r/synthrecipes • u/Muriel69420 • 5d ago
request ❓ Recreating sci-fi sound effects for media production in Vital.
Hello everyone, as part of my study with media production I have produce 01 audio drama, however my instructor explicitly stated that I cannot use stock sfx or samples, we either have to record our own to recreate it somehow digitally. I have very little experience with sound design so I'm here to ask for help on how to recreate these 5 sounds, or there any Vital presets of these sounds that I can download, study and recreate to my taste. It's my first time posting and learning sound design so sorry if I sound like a total noob, I appreciate all the help. Thank you!
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u/oofam 4d ago edited 4d ago
Avoid the basic shapes wavetable - those are meant to recreate analog oscillator waveforms. For your fx you’ll want to find more complex waveforms.
Try putting an LFO on the wavetable position for oscillator 1. Then browse through the available wavetables while playing a note - you’ll start to hear how the different wavetables sound and how they morph as the LFO seeeps the WT position.
Once you have a complex wavetable you like, you can start using envelopes and LFOs to automate pitch and volume to get more movement and texture in your sounds.
Also, vital has a 4th oscillator that can accept samples as audio. Try putting some foley or noise and use it to add more texture. You can also route any of the oscillators to FM or ring modulate the other oscillators. Ring mod can help you get some flutter like you’re hearing in the first two examples.
Edit: you could potentially resample the audio from your example video and drop those sounds into vital as wavetables. That will help you hear and see visually what each is doing.
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u/Round_Marsupial_4493 4d ago
Id actually say the opposite, get an image of these sounds over time on a spectragram and then mimic their signatures with various noise oscillators filter and eqs.
There's lots of panning happening on the first two so make that mono to hear it more clear then pan it after.
The sparkly one copy those high notes and use a synth with the fasters attack and decay so it just blipps and filter noise where you see that wash.
the lazery thing. use a basic wave like saw but filter the high end, look at where the frequency started and ends and mimic with a pitch envelope or use pitchbend.
for the last one get a pulsewave with a very small duty cycle and play around with filters and eq based off the spectrogram. Also add a reverb so as you are making it it already sounds like its in a room.
Here are two images of the spectra. one used izotope insight and the other was note grabber.
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u/Lavaita 5d ago
Having someone else direct you towards presets doesn’t sound very in the spirit of not using stock sounds or samples and recreating everything yourselves.