As keyboard players, we have a unique connection to the sounds we create because they won’t just be something that his our ears when we are listening to something, it will be something that we are playing; Therefore we want our sounds the feel playable
Keyboardists who are also sound designers don’t just design sounds, they create instruments.
Now that’s a pretty cool thing to say to someone.
Oh yeah, I am just sitting here working on designing instruments.
So we are left with this question:
How can we make our sounds feel as good to play as they sound to listen to?
While this will vary a bit from sound to sound, these three pillars remain true
- Appropriate touch response
- Exciting evolution
- Appropriate volume for appropriate registers (Keytracking)
- Context is key
Appropriate touch response
There are three ways to get the correct touch response.
- Amplitude envelopes
- Filter Envelope
- Velocity Response
Amplitude Envelope
I dive deep into Amplitude Envelopes in this post. If you are tweaking a sound primarily to make it feel better to play, this would be the place to start.
Filter Envelope
This really helps you to get your sounds popping. It will make your patches either punch immediately as you press a key, or change slowly over time.
In either case, this will change the way you will touch the keys, so depending on the patch, adjusting the filter envelope will make your patches nicer to play.
For Example:
A quick attack will give you a little bit of punch
This works best when your amp attack is shorter than your filter attack
A longer filter attack will create an evolving feel. This gives makes the sound change over time which is a nice effect. Longer attack times create an almost “delay like” feel.
Velocity Response
Common things to link velocity to are amplitude and filter frequency.
- Amplitude will adjust the volume relative to how hard you strike the keys.
- Filter frequency will adjust the brightness depending on how hard you strike the keys
These three things together will already have you well on your way to creating playable patches
Exciting Evolution
What do you want your sound to do AFTER you press a key?
Should it be the same no matter how long you hold it down?
Should it slowly decay to silence even while the keys are depressed?
This question literally accounts for HALF OF YOUR SOUND. So it’s worthwhile to think this through.
What happens after I play the keys?
For example, you might have an envelope linked to a unison control. So the longer you hold out a chord, the more complex the sound becomes.’
LFO’s can also be used to slowly alter things like wavetable position and tuning to make your sounds shift over time.
Another great use for LFOs is to alter your oscillator panning. This helps to create a more evolving stereo field
Context is key!
In all of these things, we want to be really aware of how these sounds will be used, and where we might want to play them.
Taking a minute to ask yourself,
What environment is my sound going to be living in?
will help you make more educated choices about how you should build your sounds.
My theory, though somewhat unproven, is that the more playable your sound is, the more often you will use it. And the more often you use a patch, the better you will become at really making it sing.
What to do now?
Make sure you grab a copy of the quick synth map. It’s super handy and will help you understand sound design better