Discover the SECRETS to Sound Design with Zen World! 🌐 Boomcast Ep.12

🔊 Join Fabio from Noize London and MusicByLukas on the Boombox YouTube channel for an exclusive interview with Zen World, the mastermind behind some of the most innovative sound design techniques in the music industry. In this episode, Zen World shares his top secrets for creating immersive and unique soundscapes that will set your music apart from the rest. Learn how to elevate your music production skills and make your tracks truly stand out.

Tune in to explore:

🔑 The principles of powerful sound design

🎹 Creative techniques for crafting original sounds

🎛 Essential tools for sound design in music production

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry’s leading sound designers! Subscribe to Boombox for more episodes of Boomcast and the best music production tips and tricks

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Transcript: The Secrets to Sound Design w/ Zen World

00;00;00;02 – 00;00;05;19
Fabio
Welcome to Boomcast: the official podcast from Boombox.io

Lukas
I’m @MusicbyLukas

Fabio
and I’m @Noize_London.

00;00;07;28 – 00;00;31;11
Lukas
Boombox is the new home of collaboration. Store, organize and collaborate like never before. Go start your free account today. Today we have a very special guest on the podcast, one of the real legends when it comes to music production and music production tutorials. I would say honestly, like one of the O.G. influencers before there were really music production influencers:

Zen World. This is really exciting to have you on.

00;00;34;16 – 00;00;45;16
Zen World
Yeah. Thank you guys for having me on. And you’re very kind. I think. Yeah, I think you’re right. I was one of the first. You know, there were people before me, for sure. You know…

00;00;45;24 – 00;00;49;10
Lukas
We ignore all of them. It’s just you, now..

00;00;49;10 – 00;00;50;10
Zen World
[laughs] Hey, thank you.

00;00;50;19 – 00;01;10;06
Lukas
And since you’re big on sound design, that is our big question for all you guys watching. Comment below and let us know if you sound design, if you are a beginner, if you’ve never done it before, which plugins you use to sound design? And someone who comments will get a $500 gift card for their studio gear, maybe for some plugins for sound design.

00;01;10;06 – 00;01;11;14
Lukas
So make sure to comment below.

00;01;11;15 – 00;01;12;29
Fabio
Zen World, You are a Sound Designer. And that’s what we want to focus on today. I imagine a lot of people come into music production. They think about being superstar DJs, right? You are an incredibly talented sound designer, something that I think has become a much, much more important part and well recognized part of the industry. How did you end up becoming a sound designer?

00;01;38;19 – 00;02;04;05
Zen World
I’ll be honest. Producer first. First, I used to frequent the forums of a lot of production communities. The main one being Ajuna Beats. And at that time, I think Skrillex was on the come up. I think he did like “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” and started reading a thread where a lot of producers were bashing him, because I guess it came to light that a lot of the sounds were presets and a lot of sampled one-shots.

00;02;04;06 – 00;02;20;27
Zen World
You know, I’m the type of guy that thinks way too ahead. I was like, “You know, if I ever get big, I don’t want people talking about me like this.” You know, straight up. So that’s why I took it on myself to learn sound design – which I don’t know if that’s the thing you should do when you’re learning how to make music – but its the same way we focus on other stuff.

00;02;20;27 – 00;02;25;12
Zen World
But I said, “You know what? I’m going to learn sound design.” So that’s the way it started.

00;02;25;12 – 00;02;31;18
Lukas
And were there any tutorials or anything like that out there back then? What were the first steps?

00;02;31;20 – 00;02;53;15
Zen World
Yeah, there were future tutorials, boyinaband, back then. I was using Reason, so I think that it was version 4. So I started off with those. But eventually, you know, obviously the presets existed back then. And you know, I kind of realized I could reverse engineer the presets to learn how to make the sounds.

00;02;54;05 – 00;03;33;12
Zen World
So a lot of my earlier career, I was learning tricks by just reverse engineering sounds from Vandalism, but yeah, just reverse engineering. I learned a lot of cool stuff, eventually got analog synths, which, let’s be honest, a lot of it is pre-routed for you. So I learned even more. I didn’t know you could put the envelope on a pitch or on certain parameters because you know, when you’re in a digital synth like Serum, it doesn’t you have to route it, like the LFO has to go here even Sylenth, it doesn’t have an envelope routed to the pitch as well. So really cool stuff. That’s how I went about it.

