 9.5 is an outstanding solution for mastering audio.

Nuendo
Post-production professionals worldwide (including many here at Sweetwater) rely on Steinberg's Nuendo. It's used in television, movies, game audio design, and more, and Nuendo 8 ups the ante with a plethora of powerful features. Enjoy world-class mixing in up to 22.2 surround, complete with Dolby Atmos support. Useful features like a channel strip EQ, VCA faders, and fully integrated loudness measurement make working in Nuendo 8 a pleasure. Game developers will love Game Audio Connect 2, which transfers whole music compositions from Nuendo as music segments into Wwise. A built-in ADR system allows for fully integrated voice and foley recording. Nuendo 8 also includes advanced multitrack audio-to-picture editing and full integration with Yamaha's Nuage system.
-------------------
Bitwig is my DAWs and UHe and Tracktion Synths are my Bae. I maybe buy one synth a year. REMEMBER SELF just one synth a year!

Post

Native Instruments Kore was the only host (wouldnt call it a DAW) really designed for sound design and management of sound collections. Still much loved and used by a few of us but otherwise sadly defunct and nothing else really comes close apart from maybe Audiomulch, also defunct though (pretty much).

Post

Tj Shredder wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:05 pm
whyterabbyt wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:22 pm If you want a job doing sound design in the film/broadcast/games industry, (which Im taking to be the case from your other post) and you're not actually applying for the job of being the person in charge of deciding what your company buys, then the defacto industry standard is ProTools.

If you do get to be in charge, you can use what the hell you want. Until that point, expect to use PT.
I always considered that Kyma/Capybara is the king of sounddesign in that „price doesn‘t matter“ cinematic area. Of course afterwards the sounds are loaded into ProTools...
I know KVR members might never have heard of it...
To be honest, I dont see that much mention of the Kyma any more, in the scope of interviews with film/game sound designers. If there's a box beside the console, its Eurorack these days. Almost always PT on the screen, though.

We've actually had several Kyma owners here over the years, including a good mate of mine. I always hoped they'd port native myself, though that's sort of moot since I never really felt Smalltalk left the 80s.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

Post

wasn't ben (wont say the rest for fear of turning it that way) using the kyma at one point? im pretty sure i remember discussing it with him at vurtstock?
unless he was just using it as a point of reference?

and i know scot definitely got in to it.

was always a bit beyond me, both finance wise and concept, it was like audio magick! the way scot used to talk about it :o

Post

Sorry guys, but I don't understand the initial question...
If you are taking about "sound design", you are talking about sound : creating a particular sound, modifying an existing sound, etc... and as far as I know, to create or modulate or destroy or... a sound, you need sound-creative instruments (VSTi), effects (VST) or modulators (LFOs, Enveloppes, MSED,...).
As far as I know, a DAW must have integrated VSTi and VST in his soft, but a DAW is most like a tape machine, or like a sequencer, and a DAW don't create sounds, but sure, it can mix sounds... mixing sounds in a DAW is what you consider as sound-creation ?

When you says : "what DAW is better for sound-creation ?", for my ears, is like if you are saying : "what tape recorder is better for sound-creation ?"
I can understand that for certain people, the electronic music done with the intense use of shorts or long clips in a DAW can be considered as sound-creation, done with specialized DAWs like Live or Bitwig or FL. But in my opinion, those DAWs don't do sound design but something like "clip design" or "music design"...

I don't know.
Perhaps because my basic language is not the english language. But I do read a lot of musical things in the english language on the international web and to talk about DAWs as sound design tools...

My 2 cents.

Post

I think when you start blending modulators generated by the DAW with your synth generated sounds, then the DAW forms an integral part of the sound design process.

Example: Tracktion T7 LFO Modifier

https://youtu.be/9UVEAJAvFZ0
Windows 10 and too many plugins

Post

whyterabbyt wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:22 pm If you want a job doing sound design in the film/broadcast/games industry, (which Im taking to be the case from your other post) and you're not actually applying for the job of being the person in charge of deciding what your company buys, then the defacto industry standard is ProTools.

If you do get to be in charge, you can use what the hell you want. Until that point, expect to use PT.
He's not a pro, nor about to become one. Just look at his post history. Going around asking stupid questions.
aMUSEd wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:28 pm Audiomulch
+1 Opened the thread to suggest that one.

Post

kosmios wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:57 pm
aMUSEd wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:28 pm Audiomulch
+1 Opened the thread to suggest that one.
I was going to say the same thing (Audiomulch), or another DAW that lets you easily record arbitrary groupings of sources as realtime audio (not bouncing or rendering) and then easily transform those recordings (reverse, change speed/pitch, run through other effects, record, resample, rinse, repeat, etc). To me Ableton Live, REAPER, and Bitwig fill this "live resampling" audio-mulching workflow, while Logic and Reason do not.

To me, sound design does not just mean creating synth patches - the craziest sounds I've come up with have been generally through realtime manipulation of audio files through the means mentioned above.

Also, I've found Live to be my most fruitful sound design tool due to the physicality of Push 2.

Post

kosmios wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:57 pm
whyterabbyt wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:22 pm If you want a job doing sound design in the film/broadcast/games industry, (which Im taking to be the case from your other post) and you're not actually applying for the job of being the person in charge of deciding what your company buys, then the defacto industry standard is ProTools.

If you do get to be in charge, you can use what the hell you want. Until that point, expect to use PT.
He's not a pro, nor about to become one.
Just like 99.99% of the other people here, then. That changes nothing about my advice, which will also be relevant to anyone with the same question in a similar context. Whether they're about to become pro or not.
Just look at his post history. Going around asking stupid questions.
Yeah, beginners often do. But I'll give the advice I consider suitable, thanks, and your assessment of their capabilities or history isn't going to be a factor in that.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

Post

vurt wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:20 pm wasn't ben (wont say the rest for fear of turning it that way) using the kyma at one point? im pretty sure i remember discussing it with him at vurtstock?
unless he was just using it as a point of reference?
I think at that point it was the benchmark for a lot of the stuff he was researching. Dont actually know if he ever acquired one.
and i know scot definitely got in to it.

was always a bit beyond me, both finance wise and concept, it was like audio magick! the way scot used to talk about it
Yup, had some very sophisticated stuff in it.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

Post Reply

Return to “Sound Design”