Sound Signatures: Crafting Your Electronic Music Identity explores ways to help electronic musicians establish their unique signature sound through new methods of sound creation and manipulation. It covers an extensive range of creative techniques for music production and sound design that might not be immediately obvious to those who are self‑taught or at the beginning of their career or study
programme.

Designed to provoke curiosity and foster creative thinking and experimental practice, this book spans 12 chapters covering synthesis, creative sampling, workflow techniques, vocal processing, use of noise and texture, and an assortment of ways to create and manipulate sound within a musical context. This book is not software‑specific, instead, it focuses on underlying concepts and creative techniques that can be applied to any setup, whilst endorsing performance‑oriented techniques in the studio to introduce new working practices. Featuring practical exercises to consolidate knowledge, diagrams, tips for further exploration, and online audio examples, this book encourages experimentation to develop an improved personal workflow whilst building knowledge and skills in electronic music production. These chapters are complemented by interviews with leading creative music production practitioners such as Holly Herndon, Benn Jordan, Sarah Belle Reid, Amon Tobin and Robert Henke.

Sound Signatures is ideal supplementary reading for students of music production and amateur producer‑fans but is equally of interest to readers of all skill levels and professionals looking to hone their signature sound and develop their creative practice.

Nick Feldman has produced and performed electronic music across a multitude of genres since 1998 and has been teaching these subjects since 2012. He has a Master’s in Audio Production from the University of Westminster and holds posts at BIMM, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and ICMP. He is director of the Crux festival and series of audiovisual performance events.

INTRODUCTION

Sound Signatures has been written as a guide for electronic musicians who have some experience with music production software or hardware and are eager to explore new methods of music making to help find and establish their unique signature sound. This book covers an extensive range of techniques in use for music production and sound design that might not be immediately obvious to those who are self‑taught or at the beginning of their career or study programme. The structure and content developed out of a redesign for an undergraduate degree module in the UK but has been presented in a way that is approachable for amateurs too – true to the origins of that word, as one who loves. As much as the content has something of a vocational edge to it, this book also seeks to encourage a pleasure in the journey of music making. Developing a signature sound is an ongoing creative process and hopefully the experimentation encouraged herein will spark a newfound joy for the process, rather than focusing solely on the outcome.

This book is designed to provoke curiosity and foster creative thinking and experimental practice within your own musical boundaries and resources. It hopes to elucidate concepts to more novice or intermediate musicians via straight‑talking, clear and digestible explanations that are accompanied by appropriate practical exercises and audio examples. The audio can be found on the companion website, which should become an essential bookmark whilst reading this book. The exercises should incentivise personal development, inspire further investigation and help to develop an enhanced personal workflow. They should also serve to improve skills in electronic music production that can be reapplied into other related areas, such as post‑production and sound design for media. This book does not teach some of the bare basics of DAW (digital audio workstation) navigation and functionality, so it does expect a certain level of foundational knowledge on the part of the reader.

This book is broken down into subject areas and spans 12 chapters, making it suitable for adapting into a course of one term or longer. It opens by establishing groundwork with some production analysis before revisiting the fundamental compositional tools of MIDI, digital audio and synthesis. It then goes on to explore an assortment of ways to create and manipulate sound within a musical context. This book is not software specific, using examples from different DAWs and products along the way, and focuses on the underlying concepts and creative techniques that you can apply into your own setup. At the time of writing, we consider this book to be fully up to date with the latest relevant products and developments. To ensure additional freshness, you can visit the companion website, where you will find a set of links and resources that will be updated.

Although this is not a book about live electronic music performance, it does endorse the notion of performance‑orientated techniques in the studio – introducing potential new working practices and demonstrating how we can use more tactile production techniques within the DAW environment. Most methods can be implemented ‘in‑the‑box’, and we present affordable solutions to integrating physical controllers and audio hardware. This should mean that you can make positive changes to the way you work for minimal costs, but with the chance to grow and expand your equipment repertoire as you progress further along your journey of discovery.

How to use this book

Despite being written with a logical and linear structure in mind, this book can be read in any order. It is encouraged that you read and digest the opening few chapters first, before diving into some of the other subject areas. Readers might want to skip chapters devoted to subjects that they are already familiar with, though it is often beneficial to receive information presented in different ways, to gain additional clarity of thought over a particular process, tool or its context. We are hoping that our combination of DAW‑agnostic techniques, worthy hints and tips and some historical background will prove to be effective and entertaining material for readers of all skill levels and professions.

Companion website

This book is accompanied by a website with additional content, online links, resources and audio examples. There you will also find a glossary of the technical terms and full‑colour versions of the images used throughout this book. Please bookmark the following URL:

soundsignaturesbook.com

Audio examples

This symbol means that there is an audio example to demonstrate the sound being described on the companion website. These will be ordered by chapter with text descriptions to accompany them.

Exercises

Each chapter is accompanied by several practical exercises designed to provide experience and challenge your creativity. Although you can return to these at any point, we encourage you to put some time aside to complete these exercises. This is to concretise the knowledge you are gaining and put vital practice alongside the theory. If a task seems familiar or overly simplistic, then feel free to put your own spin on it or add in the additional challenge provided at the end of each exercise. Creativity is not the same as productivity, so these more structured and focused exercises could be a useful distraction on a day when you aren’t in full flow or in the mood for creating your own original music. The exercises are also listed in chapter order on the companion website. Most of them can be attempted at any part of your progression, making use of your existing skill levels. Some will take a matter of minutes, some a few hours and some can take as long you need. They mostly involve use of a DAW and readily available resources.

Interviews

This book features interviews with some creative music production luminaries who offer valuable insights into their creative processes. Their contributions complement the core content by illustrating how established practitioners apply similar tools and concepts into their own work. We hear from Benn Jordan, whose creative productions span multiple genres; Sarah Belle Reid, who bridges acoustic instrumentation with cutting‑edge electronic processing; Amon Tobin, renowned for his innovative approach to sound design; Holly Herndon, who explores the intersection of technology and human creativity; Robert Henke, co‑creator of Ableton Live and granular synthesis expert; Rob Tubb, who brings unique perspectives as both producer/performer and software developer.

These conversations reveal how these artists developed their distinctive sonic signatures through experimentation, problem‑solving and cultivating personal workflows – principles emphasised throughout this book. Some interviews are featured in full on the companion website, offering additional perspectives that couldn’t fit within these pages.

Further exploration

At the end of each chapter is a section to signpost you to additional resources to help clarify and expand the subject area. This is broken into sections for you to read (books), listen (music), watch (videos, mostly on YouTube) or play (free/cheap apps that encourage performative play) as part of your own personal exploration and research.

Feedback

If you have constructive feedback to share with us, in order that we might improve the companion website or any future editions of the book, please feel free to contact us at:

feedback@soundsignaturesbook.com