Now that digital technology allows rapid creation of new interfaces for music and sound, the question of how to represent those elements visually has new life. But whether digital or not, practitioners of music have long been interested in applying further descriptions to music, from the Baroque Doctrine of Affectations to the involuntary association of color in Synesthesia.

Applying colors to the notes of a musical scale is one particularly common idea, but the late master composer/orchestrator Arthur Lange had a different idea: why not give colors to range? Building on ideas from orchestrators Francois Auguste Geveart and Rimsky-Korsakov, he applied colors to registers of tone across each instrument. This way, it’s possible to see, in livid color, how ranges are applied in orchestrations, even down to unisons and harmonic density.

Lange wasn’t just any composer/orchestrator: he was a four-time Academy Award nominee, head of MGM’s Music Department, a Tin Pan Alley mainstay, a bandstand and studio regular from the 1920s, and an orchestrator on everything from 20s dance band numbers to MGM’s “The Maltese Falcon.” Seeing his creative and more-than-a-bit idiosyncratic approach says a lot about the ingenuity of America’s musical Renaissance at the time.

Here’s the twist: aside from suggesting how color might be represented in digital systems, the Spectrotone Chart could even be applied to audio equalization in music production, as EQ and orchestration are closely coupled. (Tin Pan Alley’s orchestrator with a pen could be today’s mastering engineer on Cubase.)

I know some of this only by coincidence: Alexander Publishing, a major music and educational publishing house, has decided to re-release Lange’s self-titled “Spectrotone Chart” with training materials as a US$20 download. As they are selling it, Alexander doesn’t want to give away all its secrets, but here’s the basic system. Range is divided by adjective and color:

White = Brilliant
Yellow = Bright
Green = Pleasant
Blue = Rich
Orange = Golden
Red = Glowing
Brown = Warm
Purple = Mellow
Grey = Dull
Black = Indefinite

These sections are then, as illustrated in these excerpt images, applied to frequency and instrumental range, with various applications for using the resulting color system to understand orchestration and harmony.

What might this have to do with recording and EQ? From the press materials at Alexander Publishing:

The Spectrotone Chart is organized by the 88 keys of the piano with each key numbered, from the bottom A being 1 to the highest C being 88. Because of its application to mixing and EQ, Alexander Publishing added below each piano key its Hz frequency. Similar to many EQ charts, above the piano keyboard are the colorized tone colors within each instrument’s range.

With the Spectrotone Chart, an engineer sees the range of the EQ’ing along with the tone colors being affected. “For arrangers and composers not trained in recording engineering, the Spectrotone Chart helps them understand EQ from an orchestration perspective,” explained Peter Alexander, author of the Professional Orchestration™ series and How Ravel Orchestrated: Mother Goose Suite.

If you’re interested in exploring Lange’s system, $19.95 buys you a digital download with the chart (as an 18″x24″ poster, scalable to Letter, A4, and the like), plus two detailed “training guides” for how to use it.

But I’m also interested in how color might be applied to new musical interfaces and interface design, and how you use color to think about your music generally. After all, as MGM themselves demonstrated, a world in Technicolor is somehow more vivid, if a bit riskier. Just ask Dorothy.

In a Hollywood overrun with remakes, a new Tron has quite a daunting challenge. The original film may be a cult hit for its 80s arcade cool, but it also was a seminal moment in the evolution of computer animation, at the nexus of obsessive-compulsive optical effects that came before and digital effects that came after. (Google Perlin Noise, if you must.) But where the bits of the effects look uneven or dated alongside the brilliant, it’s nearly impossible to top the genius of Wendy Carlos’ score. Her deft blend of choirs, orchestras, organs, and rich electronics wasn’t just forward looking: it’s fresh today, an alternative to some of the signature sameness in today’s games and films.

Perhaps Tron Legacy will do what other belated sequels have not: express love for the original. With Daft Punk helming the score and a reverent, inspired crew ready to make Tron live again, the trailer last week was the real sleeper hit of Comic-Con.

If that’s not enough layers of fandom, though, head to GearSlutz for a lesson in film scoring and a recreation of the trailer in Reason, custom Reaktor patches, and Ableton Live. This is not much of an infomercial for Live: because Ableton’s arrange view doesn’t quite understand frames, scoring with Live is a bit of a beast. (Live 9, anyone?) But it’s a great example of love for the movie and its original score. And hey, everyone need a source of joy, even a film.

Ableton Live for Sound Design :Tron Legacy [GearSlutz forum]

Stripped the original audio and redid all of the sound from scratch using Reason/NI Reaktor/Ableton Live 8. An M-Audio Axiom 49 was used to perform the Lightcycle Engine Oscillations

Wendy Carlos, if you’re out there, we get it. You revolutionized film scoring and electronic orchestration, and we’re all in your debt. It’s not so much that you switched on Bach or switched on Moog or even switched on Kubrick and guys in glowing skin-tight outfits. You switched on sound, and nothing has been quite the same since.

Now, we just have to hope 2010 can show us a good time, too.

Composer, musician, and sound designer W. Brent Latta knows something about sound design, currently working professionally on sound for games with Amaze Entertainment. As an enthusiast of what it takes to craft sound, he’s put together a list for us of where to go to learn more and hone your abilities, from fundamentals to the specifics required by film/video and games. -Ed.

Sound design is a fundamental aspect of nearly every form of digital media, from music production to games to commercial radio. Sometimes seen as a ‘dark art’, sound design can also be viewed as difficult and mysterious, often deterring would-be creators. Here are 15 sound design resources to help rookies and veterans alike.

