Replicate Real World Sounds with Zebra

Sometimes the best sounds already exist, but how do you replicate them? In this weeks user request we take an advanced Zebra journey into realistic sound design!

A few weeks ago I got a request through our Facebook page from Sandi, he wanted to know how to create the sound of a coin falling on the ground.
We haven’t really talked about recreating real world sounds with Zebra yet, so it’s about time!

The approach to recreating sounds is a bit different from just making a bass sound or a lead because you have to carefully listen to each part of the sound and decide how you are going to make that specific part.

It is often a good idea to separate the sound in your head and think about how you want to make each part individually.
You could separate the sound either in frequency bands or in time, for example you work on the attack first and use a different layer to make the tail.

For this particular sound we have a sharp and high attack, so we start with the pitch to its highest value and a short envelope.
After that the sound quickly gets lower in volume and in pitch.
The easiest way to reproduce this is by modulation the filters and envelopes.
In the outside world a sound almost never has a constant pitch and the constant amount of harmonic, that is why filter modulation can really make your sound more “believable”.

We also have to deal with the sound of the coin bouncing of the floor, I got pretty close by modulating the delay ratio/time with an envelope, be careful though this can easily cause heavy feedback!

There is no right or wrong in reproducing sounds, I look at it more as an excuse to go crazy and experiment with all kinds of modules.
The big advantage of this is that you will find a lot of sounds that you where not aiming for, and those can sound more awesome than you could ever imagine!

So here’s your challenge
Find some sounds that you like, it can be anything, a drawer opening, a squeaky door or your dog barking, and try to remake it in Zebra!
And let me know how it went down, what did you find difficult, what did you discover?
Let me know if you need help with anything and I’ll try and give it a go!

Experiment away!

-Jor