Whether your trade in audio is in soundtracks for screens and games, or you’re just exploring strange, new worlds and seeking out new life and new timbres in your music, the discipline of sound design is as rich and deep as cooking. It’s something you can do every day.

Okay, now just put that “cooking” metaphor out of your mind and steel your stomach. Sound maker and dirt bike rider Jim Stout of Austin (Roland, Sound Ideas, The Hollywood Edge) does some ungodly things with raw barbecue chicken and dog food. For more on Jim Stout, check out the exclusive Designing Sound interview, and then submit your own questions to Jim before the end of the month on the site.

If you haven’t been following the blog Designing Sound, you’ve been missing out. After a merger with Jake Riehle’s Filmsound Daily, the site has been on fire with interviews, history, and tutorials and techniques. I’m not normally one for “top ten” lists, but this seemed the perfect time to help us catch up: I asked editor Miguel Isaza to assemble ten of his favorite, must-read stories from recent months.

Best of all, the site is producing all-original, free stories from some of the biggest names in the sound design art. It’s not just a set of links (as I’m about to do here).

Film and television music has made composers household names, but a lot of sound designers haven’t gotten the same recognition in wider circles. But some of these names are legends — a secret that has been too well-kept too long. Here’s why:

1. Animation. Erik Aadahl Special: Animation Sound Design (Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs Aliens, Shrek: Forever After)

Choice quote:

“For Panda, making things musical became our central strategy. This is not new to the Kung Fu genre. Kung Fu films are all about rhythms, beats and hyper-expressive, often musical and tonal sounds. Sound effects editor P.K. Hooker put together a collection of Kung Fu movies, from classics like “Iron Monkey” to newer films like “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” What these films all have in common are intricate rhythms, where punches sound like percussion, most impacts have a WHOOSH leading into them, and the sound effects are often indistinguishable from music.”

2. Guns. Lots of guns. Chuck Russom Special: Gun Sound Design, Gun Recording Guide (Game sound design, Medal of Honor, Dante’s Inferno, God of War)

Choice quote:

“Guns are loud. Try to reinforce that in your sound design … Don’t forget the gun tail/decay. The first few hundred milliseconds of a gunshot have very little character. If you neglect the gun tail, your guns will sound less powerful and they will all sound very similar.”

So much energy is spent reflecting on the merits of different tools, or re-hashing tired debates like the comparison between analog and digital, often with the assumption that you can hear the tool in the finished work. But the real value of an expressive, creative tool is that it can produce wildly different results in different hands; it’s the measure of its versatility. And the measure of music is the music itself.

That makes it doubly satisfying listening to the results of the Efficient Music Competition CDM hosted with the Renoise production software and Linux-powered Indamixx netbooks and software suites. While tracker applications have been conventionally associated with certain styles, there’s music here from every possible genre. There are contributing artists at a wide variety of different stages in the development of their craft and creative output – just as all of us are growing and changing. There’s even a spoken word piece with a cow in a can (one of my offbeat favorites). I’m sure you’ll hate some of the music and love some of the rest; some will think the voting results were spot-on and others will be surprised and find the results upside down. Such is taste.

You can download all the entrants in the original Renoise file format, which you can play on any Mac, Windows, or Linux machine even with the free demo version. They’re ranked by popular-opinion vote.

http://www.renoise.com/competitions/indamixx/results.php

On the main competition page, most of tracks have SoundCloud players, which means you can also connect with artists you like at that community:

http://www.renoise.com/competitions/indamixx/

Remember that all of these tracks are Creative Commons-licensed, meaning they’re ripe sources of samples and sounds you can use freely in your work. If you need them for commercial purposes, you can contact the artists.

Taste aside, though, it’s fantastic to hear the range of activity going on. And keep in mind that the challenge of the competition, as sponsored by the software Renoise and Linux netbook vendor Indamixx, was to do more with less. As lovely as it is to have ever-growing computational resources, this is proof you don’t need them all the time. Even an affordable Atom-powered netbook is capable of real production, which says great things about the ongoing mobilization and democratization of computer music technology.

We have more than just a one-dimensional set of results. The contest judges offer lots to hear, including commentary on the tracks. And I’m pleased to share my own CDM pick and honorable mentions.

Loops have gotten an unfortunate reputation as being a stand-in for real musicians or real musicianship – perhaps because, too often, they are. That’s why it’s always refreshing to see a discussion of how looping can incorporate musical technique. Like many electronic musicians, I have zero background in drumming; I’m a keyboardist and was trained in Classical Piano. But then, part of the gift of being a composer is getting inside the heads of musicians who play instruments you can’t. And when it comes to understanding rhythm, there’s a limitless supply of work to explore from around the world.

Ryan Gauss writes us to share a blog that’s all about rhythm and drumming. Blogging can be a distraction from music making, but in this case, he’s using it to help be even more disciplined in building technique:

Every day I record and post a new drum loop (with a link to the Logic session and .wav files). I organize the beats by category (rock hip hop, jazz etc) and try to change up the production style with every loop.

So far, there’s a terrific piece on “linear drumming” – a style in which you hit only one part of your kit at a time. (Now, this really inspires me in terms of some of the rhythmic sequencing ideas I’ve been thinking about – I’ll have to explore. Maybe I can build a linear pattern sequencer.) See notation at top.

Linear drumming for dummies. | ryangruss.com

There’s also a fantastic video from drummer Shawn Pelton, who to me really exemplifies the marriage of great drumming and sophisticated use of technology (Ableton Live, in this case).

Shawn Pelton’s studio | ryangruss.com

I’ll be reading this site, for sure. Thanks, Ryan.

http://ryangruss.com/ “Fresh Drum Loops Made Daily”
(question – are they best hot, as with Krispy Kreme?)