To the people who physically studied sound design in school

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As a hobbyist who watched hours upon hours of video tutorials on synthesis and sound design, I'm finally starting to build a basic understanding of the bigger picture. Although, with information coming in from multiple sources often comes a certain lack of coherence.

So, to those who had formal training...

Was there anything that helped you better "gel" the things you learned and fill in the gaps during your sojourn in [whatever school you went to]? Anything that you think enthusiasts like myself might be missing by jumping from one video to another?

Cheers.

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is there a sound design school?

never heard of one.

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As someone who A. Does not learn well in formal settings, and 2. Is making progress on designing cool sounds, I have some thoughts on this.

But, since I can’t answer the OPs question directly, I don’t want to take the thread in that direction unless OP wants.

Let’s see what folks with formal education in this area have to say first, as I’m also really curious.

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AnX wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:58 pm is there a sound design school?

never heard of one.
There are certainly sound design programs out there, though these are usually part of film programs, where you would get, for instance, an MFA in film production with an emphasis on sound design.

I'm not sure whether that's the kind of sound design the OP is interested in specifically, but those programs definitely exist.

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Weird, I figured you meant "sound engineering", but you indeed mean "sound design"... no, I didn't know it could be studied. I know books exist on the subject.

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Hey gents. I merely assumed that if you were to study sound engineering or music production at school, there would be classes on synthesis and sound design. I never meant to say a whole program oriented toward that one topic.

On that note...
clangorous wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:35 pm As someone who A. Does not learn well in formal settings, and 2. Is making progress on designing cool sounds, I have some thoughts on this.

But, since I can’t answer the OPs question directly, I don’t want to take the thread in that direction unless OP wants.

Let’s see what folks with formal education in this area have to say first, as I’m also really curious.
@clangorous, I'm definitely curious to know your thoughts on this.

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AnX wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:58 pm is there a sound design school?

never heard of one.
there was a module 9n my course, but as mentioned was more aimed at sfx and foley recording.
there was a pretty basic look at the different wave shapes and instruments that they could be used to enulate, but synth sound design once you know how to make a bass, is having ideas about making that bass in to many different bass sounds.
theres no real secret beyond ideas!

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AnX wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:58 pm is there a sound design school?

never heard of one.
MSc in Sound Design @ Edinburgh Uni:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgradu ... view&id=51

Sure there are plenty of others.
"Its my firm belief that its a mistake to hold firm beliefs"
https://soundcloud.com/biomechanoid

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biomechanoid wrote: Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:52 pm
AnX wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:58 pm is there a sound design school?

never heard of one.
MSc in Sound Design @ Edinburgh Uni:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgradu ... view&id=51

Sure there are plenty of others.
im not sure if thats what the OP meant tho, i got the impression he was talking about sound design as in preset making for synths... not sound design in the larger/cinematic sense...

:shrug:

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a 10,000 word dissertation on the wilhelm scream, just by listing the films it's been used in :lol:

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it's oscillators, filters, and envelopes. how hard is it?

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emess wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:14 pm As a hobbyist who watched hours upon hours of video tutorials on synthesis and sound design, I'm finally starting to build a basic understanding of the bigger picture. Although, with information coming in from multiple sources often comes a certain lack of coherence.

So, to those who had formal training...

Was there anything that helped you better "gel" the things you learned and fill in the gaps during your sojourn in [whatever school you went to]? Anything that you think enthusiasts like myself might be missing by jumping from one video to another?

Cheers.
where do you actually feel you are weak/failing?
other than taking time to practice, deconstructing others patches, working out over time what each tweak will do to a sound, and being able to decide which tweaks to make.
like anything, it takes time and effort to get to a point where it's almost automatic.

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Yeah, I took a course in sound design at my local community college, when they still had an audio program. It was also mostly focused on foley work but we spent a week or so fiddling with a Korg MS2000 and a Roland SH-2 (I later bought that SH-2).
I did a lot more patch designing in the MIDI Production course, where we each had a K2000 and a K4r at our workstations.
The instructor who taught the MIDI Production class took a very practical approach to creating synth patches (like, this is how to make a sound that is similar to a piano or here is a list of ADSR settings which are equivalent to acoustic instruments). We did a lot of goofing around on our own, trying to make weird noises but the course work was very dull.
I did learn a lot about the technical side of things and when I started actually using synths in my music, they felt pretty familiar, since I had some experience. I feel like you can acquire a lot of that knowledge via youtube videos these days. There are even some pretty structured online classes, if you want to go that route.

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yeah, that was as far as we went synth wise.
although tbh, the majority of us on the course where already synth users or the two metal heads not interested, i think we could have delved further. but i had the ms2000 at home, which was all they had there in the classrooms.
(they had better stuff in one of the studios) but i didn't have any mics or weird sound sources to record, so most of my time was deep in to mic placement and choices.

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there are people who do things like make algorythms and hardware which is focused or related to audio and sound and I think that sort of "sound design" falls within some realm of engineering programs. its a lot of math, physics and so on. For the stuff related to just using software products to tweak, custom and tailor sounds for use with DAWs, its more of a personal journey.

A great resource I used is:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160403115 ... ecrets.htm
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Gear & Setup: Windows 10, Dual Xeon, 32GB RAM, Cubase 10.5/9.5, NI Komplete Audio 6, NI Maschine, NI Jam, NI Kontakt

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