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West Latta

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Westlee Brent Latta has been making strange noises for over 30 years. West has spent the last several years developing his craft in the game industry as composer, sound designer, and integration specialist. He is currently a Sound Supervisor for Microsoft Game Studios/Soundelux DMG.

Make Stock Loops Sound Unique with Rhythm Treatments in Logic

on Feb 18th 2009 with 7 comments

Logic Studio provides fantastic value for the hobbyist and professional musician alike. With over 18,000 loops, it also provides a huge variety of samples that can be used to lay the foundations of new songs, beats and scores.

That said, it is easy, in the world of digital audio, to become a victim of ‘preset-itis’ – using loops, samples, and software instrument presets that can be heard throughout today’s film, television and popular music. With just a few simple tricks up your sleeve, however, you can turn boring, heard-it-a-million-times presets and turn them into something unique.

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This entry is part 10 of 25 in the Creative Session: All About Loops Session

Layering Vocals With Logic Pro

on Jan 26th 2009 with 5 comments

The world of sample libraries has grown tremendously in the past few years, giving composers wide-ranging options for creating sweeping scores that incorporate fantastic sounding vocal effects. Choral sample libraries, such as EWQL Symphonic Choirs will even ‘sing’ lyrics that you write!

But there are some situations that call for a more unique approach to vocal treatment. When a choir or multiple singers are not available, composers turn to software to help them achieve their goals. This tutorial will focus on using Logic Pro and several of its plugins to create a multi-layered vocal treatment that might be appropriate for ambient, new age, or soundtrack work.

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This entry is part 9 of 17 in the Recording Vocals Session

Designing a Synthetic Machine with Absynth

on Nov 29th 2008 with 10 comments

Absynth is one of my favorite tools for sound design, though I don’t get a chance to use it nearly as often as I’d like. It has an extremely deep and flexible synthesis engine, yet remains accessible and fun to work with. In just a short amount of time you can have a unique, original sound to use in almost any musical or sound design application.

In this tutorial, we’ll be working exclusively inside of Absynth 4, creating a synthetic mechanical sound by using Absynth’s amazing breakpoint envelope system.

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This entry is part 4 of 35 in the Top Sound Design Tuts Session

How to Design a Background Drone Sound

on Nov 17th 2008 with 9 comments

The drone is used throughout music and sound design as sonic bed or background upon which other sounds are laid. In the world of sound design, drones are often used to ‘fill out’ a scene, or to provide a sense of location. For example, if the scene occurs in a swamp you may have a background ambience that includes frogs, wind through the trees, splashes, etc. In this instance, the ‘drone’ would likely be the wind, with the rest of the layers as incidental sounds.

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This entry is part 3 of 35 in the Top Sound Design Tuts Session

Animating the Animate: How to Craft Creature Sounds

on Oct 4th 2008 with 4 comments

As with many sound design techniques, there are an infinite number of ways to create compelling creature sounds. However, as with all sound design, the best products generally result from great source material. Starting with your own recordings of animals and humans means that your product will sound unlike anyone else!

In this tutorial we’ll look at a few simple techniques that can be used to create interesting creature sounds with a wide variety of uses. We’ll use Sony’s Sound Forge (we’re using version 8.0) and some of the built-in effects to create these sounds.

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How to Create Futuristic Laser Beam Effects

on Sep 9th 2008 with 12 comments

The raygun or laser beam has been a defining sound for many a science fiction movie. How many of us can still hear the sound of the Rebel forces as they fend off the Stormtroopers? In this tutorial, we’ll look at creating a simple ‘raygun’ effect, using some fun plugins and samples with Logic 8.

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Create a Mysterious ‘The Matrix’ Style Scene-transition FX

on Aug 19th 2008 with 8 comments

In the world of sound design and music for media, there are two basic classifications of sound: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegitic sound or music occurs within the story, i.e. a piano being played on screen, a boom-box playing a hip-hop beat. Non-diegetic sound occurs outside of the world of the story, and is perceived only by the audience, rather than the story’s characters.

With this in mind, this tutorial will look at creating a transition sound-effect in Logic Audio. These sounds can assist in helping the audience change focus from one scene to another, from one virtual space to another, etc. These techniques can also be used in music, where one might want interesting transition between musical sections.

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Create a Triggered Noise Gate Effect in Logic

on Jul 30th 2008 with 7 comments

The use of Gate Effects has become increasingly prevalant in today’s music scene. Typically used for supressing noise, gates are also useful creative tools for creating choppy, glitch effects. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create a triggered noise gate effect in Logic Pro (though the principles would be the same in any DAW).

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This entry is part 2 of 9 in the Using Sidechaining Effectively Session

Animating the Inanimate: Making Wind Come Alive

on Jul 10th 2008 with 15 comments

For our first Sound Design tutorial, we’ll introduce the concept of ‘Animating the Inanimate’. We’ll make a wind sample ‘come alive’ by using EQ, convolution, reverb and some simple editing tricks in our DAW/multitracker. We will continue to revisit the theme of ‘Animating the Inanimate’ over time, giving you a wide variety of tips and tricks for breathing life into your sound effects.

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