DAW Synthesis And Sampling

This was the first project I started in this course, and it was my first time ever working with Ableton and this project really challenged me as it was completely different to any other DAW I have used prior. However I really enjoyed learning about it as it became one of if not my favourite DAWs that I have ever used. All the different effects and the hot keys were way more useful compared to the previous DAW I used called reaper. 

Aim for the session – talk about how this was your first time doing a project on Ableton 

After a little while of getting used to the DAW I began learning how to create my own Synth patches using the different synths on Ableton, this was helpful as my final project for this part of the course was to make 8 different Synth patches and also create my own midi instrument using an instrument we recorded. The instrument I chose was a Stylophone I think if I do this again, I will probably choose a different instrument as it sounded horrible. The final aim was to create a song using these synth patches and the midi instrument, I am happy with what I done but, 100% there are things I can improve on and want to try next time. For example, I want to try experimenting with the synths a bit more and making a Midi instrument that sounds better.  

Synth Patches  

The first synth patch I made was a synth bass that resembled that of the bass from the song “superstition” by Stevie wonder. This is one of my Favourite songs and the bass is funky in the song, so I wanted to recreate that using the synths that were available to me.

Some of the other synths are also based off different instruments however a fair majority are made from me messing around with different settings and different sounds to experiment with. For Example this one is a Physical modelling Synthesizer this recreates acoustic sounds, the aim with this synth was to make bell sound that slowly drifts away and I'm really proud of how it came out as I got exactly the sound I wanted.

in addition to the synth patches we had to make a sampler instrument, this was a fun process to do and I am definitely going to try experimenting with it myself however the instrument I chose isn't a instrument I'm the biggest fan of as the sound of it isn't the greatest. 100% the next time I try this I am going to change what instrument I use and make it sound better. The instrument I chose was as a stylophone I recorded this by putting a Sm58 up to the stylophone's speaker and getting someone to play each of the notes and to record the velocity I would change the volume so low velocity was recorded at a lower volume and the higher velocity was recorded with a higher volume.

The outcome