making layered sounds gel into one...

[mbc113]

recently I've been having trouble getting some of my multilayered samples and synth patches to gel into a single sound. i usually try to accomplish this just through levels first, and then by throwing some sort of processing on the sum of all the layers... like a distortion, compression, eq, or envelope... but all these techniques haven't been working recently. maybe my sound choice has been poor recently... i dunno, but recently the only way i've been able to get it so I don't perceive different streams of sound is when i fuck the sound up to the point where its too mushy. has anyone else run into this problem? any solutions?

[mbc113]

on the same note... have any of you listened to Gerard Grisey? he's a french spectralist composer. if not, check him out... he is amazing at blending acoustic isntruments in a way that they sound like one complex sound.

[johnS]

One thing i want to try is scrambling up the adsr of four different sounds.

Like the attack from a metal trash can being hit with a dead squirrel, the decay from a plucked guitar string, the sustain of a 10' diameter gong, and the release from a operatic vocal recorded in reverberant concert hall. Or something. I bet with some clever cross-fades you could get weird evolving sounds from this kind of thing.

It would be the audio equivalent of those kids books where you flip the pages to mix-n-match chins, mouths, noses and eyes from different faces.

[mbc113]

Originally Posted by johnS

One thing i want to try is scrambling up the adsr of four different sounds.

Like the attack from a metal trash can being hit with a dead squirrel, the decay from a plucked guitar string, the sustain of a 10' diameter gong, and the release from a operatic vocal recorded in reverberant concert hall. Or something. I bet with some clever cross-fades you could get weird evolving sounds from this kind of thing.

It would be the audio equivalent of those kids books where you flip the pages to mix-n-match chins, mouths, noses and eyes from different faces.

have you ever messed with spectally morphing sounds together. it's not exactly what your talking about, but it seems like something you might be into. extracting the excitation and stable portions of sounds and then resynthesizing them with those of other sounds... that's one way to do it... there are a ton of others though. soundhack (www.soundhack.com) can do some of these. also, check out http://www.camelaudio.com/cameleon5000.php I haven't played with this one yet, but i hear it's pretty neato...

[Chaorta]

Originally Posted by johnS

Like the attack from a metal trash can being hit with a dead squirrel,

This needed quotes.

[Nubus]

ah, soundhack ruled