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Sound Design - Native Instruments

Overview

Take your music production skills to the next level on Point Blank's Sound Design for Music Production course. Whether you are producing tracks for the dancefloor or designing sound for multimedia, this creative sound design module is a music production course that will give you the knowledge to reproduce contemporary sounds whilst developing your own unique style. At the end of the course you will produce a completed track using the Production and Sound Design techniques taught throughout the course. Featuring Native Instruments' Kontakt and Reaktor, you'll upload your music each week for DVR™- expert analysis and video feedback on your work from a multi media professional. And with Point Blank pitching your work to our ad agency partners, this course gets you working in the music industry.

Check out student Eddie Yanez' Swatch commercial:

Includes a minimum of 540 mins video/ 12 x DVR™ (1-2-1 video feedback)/ 12 hours live masterclasses /1 year access/ over 240 pages of course notes/ 24/7 access to forum/ exclusive audio resources to download. Optional: sign your track to Point Blank Music distributed by iTunes, beatport, Juno Download and Amazon.

Preview

Content

Week 1: What is Sound Design?

Building a sample library: Copyright issues
Basics of 'sound': theory on frequencies
Filters and EQ: Creating filter sweep FX
Creating riser/noise sound FX

Week 2: Samples and Effects

Exploring phaser, reverb and delay
Editing, exporting and organising your files
Layering samples
Creative gating

Week 3: Creative Sampling in Kontakt

How to navigate the Kontakt interface
Building instruments
Mapping, wave and script editors.

Week 4: Kontakt Modulation Workshop

Zone envelopes, gating, LFO & filtering
Multiple processing: pitch shift, lofi and FX send
DBD

Week 5: Adventures in Pitch and Time

Time Machine: real-time timestretching
Tempo synchronisation & legato mode
Tone Machine: musical phrases with drumloops

Week 6: Rhythm and Sound Science

Kontakt's Beat Machine
Using groups to create unique drum sounds
Synthesis using raw sampled waveforms
Create 'electronic' drum kit from two short samples

Week 7: Introduction to Reaktor

Ensembles, Instruments, Macros and Modules
Recorderbox: saving the audio to a wav file
Random Stepshifter
Exploring Massive, Vectory and Travelizer

Week 8: Reaktor Ensemble Workshop

Reaktor file types: Instrument, Macro and Module
Building a library of introductory ensembles
Tape Deck, Vintage Compressor
Wind machine

Week 9: Building an Analogue Synth in Reaktor

Building an analog synth
Oscillators, filters & envelopes
Creative filter modulation

Week 10: Presets for the Analogue Synth

How to create lead, bass, stab and pad sounds
Sound effects
Creating your own FX library

Week 11: Reaktor Hacking and Patching

Using Reaktor as an FX device
Insert/send and return configuration
Compression, custom FX and vocoders

Week 12: Sound Design Final Project

Create your final project
Final test

Click for free course sample

Featured Student

Paula Fairfield (Sound Designer for 'Lost') Course rating: 10/10

"I am always looking for new tricks to make my designs fresh and I am also a bit of a tech-head so I am curious to try new things. The Point Blank courses definitely put me way outside my comfort zone... and thats a good thing!" Read Full Interview

Paula is an award winning Sound Designer. She works on the TV Show LOST and Hollywood movies including Sin City, Lucky Number Slevin and Tropic Thunder.

Reviews

Andy Clark

Course rating: 10/10

I fell behind during the course due to planning a move from Canada back to the U.S (Not simple) - This said i was able to recover and complete course work / assignments etc. Overall, I thought the course was excellent. I found myself saying "Wow" a lot - something I don't often do. Kontakt & Reaktor are very powerful applications and the tuition during the course gave an excellent introduction to both apps - I'll be working with them a lot more following the course. Once again, no complaints. PB continues to deliver first class training w/relevant courseware and expert tuition - see you on the next one!

Sjoerd van Setten

Course rating: 8/10

Paul did a great job. He really was there for us and helped us as much he could. I am much further now in creating my own sounds and i also made my own Synth. How sick is that. This was my third course here on Point Blank and i loved them all. So a big thanks for you all who made a school as Point Blank possible. Cheers Stuart

Steve Burley

Course rating: 9/10

Marc Honninger

Course rating: 9/10

I really had a great time, specially with the reaktor lessons. It was very cool to get videos every week with a review of your work. Looking forward into some more courses. marc.

Daniel Carasco

Course rating: 9/10

Brilliant tutor, really great advice!! Videos were very helpful and the feedback was great. Learnt a lot from this course!