At the 2011 Moogfest in Asheville, North Carolina, four top sound designers – Eric Persing, Diego Stocco, Richard Devine and Scott Gershin – met for the Mavericks of Sound Design panel.
The four discuss their craft, philosophies, techniques and swap stories about their sound design experiences in a live panel discussion.
Too bad Amon Tobin wasn´t invited. I wish to know how he does that granulated sound that is run through a sweeping LP-filter, as heard on “esther´s”.
Actually, we did invite Amon Tobin as we are all fans. He declined because he doesn’t like to speak in public.
We got a chance to hang with him backstage at his show though…very cool! 🙂
@editor of this video: if you cut out “uhms” make sure to cut the room mic also. (given it’s for a audio company…)
very good video !
H
The only thing that this video is missing are sound examples of the actual patches that these masters have created…
Indeed…that would be more like a “workshop” though, that would require more planning. A “panel” format is more of a spontaneous interview/discussion approach. The panelists did not know what I was going to ask, which is partly why their answers are interesting.
A true workshop would indeed be great to do and there are many possibilities.
it’s ok until they start spewing out all that shit about the ’emotional content’ of sound as if there’s only one way of comprehending their work… how can they be so unequivocal about how the sounds are going to register with people on an emotional level? surely emotion is far to subjective to talk about in quantifiable terms?
Not sure I understand your point. Sound of course creates an emotional response. People react various ways when exposed to different types of sounds. This has been studied, is widely known and easy to demonstrate. The job of the sound designer is to create a palette of sounds or an environment that affects the listener in different ways.
It is indeed a subjective thing, but the best way I could answer would be to say that “Unequivocal” = “Confidence/Experience”. When you’ve done this kind of work for many years, you start to have an instinctive sense of what kinds of techniques and sounds will connect with people. That’s why you get hired.
I enjoyed the conference very much although, I’m very surprised that Dan Fisher wasn’t invited to speak on this panel. He’s been collaborating with the major synth manufacturers for years.
As far as V.A.S.T. synthesis is concerned, I don’t think there is anyone (outside of the engineers at kurzweil) more knowledgeable on the planet than Mr. Fisher.
Dan’s a very fine sound designer of course and he is the expert of VAST! In fact there are many great sound designers that could have been invited and involved, but we wanted to keep it fairly intimate. We’ll likely do more of these panels in coming Moogfests as well. Let us know who you like to hear! 🙂