Improving Communication With Your Sound Designer Part 2
by Kane Minkus

Contents

	Introduction
	Tools Communication
	Sample/Instrument Communication
	Structural Communication

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	Discuss this article

The Series

Part 1

Part 2

In Part 1 of “Improving Communication With Your Sound Designer”, we explored the tools of the trade, the processes of production and ways to talk tech with your sound designer/composer. This article will get more into ways to discuss creative concepts and changes based upon Audio Tools, Samples/Instruments and Creative Structures.

Anyone who knows the SomaTone Interactive Audio team knows how dedicated we are to good communication with our clients and team members. Our company culture is built on the belief that valuable, consistent & effective communication creates outstanding creative products and relationships. Since we are a team of creative designers (taking our clients vision and turning them into sounds), it is imperative for us to have sophisticated communication tools. (I personally am a self proclaimed communication junkie. Having spent 6 years training with leadership/communication training experts Landmark Education, 2 years certifying as a Neuro Linguistic Practitioner and 2 years in Laban Movement Analysis Training, I am always seeking better ways to communicate abstract ideas). Having refined a toolbox of useful communication techniques for the creative industry, I will share a few valuable ones we use often with our clients and each other to provide the best audio we can.

Creative Communication

We have organized all Creative Conversations into one of 4 categories:

Tool Based: Discussing creative design that would take place at a tool based level: i.e. EQ, Effects, Volume, Pan, etc
Sample/Instrument Based: Discussing creative design that would take place at the sample (or instrument) level: i.e. – sound effect recordings, instrument choices, tuning, etc.
Structural Based: Discussing creative design that would take place at the organizational level: i.e. – structure of song, layers of sound effects, layering of the instruments, phrasing, etc
Concept Based: Discussing creative design that takes place at the concept level: over all vision, textures of sound effects, textures of music, abstract discussions of creative vision, etc. (This will be covered in a future article as it is a big topic and one worth exploring in rich detail).

We often find Producers at differing levels of adeptness in discussing the different types of conversations that all make up the final creative product: Tool, Sample, Structure, Concept (TSSC). However, most Producers seam to believe that they are supposed to provide the concept and the audio professional provides the rest. Now, that is fine when you are so in sync with you audio professional that you can just say “Make it breathe!” and s/he comes up with exactly what you were thinking about. This is rare, and mainly because we all have our own individual maps of the world including what it means to make something “Breathe”.

Let me give you an example:

Here are some of the funnier comments we have heard over the years of Producers trying to explain their vision for a sound:

“Make it sound like it is going home.”
“There is a fine line between fire and cheese.”
“Could it sound… …Well… …different?”
“It’s gotta have more, um, ya know, and less, well, ya know what I mean?”
“We want this sound to be like ‘Ahhhhhh!’. But no one has to scream, in fact it is not a voice, it should be more like a stone."

And our favorite: “I know what I don’t like” (sometimes this is useful but needs to be supported by knowing what you do like)

We will protect the innocent by not naming any names!

So let’s take a look at some of the ways we can break down the Audio Design Communication Tool Box known as TSSC

Tools Communication