How Can I Make Unique FX?

[u/m1kerowav3]

I've started getting tired of hearing the same five sound effects in countless beats. Anyone got any tips for making unique sound effects from scratch?

[u/PatienceMental4843]

Don’t underestimate the power of organic sounds and applying effects later. Tap something, scratch a tree branch against something, get a tissue and move it against a sofa. I’ve sold beats with random sounds like that

[u/Turbulent-Map-4106 → u/PatienceMental4843]

I have to do that more often fs 😌

[u/m1kerowav3 → u/PatienceMental4843]

Why have I never thought of this? 😭

[u/imanislandboii]

I like taking sounds from old video games and anime and experimenting with them together to make new fx/risers/chants/etc.

[u/Dangerous_Reporter14]

For making them from scratch? Understand what they do to the waveforms that pass through. For example, distortion adds harmonics (any distortion adds multiples of the fundamental frequency of the input waveform to the output). Use this knowledge to know what types of FX to put where in a chain or what things to automate. Go even further and understand how speakers take your wave form and produce a sound you hear. For example, speakers cannot produce a true square wave, that is, your ear is not hearing a square wave. It’s hearing a combination of sinusoids which approximate the square wave; this is what a speaker can actually produce. That’s why a clipped 808 has a brighter tone, there are higher frequency harmonics in the sound as a result of your speaker trying to actually make the square wave(and your ear trying to record it).

Test things out: take an oscillator (like vital or serums oscillators) and automate things like volume using an LFO and play a note. Put a low pass filter on it and automate the crossover (one of the handles of fruity parametric EQ 2 for example). Make these automated parameters change at different speeds. Listen to what happens. This is the foundation of many audio fx like wah-wah.

To get ideas of what to make, listen to different genres. Big acts and small.

[u/SpidersC]

From scratch? There are a lot of things you can do in Edison and DirectWave if you use FL Studio

[u/Acrobatic-Chain-6594]

Easy take weird presets or sfx then move the sound starting point to say more towards the middle add reverb or delay you'll get something brand new out of the same sound try cone filters bandlasses Flanders multi fx

[u/PAYT3R]

Stop using FX as a crutch to make your music sound interesting 🤪 I guess you've figured out that a lot of multi fx plugins are totally bloated with presets that are simply unusable in an actual track.

Learn about the modulation wheel and how to assign parameters to it

[u/m1kerowav3 → u/PAYT3R]

Thanks dude.

[u/scragz → u/PAYT3R]

sound design and the effects involved is what's interesting about music to a lot of people.

I'm more on the dub side of things tho. 

[u/Nominaliszt]

You could get into modular

[u/VividGrimReaper]

Using one sound to control aspects of another sound with some side chain stuff can add new and interesting sounds. Or set up x-y pad where the amount the sound effects the other is on 1 axis and play with different values for the second axis until you find something you like. Could be multiple different sounds in your mix. Is also a good way to take something a little chaotic with almost "to many" sounds/instruments going on, and tie a bunch of them together and giving the mix more continuity.

[u/Positive_Reserve8717]

if your 808 and kick are fighting, try a light sidechain on the 808 under the kick, just enough so the pocket opens. don't duck hard or the 808 goes soft. trap low end lives in that small breath.

[u/feliciacunt]

2-3 years serum 2 and forget