Trance Music Mastery recently caught up with Adam Szabo to get his thoughts on sound design. Adam has established himself in recent years as an expert sound designer developing soundsets for various synthesizers including Zebra2, Nexus2, Sylenth1, Massive, and many others.
In this two-part interview, Adam reveals his “go-to” synths and shares his thoughts on the most challenging aspects about sound design. Adam is also an accomplished trance music producer with several tracks published by various labels. After reading this interview, check out some of Adam’s recent sound design work and his tracks, such as “Serano (Original Mix)” on Always Alive Recordings.
Adam: When I started making music, and playing around with synthesizers, I always had ideas for specific sounds, but I never found them among the default presets that came with the synth. Just like everybody else, I spent countless hours going through every single preset to find the right sound, but there were times when I just couldn’t find the one I was looking for. That’s when I started tweaking existing presets, and that was the time when I began to understand synthesis and after some time, I started making my own sounds from scratch.
Adam: The hardest part was understanding the overwhelming amount of different synthesizer techniques and methods, and what they mean in terms of sound. Since I have learned everything by myself, it was like being thrown straight into the deep water when you can’t swim. I had to get my head around all the different terms like: filter, envelope, FM, AM, ring-modulation, sync, keytracking, and I can go on…. I had to break it down and take everything step by step, until I understood each and every one.
Adam: My favourites have to be Zebra2, Massive and Sylenth1. Those are my go-to synths, and they are the first ones I bring up when I have an idea for a sound. I know what they can and can’t do, and I can bring up the most suitable one that fits best for my idea.
Adam: Since I do mostly Trance music, those are the kinds of sounds which I like most, and those are the ones that are the easiest for me to make. Everything from different basses, plucks, leads and pads.
Adam: The challenging ones are the ones that are not Trance related. I do like to experiment with sounds from other genres like House or Vintage 80s sounds, so I always appreciate a good challenge. However, the most difficult ones are Ambient sounds. They are based on sounds from nature, so they have to be very natural and organic sounding. It is extremely hard to achieve this with classic synthesis techniques, so don’t forget to give credit to fellow ambient sound designers!
In Part 2 of this interview, Adam will discuss some common myths and misconceptions that he feels people have about sound design. Click here to learn more about Adam and his work at AdamSzabo.com.
