Bear in mind this was inspired by taking an online course in sound design. Much work has been done already as part of the classwork, so that will definitely serve as a starting point. Some things were never finished, so there will be some looking back and creating some sounds that should have been there but never made it.
Let's start with the tools I'm using: Reason (especially Subtractor and Thor among others) and Absynth. My DAW of choice is Logic Pro 9. My workstation is a first-generation MBP, 15" display. My interface is the Apogee Duet. My controller (don't laugh) is the Akai EWI-USB. Why the EWI? My musical roots are in woodwinds, so while most programmers are out there hammering away on a keyboard, I'm testing my patches by breathing into them. I don't mean to sound judgmental, of course--these patches are being developed with keyboardists in mind. This is simply a symbolic thing. Any musician will rely on his/her hands to create music. Breathing, by contrast, is absolutely necessary for life. So by patch testing/tweaking by EWI, I'm in a sense pouring my life into my work! I do have keyboard controllers, so all my final testing will be done there.
Initially, all my work will be at my notebook computer. Sooner or later we need real synthesizers.
I want to start with the tools I DO have before buying different keyboards that it may take a year or more for me to use. Here's what I have: DX7II, TX7 (using a custom Logic environment for programming), and a Roland Alpha Juno I. I consider those my "primary" synths (I have a tiny handful of others) that will be immediately useful for my sound design objectives. OK, let's be honest here: Neither DX series boards nor Alpha Junos are much fun to program. They aren't fun at all, actually. But alone or in combination they are quite capable of interesting sounds. I'm really looking forward to the sampling portion of this project for this reason!
I'm not likely to purchase anything new in the immediate future, though this will become a priority in time to develop products for synth/workstations in current use. I do have a "secret weapon" in the works, though. I don't think it would make much sense working on patches for workstations after just getting a custom synth! All that to say there won't be any other sound libraries quite like this one. I'm just praying that it's a GOOD one.
So, speaking of libraries, this is what I actually have so far: 72 Absynth patches and (I think) 60 Subtractor patches, both representing an equal number of specific types of sounds and all using subtractive synthesis exclusively. They are about as simple as you can get and not very useful, at least not beyond a limited scope of applications. The strength of these patches lies in their potential as building blocks for more complex and, hence, more musical and useful sounds. Not counted in this number are several "default" patches from which similar sounds to the ones I mention can be derived. Because they use subtractive synthesis exclusively, there may be a need to develop more basic defaults for other synthesis methods.
In my next post, I'll be discussing the current patches I'm building as well as other immediate goals and intermediate steps in building my sound library. I'll also write about some loose ends that must be tied up in the process.
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