Sound design

1) We certainly SHOULD make use of preset patches as
appropriate to our needs. I think we may be lucky that
Bach, Beethoven, Thelonius Monk et al didn't spend
most of their composing time trying to figure out
CSound or building new kinds of clavichords ;) At the
same time, let's be glad that certain people through
history in various cultures experimented with the
building of better or newer instruments, including
today's best patch designers! What great resources we
have now thanks to them!

2)For new instrumental sounds: As a composer of
instrumental & synthetic instrumental music, and
through my studies of orchestration & acoustics in
both acoustic & electronic realms, I've found it
useful to overlap or sequentially graft attack
transients (the first 1/10 sec. or so of a sound) from
one kind of sound with the sustain/release wave of
another sound. For example, you might combine piano
attack with flute sustain, or gun shot attack and
trumpet sustain. This can be applied both within a
patch, and to ensembles of patches. Also, experiment
with moving the relation between the attack & sustain
portions a few milliseconds before or after each
other. You can find these techniques amongst the great
19th Century classical orchestrators like Ravel, and
amongst excellent recent classical orchestrators like
Jacob Druckman or Bernard Rands.

3)A realistic sampled chorus: I found I could
effectively simulate the sound of a chorus section
(basses or tenors, etc.) by singing the passage of
music first with my normal vowel formations and
sampling it, and then by sampling the same passage a
few more times, each time with slightly different
vowels.

4)In rapid instrumental passages, experiment with the
degree of staccato on your notes or their patch
release envelopes, or the degree of overlap into the
next tone. I've found that, especially when building
complex polyphonic textures, that giving each line its
own release character enhances our ability to
distinguish it from other instrumental lines. I
believe it's a proven fact by now that the great
classical pianists' "singing tone" is mostly the
slight (a few milliseconds) overlap of one melodic
tone to the next. If you don't believe me, simulate
this on your sequencer with a piano patch & report
your honest opinion ;)
---------------
My so-far lone mp3 on the web (linked from
www.geocities.com/harold_fortuin) doesn't showcase my
timbral knowledge. My orchestra piece "Extremities" on
Vienna Modern Masters 3003 CD is a more convincing
commercially available example, or "Untitled #3: A
Transcendental Etude for Computer-Controlled Keyboard"
on VMM 2008 in the electronic realm.

Soundly yours,
Harold Fortuin
www.geocities.com/harold_fortuin

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--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Harold Fortuin <harold_fortuin@y...>
wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_750.html#750

> > My so-far lone mp3 on the web (linked from
> www.geocities.com/harold_fortuin) doesn't showcase my
> timbral knowledge. My orchestra piece "Extremities" on
> Vienna Modern Masters 3003 CD is a more convincing
> commercially available example, or "Untitled #3: A
> Transcendental Etude for Computer-Controlled Keyboard"
> on VMM 2008 in the electronic realm.
>
> Soundly yours,
> Harold Fortuin
> www.geocities.com/harold_fortuin
>

Thank you, Harold, for your "patch making" advice!

___________ _________ _____
Joseph Pehrson