00;03;33;14 – 00;03;33;23
Fabio
Do you think that sound design is becoming a more fundamental part of a producer’s day to day and music creation?

00;04;01;01 – 00;04;20;19
Zen World
Yes and no. I think that obviously having a signature sound is the old thing, but I feel like there’s much more to it, like the way you use the sound versus, you know, the sound itself. You know like, the new Dom Baller track or Medusa track that’s I just did a video on how to do –
That’s a very basic sound. If you read the comments on YouTube, you got the haters. They’re saying, Oh, that’s just Benny Benassi sound from back in the day. Right? But the Benny Benassi song, “Stand Down…” versus the Medusa one – it’s a gated one. It’s still the same sound, but just adding that gate to it made it unique in a sense, right?

00;04;21;05 – 00;04;34;19
Zen World
So to me, you know, I feel like yes and no. I feel like you can also use production techniques to make sounds that are already known to work, but that just sound a little more unique by just adding thread again, like gate.

00;04;35;05 – 00;04;52;23
Lukas
If you’re a beginner at sound design, if someone’s watching this and has no idea which plugins to use, what would you recommend to be their go to? I mean, obviously they got to watch your YouTube channel, but like what do you think they need besides tutorials? Is there anything specific that you would say? Which sounds are the easiest to start with: kicks, subs, leads?

00;04;54;10 – 00;05;16;01
Zen World
Oh yeah, don’t even focus on kick subs. Sub is probably the easiest saw-sound, square- sounds analog bass sounds. You know, like a moog or Sylenth1. But the best synth part to deal with is Serum. As long as you keep composure and use the analog shapes, you know, the basic shapes’ waveform. Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’ve done sound effects too.

00;05;16;01 – 00;05;17;10
Zen World
So, you know, that’s plenty.

00;05;17;10 – 00;05;17;18
Lukas
Yeah.

00;05;18;04 – 00;05;38;19
Zen World
Yeah. I mean, most of the big songs out there that you hear is just basic saw or square [waveforms] – that’s mainly it. I feel like, yeah, sound design is cool, and you can get crazy with it but don’t over-complicate it, you know? But Serum is the one I would tell people to learn because it’s very visual, so it’s very easy to learn.

00;05;38;19 – 00;06;03;02
Zen World
The filter opens up like this, or a saw wave looks like this… and it sounds like this… versus when you use other synths, sometimes the fact that it’s not visual makes it harder – even the LFO, right? You shape a sound with it and you know it’s going to sound like [beep] because you can see it versus an analog synth like a Moog, you can’t see it. So yeah, Serum, man, that’s the way. Vital too, if you want a free one.

00;06;03;02 – 00;06;30;20
Fabio
That was Massive back in the day. I felt like that was like a sound design tool. You could YouTube it, which there weren’t very many. Drum and bass was like the big thing back then too. I’m talking about 13 years ago, something like that, and just sitting there thinking, “What on earth is going on?” And then back to your message when you talk about presets, I remember Sylenth came out and someone brought it to my house and was like, “This is the synth, the Swedish house mafia used.”

00;06;30;20 – 00;06;47;14
Fabio
And we went through every single preset and there’s like this house mafia one preset and this, this and this and this. And then eventually Serum came out and I totally agree with you: the thing that made Serum so powerful was that when you add something to the Matrix, when you modulate one part of Serum to another as a trigger, you see it happening. And that just makes so much more sense. And same way too, when things are hidden in the background or the modulation matrix like with analog synths, and Iearned on analog synths, I found that my it took a lot more for my brain to compute what was going on unless I drew it on a piece of paper and drew out the routing.

00;07;11;23 – 00;07;33;18
Fabio
If you have a preset and like you said, you know, it’s how you produce the preset and what you do with it. Do you think sound design, aside from waveforms and envelopes, how much of it is also part of the effects section? So I’m talking distortion, reverb, delay, chorus and things that come internally. And then also on top of that?

