Blog Assignment #2: The 'Secret Language' of Sound Engineering

The ‘Secret Language’ of Sound Engineering

1. Multi band compression - A compressor squashes (or lowers the volume) of a signal if the signal goes above a certain volume, also known as the ‘threshold’. Multi band compression is multiple compressors that are on different frequency ranges of an audio signal.  This allows an audio signal to be compressed (or evened out) at different amounts depending on the frequency.
2. Wavetable synthesis - Wavetable synthesis is a form of digital sound synthesis that can create very organic sounding tones.  Each oscillator creates sound by registering “wavetables”, or multiple sections of an audio clip.  A user can automate through different wavetables as a sound plays to create a changing but similar waveform that can create very organic tones.
3. Serum - Serum is a wavetable synthesizer that has become incredibly popular for it’s capability to produce organic sounding synth patches as well as the simple layout that makes complex sound design quick and easy.  This is personally my favorite VST synth and I reference it a fair amount because I use it for a lot of my sound design.

        2. I feel like there’s sometimes an unfair notion that a lot of PAT students can’t play instruments and use computers as a crutch.  However, I have yet to meet a PAT major who doesn’t play at least one instrument, and I’m fairly certain that everyone I’ve met so far in the PAT program use recorded instruments in their compositions.