Sound Design Help

What I know from using VST plug-ins in Cubase, is that most are fully configurable and let you save your own presets. Not sure how that works when using VST plug-ins in DJ software though.

Greetinx,
C.

Nick Powers, post: 43388, member: 2466 wrote: What about FL Studio?

FL Studio is a DAW (like Cubase as Chuck mentioned above) that has support for VST plugins. VST plugins are used to extend the functionality of a DAW, they are not used alone. I’d suggest that if you want to start playing around with your own sounds on the cheap, download an eval copy of Reaper, and the free Alchemy Player VST at http://www.camelaudio.com/AlchemyPlayer.php
Many sound design examples and just lots of fun 😉

Lets clear things up a little for those wanting to dwelve into synthesizers and sound design.

DAWs, VST (effects) and VSTi (instruments) are essentially the virtual/digital equivalent of having a studio and starting to fill it up with gear – samplers, synthesizers and signal processors (effects). Instead of relying on the “factory” (yet most of the times third party) instruments and effects that come “bundled” with your DAW software, VST plug-ins is a standardised way to use third party instruments and effects inside the DAW you have chosen.

There are NO VST or VSTi plug ins that I know of that claim to be “optimised” for a certain DAW – and frankly, if they were, they would be probably “bad” from a developers point of view – the VST technology is a strict standard that all VST – VSTi developers and DAW developers (should) follow so that compatibility of ANY VST inside ANY DAW can be posible – there are small deviations from the protocol which result in some plug ins not exposing sidechain inputs in some DAWs or some other minor misfunctions but lets not get into that now.

Generally speaking, the “instruments” can be divided in 3 large categories.

1. Synthesizers – emulating the circuitry of a real instrument, synthesizers are essentially creating sound out of electricity. In its most basic form, a synthesizer features some sort of initial sound source, usually one (or more) oscillators. Think of “oscillators” of a synth as an equivalent of the strings of a guitar. Its the initial source of sound. Then this sound is processed inside the synthesizer with various methods such as filters, amplification envelopes, modulation matrixes, effectc etc etc and you got yourself a sound design tool.

2. Samplers – as the name suggests, in these instruments the initial sound is derived-taken from an already recorded sound. People new to production tend to think that samplers then, cannot really create a unique and “personal” or “authentic” sound because the source is already commonplace to others but thats not true. Especially in this day and age, VST samplers have so much methods built-in to mangle a sound that a beginner can hardly distinguish a “sampler” from a synthesizer (have a look at a Kontakt scripted instrument and you ‘ll know what I mean).
Nowadays, samplers come with large libraries of samples already bundled but you can always load your own files into a sampler (usually in an uncompressed sound file format like wav) and build your own sampled instrument.

3. ROMplers – what Nexus is…. ROMplers are really samplers – they use samples as a first sound source but the difference with samplers is that they come bundled with a proprietary, closed file system that does not allow the user to add more samples. To my humble personal opinion, its the “least” creative tool of all the categories: in synthesizers you have all the stuff dependant on your decisions – in samplers, you use already recorded initial sounds BUT you at least get to choose them. In ROMplers you just mangle what’s already in there and you cant add your own samples.
Maybe now it becomes clear why Nexus is so damn huge (in file size) as opposed to a simple VST synthesizer – its presets are not settings of the synth alone, but also include the original samples used.

And here we come to another misconception I have seen with lots of beginners – they fail to grasp the correlation between a synth and its presets. I have heard too many times from beginners:
“So this synth has these sounds (presets)” and the answer is “NO, it doesn thave these sounds” – it has these presets but it can create infinitely more sounds. The “presets” are merely stored settings of all the knobs, faders, buttons and whatnot you see on the synth GUI. When you change/load a preset in a VST synth there’s not a magical pre-made sound loaded….only settings of the knobs, faders, buttons etc are changed and these changes in their entirety are responsible for the sound that is now coming out of the synth.
The presets of a VST synth are not ALL the sounds it can make – they serve as a “demo” of the synths capabilities, as a starting point for your own sounds or even as final sounds for your production if they happen to be what you were looking for – but if you are not into trance or big house electro/EDM – trust me, you wont find ANY synth’s majority of presets appealing. They usually are BIG, FAT sounds for a reason: they showcase the synth, its not ALL it can offer.

So…….if you want to design sounds, any VST synth will do, period. The fact that it has presets does not mean you cant create your OWN sounds with it. But in order to do that you have to have a clear understanding of terminology and what “this knob does”.

Well thats a general thing isnt it? We tend to think that an expensive product means more thought, work and quality control has been put on it. So, a more expensive VST plug in may be better in terms of sound quality, CPU and memory usage, features etc etc. Especially in sound quality a lot of that has to do with the way the oscillators, filters and other “parts” of the plug in have been coded. You might meet in some expensive VST synthesizers the term “virtual analogue” or “analogue emulation” implying that the virtual “circuitry” of the plug in has been coded in such a way that it emulates the “imperfections”, nuances and intricacies of a real electronic circuit of a real analogue synth. – the so called “analogue sound is better” myth has actually a logical explanation different than what many people tend to think – analogue sound is not better, it just has “errors” and “imperfections” and these characteristis is what makes vintage, hardware analogue synthesizers unique (at least according to the majority of synthheads, lets not get into what my personal opinion is because whenever I describe it people think Im either a heretic or that I dont know what Im talking about).
A lot has been said about these so called emulations and whether they actually achieve to “capture” the authentic sound of a real synthesizer. Most of the producer geeks will tell you that for example all of the Arturia’s “Analog classics” plug ins are quite good at replicating the real thing and there are also other synths that are very respected amongst the geeks who are crazy with this stuff like Sylenth1 or any of U-He‘s stuff.

Although, as in all things, likewise in this market too, there are also marketing tricks and sometimes a high price doesnt always mean you get a high quality product – or to put it better, sometimes the price of a VST plug in cannot be justified by its quality. All in all, I’d advise a beginner to start with the bundled instruments of his DAW (no extra cost) and when he starts to “get” the whole notion of sound design synthesis and feels like he’s ready to move to more complex synths or different synthesis methods (like frequency modulation for example, where the “king” here is Native Instruments’ “FM8”) then he might want to invest into such an instrument. In any case, its best if you have already toyed around with the synths you already own in your DAW, get to know the basics and then give your hard earned money to more stuff.