00;07;33;18 – 00;07;56;05
Zen World
Well, my specialty is doing presets, you know, because my goal is to help the common producer. That’s always been my goal. So I try to make my presets sound as good as possible. Of course, there’s sounds out there like, you know, songs have like this insane saw-lead, but then it has a delay on it that makes it unique…

00;07;56;05 – 00;08;14;12
Zen World
So that goes back. But yeah, I agree. I do think effect effects play a huge role in the way the sound can be shaped. The reverb you put, obviously you have to filter delays in a way where it sounds metallic, so you make it sound that way. Chorus, right? You have a basic saw and you can turn that into a super-saw, if you want more of an old school vibe. Chorus, you can shape the sound with EQ. That’s a big one. A lot of us see EQ as a mixing technique, but you can shape the sound of a saw, for instance, and make it sound different than someone else’s by just boosting somewhere else that they don’t.

00;08;34;16 – 00;09;06;25
Zen World
Most people like to boost the highs. But what if you boosted the mid-lows over compression? You know, compressing something like the old timers cared a lot about dynamics. Compress the crap out of a saw and you get the Armin van Buuren, big d sharp, fat sound. David Guetta, the future rave sound bro, basic saw, right? But over compressed. But that’s the sound, right? So yeah, there’s a lot to the effects as well. And I think that comes what, what would you call it, mixing? Or would you call that sound design too?

00;09;06;25 – 00;09;47;14
Fabio
I think I still consider all of that sound design. Do you know what I mean? Until you’re actually seeing and looking to bring everything together, which is what mixing is, right? It’s the balance of all the elements. When I put like an EQ on, maybe I’m not doing it within Serum, I’m putting it directly on the channel and reverb and delay.
This for me is still very much part of the creative process. And it’s not that the mixing isn’t creative, it’s just that I feel like, you know, people talk about the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain and one is logical and technical. I feel the same way about sound design and mixing because if you start to intertwine the two too much, you might get caught in trying to clean up a sound where really you’re just trying to get a bunch of character out of it.

00;09;50;26 – 00;10;01;24
Lukas
So I have a random question that I’m sure you’ve answered a million times, but I don’t know the answer, so I’m going to ask it anyway because I have you here. But why do you say, “Beep, beep? What’s up, ninjas?”

00;10;02;26 – 00;10;03;15
Zen World
Okay. Yeah.

00;10;03;23 – 00;10;06;29
Lukas
Where did this come from?

00;10;06;29 – 00;10;26;21
Zen World
Okay. So I think there was a time in my career where I was like, you know, I was reading books and obviously, you know, watching tutorials. I think you can learn anything on YouTube. So everyone says you have to have a community, you have to have something that everyone can know you for just like that. And I used to be into a lot of fitness, like bodybuilding.

00;10;26;21 – 00;10;48;29
Zen World
So there’s this guy named Louie DeMarco. I don’t know if he still makes videos, but he’d always start with [beep beep] So that’s how it started. And then the ninjas thing was just more of a thing of, you know, I want to draw on the ying yang. So obviously I’m into that sort of culture side of stuff. And I always loved ninjas as a kid, so I was like, Yeah, let’s call them ninjas…

00;10;49;06 – 00;10;50;29
Zen World
That’s the way it came. Yeah, yeah.

00;10;50;29 – 00;11;06;12
Lukas
And it’s one of those ones that’s interesting too. So you think of it, people are like, “Oh, what is that about?” I’m sure you get that question a lot, but I have another question as well, which is you were talking about how you wanted to be a sound designer.

00;11;06;12 – 00;11;19;04
Lukas
You want to know sound design because you want to be able to have unique music. You want to stand out, you want to have your own sound, blah, blah, blah. But my question is to the people out there, who are basically thinking like, hey, every sound has been made, you know what I mean? Like there is a good argument for that.

00;11;19;04 – 00;11;37;10
Lukas
You can only make so many sounds, and we do try obviously to push the limits and do different things. But what do you think with sound design, if you’re trying to be unique, like how do you do that with a specific genre? Is it just trying to bring elements that you don’t hear commonly in that genre?

