Automated Sound Design

Sound design is a ubiquitous subject for electronic musicians working across a staggering array of contemporary musical styles and practices. There is an extensive literature covering the creation of Foley effects, and another body of literature addressing domain-specific applications of sound design technique, e.g., how to make bass sounds for Dubstep or how to produce drum sounds for Trap. There is also a computer music literature that focuses on the mathematics of digital signal processing as it pertains to implementing classic digital synthesis and processing techniques. Automated Sound Design addresses the topic from a different perspective, demonstrating the power of sound design when enhanced by automated structures implemented with computer programming. Through the techniques and projects developed in this book, the reader will learn how to create sound design scenarios that generate classes of sounds with controlled unpredictability and unlimited variety of output. This adventure will reveal new ways to work with additive synthesis, frequency modulation, analysis-transformation synthesis, drum machines, Black MIDI, and spatialization for binaural listening.