On the Reel, Part 1
Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Ben McFarlane
With the development of new technology, there has always been an accompanying threshold of creativity where eccentric pioneers such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Trent Reznor, Autechre and scores more make discoveries and inventions.
Not to be overlooked, however, are sound designers — those who take everday sounds and twist them to add emotional impact to films. The film industry has always been a locus of progressive, inspirational sound design, from its early techniques borrowed from radio and theater through tape manipulation and on into the world of plug-ins. Sometimes in film, it's “See a dog, hear a dog”; other times, it's “Let's see how far we can take this.”
Science fiction is a genre that explores outrageous and eccentric new ideas, and it has always sported a correspondingly bizarre underscore. A well-known champion of that genre is Ben Burtt, whose effects repertoire in the Star Wars movie saga is unparalleled in its originality and pure aesthetic merit. Burtt works from the raw material of his recorded sounds, which he captures in unusual ways. For example, Burtt's laser blast is the sound of a hammer hitting an antenna tower wire. For anyone who knows them, the stories behind Burtt's innovative aural inventions amount to about the most romanticized job description that most musically minded folks could imagine.
Although a pro like Burtt is more or less unrestricted when it comes to buying gear, those who wish to merely dabble in sounds are not. So for all those who aspire to experiment and create using sound as their canvas but are restricted to a home studio with only a PC, there are many unexplored options for new and bizarre sound processing.
With a proliferation of strange and unusual software effect and synthesizer plug-ins, the floodgates to a sea of marvelous and bizarre possibilities are wide open. Even a fly-by-night hobbyist could strike gold and get serious about creating original sounds quickly. The horizon for sonic innovation is now broader than ever, and it's all within reach of the computer-savvy experimenter. A big question, however, is how and where to start. Here to tackle that question, if only partly, is an overview and commentary on some of the strangest and most obscure effect plug-ins for designing cinematic and musical sounds. Setting up your own sound laboratory with them is a snap.
QUIET ON THE SET
To begin, you will need a VST-compatible host application such as Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar or Ableton Live to route MIDI and audio signals to your other software. You'll want a Windows PC (these plug-ins don't support Macs) that is quick enough to deal with lots of processing multitasking. Although not required, a system with a 2GHz processor or faster and 512 MB of RAM should give you more than enough headroom. As always, the more speed and space that you have, the greater your options are.
All of these plug-ins are solidly programmed, bizarre-sounding (in the best way possible) and mostly uncelebrated or underexposed thus far. These five effects plug-ins from two programmers, Tobias Fleischer and Aaron Rutledge, cover only a small tip of a huge iceberg. I highly recommend visiting their Websites for the full spate of products and giving them a thorough sampling.
ROLL SOUND
Tobias Fleischer is an amiable German chap living in Munich. His Tobybear Productions (www.tobybear.de) specializes in developing oddball sound effect plug-ins. Although Fleischer is friendly and cheerful to talk to, his full complement of signal-shattering effects belies a darker, destructive side. The Tobybear toolkit is vast and diverse, with plug-ins that range from conventional to unique.
I chose the following selections from Tobybear's Monsterbag software package based on their merit as flexible and unique sound-design tools. What you will find most useful, of course, depends on how you want to experiment, so I recommend trying them all. The 13-plug-in Monsterbag is $45 — an absolute steal. If you're going to experiment with these plug-ins blindly, I recommend limiting the output with a compressor to keep the settings from taking your ears by surprise. Some of them can be awfully piercing.
In many movies there are scenes in which a character makes a horrifying discovery that sends him or her straight over the edge. At times like those, the underscore is invariably a dissonant cacophony of twisted noise. Tobybear's RoboBear X provides that required twist. If used carefully, RoboBear X can sound reasonably organic, but most of the time, it is quite glitchy and mechanical — likely the main reason for its name.
RoboBear X is basically a series of granulators and filters. The top section is where most of the distortion takes place. The three red squares on the left-hand side correspond to three ring modulators. There are two granulation functions controlled by the red and green sliders. The red sliders control the grain size and the green sliders control the pitches of the grains themselves. The yellow slider controls the amount of feedback. The next section contains filtration, wet/dry and output level. From left to right, the first blue slider is a cutoff filter that is modified by the box below it (set to bandpass in the screenshot). The next blue slider is a filter-resonance control, while the chipper-looking blue bear is actually a randomizer. Although he rocks a friendly smile, one must be cautious with him, for his eyes betray not happiness but insanity. Right-clicking on the bear randomizes only the top section, and left-clicking on the bear randomizes the entire plug-in. Either option frequently results in a sonic assault like no other. As previously mentioned, have your compressor ready. Next are the wet/dry and output filters, and at the very bottom are the modulation controls. You can modulate any parameter individually with a few different waveforms.