00;11;37;10 – 00;11;57;05
Zen World
Yeah, I would say, you know, I teach people as well how to make music. And one of the hardest things as a teacher, I’ve had to ask myself is how do I teach someone to be unique, how to be creative, very hard to do. But one of the things that has helped is reading. Obviously, I think everyone’s read “Steal like an artist.”

00;11;57;14 – 00;12;20;00
Zen World
So the idea of mixing may be, you know, like everyone uses a Reese on the break with beautiful vocals on top, but what if the thing that separates that is you’re still using the Reesse, but now you’re using a drum and bass element, and maybe sampling it, right. Little things like that.

00;12;20;00 – 00;12;40;24
Zen World
So like you were saying, maybe like learn sounds for other genres and then see if there’s a way that you can, you know, put it into the stuff you make. Mm hmm. Without being too different, you know? Because obviously, you know, you do something too much, then you kind of kill the song. But if you can have it be a neat effect and it’s going I mean, I was hearing this art bat sound.

I think the track is called Flame. But yeah, I mean, they have a drum and bass element in the break, and the song did good because of it. You know, it was like straight up blown boom, boom. Yeah. And that was that was the break that.

00;12;55;12 – 00;12;56;10
Lukas
It catches your attention.

00;12;57;06 – 00;13;11;27
Zen World
Exactly right. But, you know, we all use the break. Sorry, a Reese in the break. But they did it different. They went to Drum’n’bass to get that. David Guetta with what like basic saw but with like a techno sort of element to it? Well, there you go.

00;13;12;00 – 00;13;22;10
Fabio
I just want to point to something that you just heard and I feel it’s how a lot of producers actually talk. Nine times out of ten in the studio is reenacting sound.

00;13;29;00 – 00;13;35;10
Zen World
I know it’s a common language. It doesn’t matter what language you talk, you can interact.

00;13;35;24 – 00;13;38;11
Lukas
You can interact with sounds. That’s true.

00;13;38;14 – 00;13;58;03
Fabio
We just want to say thank you to Boombox for allowing this collaboration to be possible. Go sign up at www.boombox.io for your free account, which includes four gigabytes of free storage. And then you can add collaborators, they can comment on your tracks and you can have seamless feedback back and forth to make sure your track is perfect by the time it’s done.

00;13;58;03 – 00;14;14;01
Lukas
100%. So now it’s time for the Out of the box question, which is: if you have to cook yourself and you need to make something quick like or maybe not make something quick, but like do you have a meal that you know how to cook? Like people are like, Oh, you should try my lasagna or you should try my whatever.

00;14;14;01 – 00;14;22;09
Lukas
I’m talking like you have to actually make it. You know what I mean? It can’t be like something out of a box. Do you have something you can actually cook? That’s your go to.

00;14;22;11 – 00;14;26;21
Zen World
Oh, man, yeah. I’m a griller, bro. I grill a lot. So there.

00;14;26;21 – 00;14;27;05
Lukas
There you go.

00;14;27;17 – 00;14;32;20
Zen World
I don’t know if that counts because you just put salt and pepper on the steak.

00;14;32;20 – 00;14;34;01
Lukas
You have to babysit it a bit.

00;14;34;23 – 00;14;38;26
Zen World
Yeah, come on. There’s more to it. You only got to have the meat thermometer. And, like.

00;14;39;23 – 00;14;41;15
Lukas
Wow you’re hardcore, you’re hardcore.

00;14;41;15 – 00;14;51;02
Zen World
Yeah, yes, yes, I’m into it. My, like, maybe lifestyle changes too, as more like a carnivore, you know, like, sure, I’m keto now so a bunch of meat, bro.

00;14;51;06 – 00;15;06;11
Fabio
I have two dishes, but I’ll just go with one of them because I feel like it’s the most expected is I – make a really mean carbonara. Oh, no. And that’s just exercise.

00;15;06;11 – 00;15;07;28
Zen World
Oh, okay. You are Italian. Okay.

00;15;08;08 – 00;15;08;26
Fabio
Yeah, yeah.

