Sound Design In Music

When creating electronic music within the confines of a computer(in the box), often we create things that are lacking life, the harmonic content is richer than acoustic instruments yet the music still lacks that special something.Often this is a timing thing - grooves are very good at humanizing percussion for example - but for the most part it is about sound choice and sound design.

In the real, acoustic world, nothing is "perfect" acoustic instruments are ripe with resonant frequencies and buzzing components that digital instruments lack, as a producer it is our job to put them imperfections back into our electronic instruments.

There are of course a million and one ways to do this but here I will briefly go over a few:
- Amp simulation:
The body and shape of a real instrument has a resonance, you can hear it by tapping the instrument and noting the tone it makes, the strings on a guitar are not all that make the sound, amp simulations are digital replicas of wooden boxes and such that allow us to simulate what our synthesizers would sound like if they were attached to a real wooden box.

- Noise oscillation:
There are fx that simply resonate noise when you play a sound through them, this gives the effect of a slightly broken instrument(but in a good way) I often use this very subtly to introduce some random harmonics to an otherwise orderly sound.

- Envelopes:
It is important to keep your synths moving for the most part, if you play a single string on a guitar you`ll hear there`s a pluck, a buzz, and then it gradually mellows - it`s never static - and this is a feature you want to create in every snyth patch you use if you want to get past that "everything sounds lifeless" stage of music production.

Thankfully, most good presets on cubase or logic`s built in synths have considered these features to a large degree but when making your own, these little things can make a big difference to organic sound design.