However you think a spaceship should sound, your idea likely involves some kind of frequency or phase shifting. ShivaShifter is a device perfectly suited for the design of exotic machine noise and alien-sounding effects. It is similar to many hardware pitch-shifters. It can modulate the sound of a signal using any number of waveforms, such as square, sine, noise and so on. The first section contains pitch and depth controls, and the second section is devoted to the speed and the amount of change that occurs in the processed signal. At the bottom of the plug-in sit sync and waveform controls. In the screenshot, ShivaShifter is set to synchronize with the beat of the sequencer (circular icon at bottom left); the modulation waveform appears at bottom right.
To begin with this device, I recommend using high values on everything except the speed of the device, and then adjusting for more moderate settings on each parameter. It is a pretty intuitive interface. After getting a pitch, depth, range and waveform that you are comfortable with, try modulating the speed parameter to see where it takes you. ShivaShifter's sound is transparent and effective — fitting for its namesake Shiva, the Hindu god that destroys and restores.
One more Tobybear plug-in is simple to use but creates previously unheard noises. SilverBox, which has a simple interface, transforms audio signals using different algorithms with names that roughly indicate the kind of noise that the box will make. My favorites are rubber, helium, bubbles and (appropriately) alien. They are definitely unique. SilverBox's top slider seems to control the pitch. The slider just below the algorithm window controls grain size, and the bottom slider controls the amount of feedback.
I use SilverBox mainly to process speech. It takes rather plain waveforms and breathes alien life into them. Try heavy pitch modulation of your samples or performances just to see how SilverBox responds. Although simple, it is temperamental and unpredictable, but certainly worth the experimentation.
SECOND REEL
Aaron Rutledge is a Manhattan Web developer and a moonlighting programmer and musician. Rutledge's skills come together at www.tweakbench.com, where he provides a well-rounded set of plug-ins and resolutely offers them free of charge. Rutledge employs a simple graphic style to represent his effects, but don't let that fool you into thinking that these effects might sound bland — quite the opposite. His lineup is fairly extensive, with 14 instruments and eight effects. Here are my picks of the litter.
Sideslip is a simple effect that produces complex, rhythmically synched variations on beats and loops. It also functions well as a sound-mangling device at faster synched speeds. The System section specifies the speed of the step sequencer at the bottom of the interface. The sequencer mode determines whether the sequencer will move forward (looping) or forward then backward (bouncing). The Start and End knobs determine loop length, and there are a half dozen envelope types with which you can experiment. The randomize function is marked by three exclamation points, and the pitch and grain size are controlled in the step sequencer.
Sideslip shines in musical and experimental contexts. As a step-sequenced effect, it is extremely useful when beat-matched to the music that it processes. With the Speed knob set to the minimum value, the step sequencer uses plain quarter notes and divides as the speed value increases. With the right pitch and grain settings, some slick and clever variations on song elements are possible.
The Sideslip effect can also create and process less structured content if randomized. Although randomizing it will seriously mangle your sounds, like many plug-ins, Sideslip usually sounds best if used deliberately and carefully. At faster tempos it can create a jumbled effect like a radio dial sliding quickly from station to station. That effect can be tempered and shaped by handpicking the grain and pitch levels and gating them. Sideslip is versatile, unique and a sure winner for experimental musicians.
Pudding is a granular delay and my favorite Tweakbench effect so far. If you've ever heard Ableton Live's Grain Delay, then you'll have an idea of the weird sonic modification this plug-in can crank out. Although similar in concept to the Grain Delay in Live, Pudding's interface is a little less fancy and not quite as intuitive to use. As a granulator, however, Pudding has quite a distinct flavor. It is vast and unpredictable. Briefly stated, for all parameters, larger note values (whole numbers rather than fractions) produce calmer, saner results. Smaller note values provide the crazier, more garbled noises.
Pudding's controls are reasonably straightforward: there are pitch, rate and size controls for the grains; feedback sync and length controls for the delay; and a patch randomizer. Some of the controls are a bit awkward and stubborn, but if you have a little patience, Pudding brings great rewards.
Aaron Rutledge's Tweakbench project is a labor of love and most certainly a noteworthy gift to sound designers. Although Rutledge's effects lineup could likely fetch a modest sum, for now they are generously given away.
THAT'S A WRAP
Tobias Fleischer and Aaron Rutledge have each unleashed a swarm of sound-processing tools for all to use and abuse. To collect everything from Tobybear and Tweakbench would result in a comprehensive virtual laboratory for the most intense and far-out sound manipulation that you can imagine. There are many other independent programmers who have developed their own noteworthy plug-ins and tools that you could seek out as well.
Creativity in sound design is not strictly dependent on one's tools. Knowing what type of sound to use with an effect and what the probable result will be is where the real potential for creative achievement lies. Ben Burtt's intimate knowledge of physics (he earned a degree in the subject) most certainly contributes to his ability to envision a sound first and then harvest existing noises in the environment and make them elusive and otherworldly. The plug-ins explored here are fine means by which anyone could begin to accomplish the same ends.
Personal taste, experience and diligence with one's tools are required conditions for standing out and breaking new ground in sound design. After picking a set of tools (whether those listed here or not), developing an expertise for their capabilities makes the creative process flow fluidly. If you have an ear for and an interest in cinematic sound design, there's never been a better time to defy paradigms than right now.
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