00;15;09;09 – 00;15;22;08
Lukas
Yeah. So you trust. It’s like. It’s like he’s like, I’m Italian. We’re like, all right, we’ll try it. Let’s go. There you go. Mine is random. I can make a good Pad Thai. So there you go. I can throw in some Thai food, so let’s dive in deeper.

00;15;22;09 – 00;15;31;16
Fabio
So I just want to to add here that Zen did very kindly send me his Evolution Number two.

00;15;33;28 – 00;15;36;14
Fabio
Yes, number two. Sorry. Expiry Exploration of Sound.

00;15;36;23 – 00;15;42;27
Zen World
Oh, sorry. The other pack. The pack itself is Explorations of Sound: Volume 2. A lot of pads, bro.

00;15;42;27 – 00;15;44;17
Fabio
Melodic techno, I think it was.

00;15;44;17 – 00;15;45;04
Zen World
Sure. Yeah.

00;15;45;04 – 00;15;49;28
Lukas
So what’s your 100% honest, serious, unbiased review?

00;15;50;17 – 00;15;52;28
Zen World
Yes, tell me now.

00;15;52;28 – 00;16;11;25
Fabio
It’s great. And it’s not just great, but it’s diverse too. I mean, it definitely falls into the category of that genre. Like the sounds, you feel like where they would sit on a track. But then I also, I think sometimes with preset packs you can be like, “Oh, I’ve heard that before, I’ve heard that before.”

00;16;12;12 – 00;16;35;10
Fabio
And it’s not that inspiring. But what I really like is that you’ve added your effects to the macros and then you’ve named them, and the effects that you’ve created, I think is also the most inspiring part. So if you have downloaded send packs, make sure you check out those macros because I missed them at first.

00;16;36;11 – 00;16;48;02
Lukas
Yes. I honestly feel like when there’s no macros assigned and they’re not labeled and stuff like that, I just feel like I don’t know, the pack doesn’t seem quite as cool, you know what I mean? Like, you got to take advantage of all the tools.

00;16;48;11 – 00;17;14;12
Zen World
Yeah, I agree with you guys, man. I try to promote that side, too, you know, because, like, again, you know, I’m a producer/sound designer, mainly sound designer, though. So I make the majority of my income. But I like to have the producer side because it allows for good macros, right? Like in that pack that you were talking about, Fabio, I think some of the leads, there’s macros for adding layers or opening the lead up because in that genre, right, it’s sort of like a plug will start.

00;17;14;13 – 00;17;31;17
Zen World
You usually have like some sort of sequence start, and it’s playing throughout the whole song. But how do you keep it interesting? Yeah. So again, as a producer that’s made it, I’m like, Oh, well, it can start out like a plug and then you can move the macro and it turns it into a lead where it’s like, da da da da da da da da, instead of d-d-d-d-d, right?

You add a layer to it. So for instance, Serum has a sub oscillator, which is just another oscillator with a basic analog shape. So why not use that to add a top layer? So the macros are set up like that. And I agree with you man, I used to tell people if presets don’t have macros, you’re getting scammed, find a new sound designer

00;17;55;07 – 00;18;34;02
Lukas
And I actually have an interesting follow up on that one. So, over time, more and more people have sold sound banks. Like in the beginning there weren’t that many preset pack companies to go to. And then, as you know, Splice came out. And then also, like almost every producer, practically, it seems, is selling their soundbank or their presets or their sample pack or whatever.

So someone like yourself who has his own business when it comes to selling sounds essentially – How is the how is the climate change? Let’s say someone’s watching this who is a pretty darn good sound designer and wants to sell their own pack or even just wants to distribute it for free, like what’s the best way?

00;18;34;05 – 00;18;38;25
Lukas
What are some marketing tips essentially to stand out with all the competition out there for packs?

00;18;39;02 – 00;18;59;03
Zen World
There are a lot of answers to this. Because I feel like mine is not the best, but it’s what’s worked for me. It’s just being valuable. You know, I think the thing that separates a sound bank from another sound bank, assuming they’re all the same sounds, is how much that [customer] likes you, how much they value you, and how much they feel grateful towards you for creating it.