Fundamentals

The fundamentals of sound design rest firmly on the core fundamentals of audio engineering. Without a working knowledge of basic audio engineering, your road to becoming a sound designer could be a long one. Here are some resources to help get you off on the right foot.

1. AudioTuts.com is a great place to start learning basic and advanced techniques for audio production. Even if you have no interest in producing music, taking the time to work through both sound design and music production tutorials will quickly give you practical, hands-on experience with the techniques you’ll need to get your sound design career moving.

2. Sound On Sound has a voluminous archive of audio, music and production tutorials. These range from the most fundamental techniques of sound synthesis, all the way up to specific techniques using outboard effects processors.

3. Digital Pro Sound has a nice archive of tutorials and articles covering a range of applications, plug-ins, and general techniques.

Sound For Film

Sound for film has a long and proud history, with a level of camaraderie and support that is not often found in other aspects of various media industries. As sound designers, we are fortunate to have a plethora of amazing individuals who help promote our work, keep us informed, and help us keep up on the latest and greatest news and tech. Here are a few film-specific sites that are worth checking out.

4. FilmSound is perhaps the most comprehensive site on the web regarding the topic of sound and music for film. Contributors include legendary sound designers such as Randy Thom, Ben Burtt and Walter Murch. There’s even a section specifically for beginners!

5. FilmSoundDaily is relatively new to the blogosphere, but is highly recommended for unique, personal approach, its thorough interviews, and plenty of audio and video content.

6. SyncSoundCinema is an interesting blog covering field production and recording. Product reviews and announcements, as well as industry commentary make for a useful daily read.

Sound For Games

Now that we’re moving into my neck of the woods, I’m happy to share with you some of my favorite sites covering the topics of audio for games. While many of the techniques are the same, the specific application of sound in games can vary widely from film, television and radio. Here are a few sites to give you a head-start on audio for games.

7. GamaSutra is one of the premier sites on the web for news, articles, interviews, and industry reports on games. Their archives are replete with interesting game audio articles covering a range of topics including adaptive music, voiceover recording, production pipelines and development methodology. In addition, Gamasutra has sections devoted to job-hunting and education, for those who are just getting started.

8. GANG is the Game Audio Network Guild, is the largest game audio community in the world. It is a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion, education and growth of the game audio community. The majority of the resources are available to members-only, but with the recent site overhaul, there are a number of new features that are available for those who are interested in joining but want more information first.

9. Music4Games is devoted to all aspects of music for video games, including soundtrack reviews, interviews with top composers, and even reviews of software used frequently in the production of game music. This is a great site for learning about the movers and shakers of the game music industry.

10. IASIG “exists to allow developers of audio software, hardware, and content to freely exchange ideas about improving the performance of interactive applications by influencing hardware, software, and tool design.” Comprised of a wide variety of individuals from across the interactive entertainment industry, the IASIG has working to improve the lives of game developers and game audio designers for over 13 years.

11. sound-music-interactive-games is a blog I recently stumbled upon. While much of the content is linked from other, previously mentioned sites, it is all focused on game-audio, and contains thoughtful and amusic commentary from Richard Stevens.

Communities and Lists

I’m happy to say that the sound design community is generally welcoming, informative, and a fun place to work and play. Here are some great places where you can begin to network with fellow composers and sound designers. As a general rule, newbies are welcome in all of these communities, though the signal-to-noise ratio here is very high. Posts are almost always ‘on-topic’, and searching the archives for previously answered questions is mandatory.

12. GameAudioForum is an excellent place to learn, share ideas, and network with other game audio professionals.

13. GameAudioPro is a Yahoo! mailing list devoted to learning more about sound design for games. While there isn’t a much traffic here as on GameAudioForum, this is a great way to stay connected if you don’t want to spend a lot of time searching through web forums.

14. sound_design is another Yahoo! discussion group. This particular group is a veritable who’s-who of the film, television and game sound world. The level of professionalism here is extremely high, and while rookies are welcome, asking rookie questions is somewhat frowned upon, as most rookie questions are readily answered elsewhere (in the archives or on other websites). I’ve been a ‘lurker’ on this site for two years and have yet to ask a question. Even so, I’ve learned a great deal by simply reading the posts of others.

A Random Must Read Site

15. USO is a site with a wide ranging scope covering topics such as sound design, production, technique, interviews and digital signal processing. This is one of my favorite daily visits, with a great sense of humor, and reverence for audio creators everywhere. Highly recommended! Ed.: I agree — this has long been on my blog RSS feed! -PK

Your Favorites?

Do you have favorite websites, mailing lists, or forums that cover the topic of sound design, production, recording, foley or audio for games? If so, let us know in the comments!

Estesvan Carlos Benson sends along this film score he created for Godard’s Vivre sa Vie. Keep watching — he’s got a fantastic sense of picking up the rhythm of the actress. He explains:

It was basically produced with a Korg N364 and Sonar, back in 2004. Conceptually I just felt drawn to this scene. The original music created a stark irony (it was swing jazz I think). Additionally, and for whatever reasons, Anna Karina wasn’t quite dancing to the original rhythm. I was aiming for a tone that dealt with the larger aspect of the movie and her character, within the scene and outside of it.

Note to self: if I ever become one of the greatest directors of all time, be sure to get someone like Anna Karina in my movies.

Project details and lots more at his site:
estevancarlos.com

Estevan Carlos will hopefully be contributing some items to CDM in the future, so welcome him onboard!