On identifying sounds

[NateVH]

How do you all go about identifying sounds and instruments? For example: I have a percussion sound in my head, I know what I want it to sound like but I don’t know what it is and I don’t have any audio examples to ask specifically what it is. How do I figure out what I need to use? What if I don’t have the proper library nor that particular instrument in my collection? Thanks for any advice!

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[Saxer]

Not easy. If it's an existing sound you could watch walkthrough videos of percussion libraries or drum/percussion tutorials. If it's a synth or sound design sound it's even harder. If it's a "wanna have" imagined sound you probably have to design it yourself.

You could try to describe it. Maybe someone will recognize it. Once we were discussing a cue of a project a friend and me were working on. I said: maybe we could use something like this Khhhh-percussion sound of this groove part in Goldeneye and he immediately said: yeah, I know it... it was a factory preset of a Roland synth I had in the 80s.

 

[NateVH]

Not easy. If it's an existing sound you could watch walkthrough videos of percussion libraries or drum/percussion tutorials. If it's a synth or sound design sound it's even harder. If it's a "wanna have" imagined sound you probably have to design it yourself.

You could try to describe it. Maybe someone will recognize it. Once we were discussing a cue of a project a friend and me were working on. I said: maybe we could use something like this Khhhh-percussion sound of this groove part in Goldeneye and he immediately said: yeah, I know it... it was a factory preset of a Roland synth I had in the 80s.

Thanks for your response! I should clarify I don’t have a specific sound in mind I was just wondering for when I inevitably have this problem

 

[Elmakai]

Percussion in general is harder to identify because many times the sounds may not be a standard percussion instrument, or even not played the way its intended. And this is coming from someone who is a percussionist. Using a bass bow on a vibraphone playing along the edge creates a eerie sine wave sound. Having a cymbal upside down on timpani creates a suspended cymbal sound that sounds like it's being pitch bent.

My advice is generally don't get too caught up on mimicking the exact sound, but think of ways that would get close. You may hear a clacking noise and not realize it was a table hit, but you could use a rim hit of a large taiko drum, etc.

And as saxer said, good luck with synth sounds. Those are super hard to nail imo.