00;18;59;14 – 00;19;21;15
Zen World
So for me, it’s always been about being valuable. How can I use my sounds to help people? So for instance, I might teach people how to make a drop like so-and-so or like and then do tutorials based around that. So for instance, if I’m going to release a techno sound bank, which I have Paradox Volume 4 coming out next month, which usually does amazing.

00;19;22;03 – 00;19;47;07
Zen World
Yeah, I love the techno community. They support my packs heavily. I’ll start making content based around the pack; around that sound. So by the time it comes out, people trust. They’re like, this guy knows what he’s doing. The sounds he’s been using to teach sound amazing. So you’re sort of putting hints here and there, using the sounds, not promoting them, but letting them hear it while you’re teaching them.

00;19;47;25 – 00;19;48;09
Lukas
I love that idea.

00;19;48;11 – 00;19;59;19
Zen World
That’s yeah, that’s what’s worked best for me personally. I mean, just market it and show the sound. So write Facebook ads, Instagram ads. If the sounds are good, they’re good.

00;19;59;29 – 00;20;06;09
Lukas
Yeah. So you get to know which people are good. Like you said, you know that’s quality. You know when you’re getting those sounds.

00;20;06;10 – 00;20;24;18
Fabio
Yeah. So it’s going to say your approach is so smart because I think humans are innately lazy too. So you’re going to show them how to make a sound. That’s going to be awesome. But humans are so impatient, you know? And so ultimately they’ll be like, “This is an amazing sound, you know what? I want it for myself, I trust, and I’m just going to purchase it.”

00;20;25;14 – 00;20;27;10
Zen World
That’s the goal. Yeah.

00;20;27;22 – 00;20;49;10
Lukas
Well, one thing a lot of people forget about too, though, is like you could get a sound pack and try to recreate those sounds and test them back and forth compared to the pro sound. I always say it could be a good idea to get your track professionally mastered by an engineer, even if you want to master it yourself so that you can hear the difference, so that you can use that as a reference.

00;20;49;10 – 00;21;10;08
Lukas
You know what I mean? I also agree with you though about how sometimes you just want to get the pack. You don’t want to have to design all these from scratch. Or maybe it’s just not your favorite thing. Another thing that’s a really interesting topic to dive into is that I feel like some producers are under the impression that in order to be a “good producer”, they have to be good at everything.

00;21;10;08 – 00;21;38;25
Lukas
And the thing that I think a lot of us forget is that mastering is its own profession. Sound design is its own profession, like people literally win Grammys for these specific things, like sound design, you know, mixing, mastering, all that kind of stuff. And I think we have to take a little bit of the pressure off ourselves sometimes and know that like, yeah, it’s obviously cool to learn and like you should explore different things, but don’t put the pressure on yourself to be as good as Zen World at sound design, as good as Fabio at engineering…you know what I mean?

00;21;38;25 – 00;21;40;12
Lukas
Like, it’s a tough thing to do.

00;21;40;18 – 00;21;55;29
Zen World
Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%. That’s the way I see it. I just tell people, I’m trying to make your life easier. That’s all. A lot of people are good producers, but then you just don’t have the sounds to make their ideas come to life. But once they have it, they’re like, That’s cool.

00;21;56;26 – 00;21;57;19
Lukas
Let’s go.

00;21;58;12 – 00;21;59;01
Zen World
Yeah, dude.

00;21;59;13 – 00;21;59;24
Fabio
It’s stuff.

00;21;59;26 – 00;22;00;03
Zen World
Yeah.

00;22;00;23 – 00;22;09;17
Fabio
I’m going to quote and butcher this quote in exactly the same time I read a while ago, which maybe, maybe you’ve both seen in the past.

00;22;09;18 – 00;22;13;27
Lukas
You’re going to say the quote with a British accent, though. So it doesn’t matter if you butcher, you’ll still sound good.

00;22;13;27 – 00;22;29;19
Fabio
Okay. “Someone criticized me for using a sample. So I went ahead and recorded my own snare and then someone criticized me for using the snare. So I went out, killed a goat, skinned it, and made my own. I made my own drum.” And it’s kind of like this.

00;22;29;23 – 00;22;31;12
Lukas
Oh, yeah. Just keeps going deeper.

00;22;31;15 – 00;22;44;10
Fabio
Is getting deeper and deeper, you know what I mean? The idea that like someone who is criticizing or scrutinizing the fact that you’re using something premade should never be the case because it’s all about how you use it, right?

00;22;45;10 – 00;22;46;23
Zen World
Yeah. And how you bring it together.

00;22;46;28 – 00;22;51;26
Lukas
Three biggest sound design mistakes of people who try to sound design. What do you think?

00;22;52;12 – 00;22;55;11
Zen World
Oh, I have a good amount.

00;22;55;11 – 00;22;56;11
Lukas
He’s like, “I got more than three.”

00;22;58;00 – 00;24;03;14

Zen World
Yeah, it’s actually because it’s been a video idea as well. 1) Too many effects. And I think that’s a beautiful thing about doing a bit of everything, mixing, you know, like sound design, producing. when you mix. I feel like a lot of producers overdo their effects the way these reverbs, flangers, phasers. You know, so what I see is a lot of people just getting too fancy and it kills the integrity of the sound when they’re trying to achieve something else.

So one of the best things is people might ask “Why do my leads sound weak? Why do they sound weak compared to so-and-so?” And then you look at so-and-so, the thing they’re comparing to is like a basic super saw, and then they’re putting flangers, phasers. So over doing effects.

2) Over layering. I think it’s another big one. I don’t think this was done as much because the field has changed from like a big room to more like techie stuff. But I remember back then, FL studio producers would layer like 12 leads together, right?

00;24;03;14 – 00;24;23;08
Zen World
To me, that’s just like as a sound designer, it makes no sense because you have a bunch of like the same sounds ( saws,squares) interacting, right? So when you get an inverse of that, it phases out. So unless you’re going for a pretty stout sound, it works. If you’re not well now you’re running more risk and then Fabio is going to get to the lead and go, What the fuck did you do? So. So I see that a lot.

00;24;23;29 -00;25;10;12
Zen World
I think the last one 3) is trying to do something another synth is good out with the synth you have. So for instance, Serum, I mean, it has FM. But it’s probably not the best FM synth you would go more for, like, operator or FM8 if you wanted real FM or Dex, right, – which is a free FM synthesizer. I’ve done that mistake, trying to remake sounds that were made like an OBXA or something. Trying to capture the warmth, and stuff, but yeah – a lot of times you have to switch the tool that you’re using. You can’t expect Sylenth to make that dubstep growl. You’d go to Serum for that, or Massive. So that;s probably the third one I would add in there.

00;25;10;17 – 00;25;32;22
Fabio
I totally agree that you know, trying to get something that is sort of quite naturally digital sounding to try and sound really analog – it’s an uphill battle. You know, there are synths out there for different reasons. And although they all produce the same waveforms and they all have envelopes, ultimately they all have a different character.

00;25;32;22 – 00;25;50;09
Fabio
So when clients come to me, and I teach people as well and they say, “I’m looking to get this sound…” I’m like, Well, this is more of an analog sound, so you’re going to want these synths here. And if they say, “Oh, but I use Serum.” I say, “Well, you could but you could save yourself a lot of stress and use something else.”

00;25;50;09 – 00;26;07;08
Fabio
So I think that’s a really, really valid point that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Something I take for granted. But special thanks to Zen World for being here and you can find all our details and Instagram handles in the link, in the description below. Big thanks to Boombox for making this collaboration possible.

00;26;07;08 – 00;26;25;10
Lukas
Yes, and make sure to comment below. If you’re a sound designer, which plugins do you use? If any of the tips sounded good to you, or if you learned anything from this podcast and someone who comments is going to be entered to win $500 in other studio gear, plugins, whatever you need to help you make better music. And yes, go check out Boombox.io

00;26;25;17 – 00;26;30;22
Lukas
You can find all of our details like Fabio said in the description. We’ll see you next time.

Fabio
Peace

Lukas
Bye!