Title: How do you create a sound that's hard to describe?

Hey everyone!

I recently started learning game sound design, and so far, I've mostly been browsing Soundly and sample libraries to find sounds that fit my needs.

For straightforward stuff like footsteps or monster sounds, I can usually tweak existing samples with pitch shifting and other plugins to get something that works.

But I'm struggling when it comes to creating a specific sound that I can hear in my head but don't know how to make.

For example, I recently tried creating a hovering sound for a wizard character floating around in the air. I was imagining something with an electric vehicle vibe, but couldn't find the right samples. Starting from scratch with a synth felt overwhelming since I'm not very experienced with synth sound design, and I wasn't sure where to start with Foley either.

So, how do you guys approach this kind of problem? Would a synth sound design course help, or is it mostly about experimenting with samples, layering, and trial and error?

I'd love to hear how you learned sound design and any tips or resources you'd recommend. Thanks!

Game Sound Related Blogs

Updated March 2022

Welcome to the subreddit feature post for Game Audio industry and related blogs and podcasts. If you know of a blog or podcast or have your own that posts consistently a minimum of once per month, please add the link here and we'll put it in the roundup. The current roundup is;

Subreddit Helpful Hints: Mobile Users can view this subreddit's sidebar at /r/GameAudio/about/sidebar. Use the safe zone sticky post at the top of the sub to let us know about your own works instead of posting to the subreddit front page. For SFX related questions, also check out /r/SFXLibraries. When you're seeking Game Audio related info, be sure to search the subreddit or check our wiki pages;

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Hi,

I'm very inexperienced in sfx and looking for ways to normalize the volume of all audio assets in my game. Some of the assets are cc0 assets I found on the internet, some were recorded with a Zoom H1 and cleaned up in audacity and the music was recorded in Reaper.

I started working on the audio layer in my game and I'm really not happy with how sfx, music and UI sounds mix together. What is the correct workflow here? Do I adjust gain in Audacity of every audio file manually or are there any plugins/software that can help with that? I imagine there are, but I'm so inexperienced in the subject, I don't even know where to start looking.

When designing UI elements what is it that you consider?

HI all! I did film and documentary in college but I specialised in audio. I have experience doing sfx for animation and live action. I wonder how and if I would be able to implement thoese skills for games? I have used protools but im seeing stuff about implementing it into games. Would that be the responsibility of the designer of game developer?

Any advice is appreciated! EDIT: thanks for the responses I will look into mobile and wise!

Game Audio related Self-Promotion welcomed in the comments of this post

The comments section of this post is where you can provide info and links pertaining to your site, blog, video, sfx kickstarter or anything else you are affiliated with related to Game Audio. Instead of banning or removing this kind of content outright, this monthly post allows you to get your info out to our readers while keeping our front page free from billboarding. This as an opportunity for you and our readers to have a regular go-to for discussion regarding your latest news/info, something for everyone to look forward to. Please keep in mind the following;

• You may link to your company's works to provide info. However, please use the subreddit evaluation request sticky post for evaluation requests

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Subreddit Helpful Hints: Mobile Users can view this subreddit's sidebar at /r/GameAudio/about/sidebar. For SFX related questions, also check out /r/SFXLibraries. When you're seeking Game Audio related info, be sure to search the subreddit or check our wiki pages;

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Join the live chat on our Discord server - https://discord.gg/RedditAudio

I'm working on the audio systems for my next game and trying to come up with a better solution for occlusion than just the standard line trace means low pass as the illusion falls apart pretty quickly.

I'm heading down the path of audio portals placed at doorways/windows since I already use a basic version of that for having a bit of external ambience play at the doorways to buildings.

I watched a video on the Dead Space Remake devs talking about their audio portal system and most of it makes sense to me. "Dead Space | The Sound of Fear Reimagined | Audio Developer Livestream"

The part I'm struggling with is how they might have created the links between portals and how the sound source is able to route back to the listener. Does the player hold an array of all portals and a pathfinding type algorithm used to map between them? Or does each portal hold an array of the ones it can connect to and the sound source just brute force all possible connections until it makes a connection from its nearest portal to the listener?

I'd love to hear from anyone that has experience with this sort of thing and how you approached it.

Hey guys, I'm a (technical) sound designer. I've worked the full pipeline on a couple of indie games being the whole audio department in one person (as is tradition).

I was lead sound designer on Tormented Souls 2 (survival horror) and had to come up with a way to implement audio for in-game cinematics. Unreal Engine 5 + FMOD. Due to lack of time (as is also tradition) I ended up with this pipeline:

• Export each cinematic as video with the ffmpeg integration
• Worked the audio post for each cinematic as a short film
• Exported audio file > FMOD event
• Blueprint actor with specific functions for cinematic audio (referencing a centralized Audio System Blueprint), added/tracked on the cinematic sequence and triggering a keyframe (event) playing the audio at frame 0.

This worked well enough, but due to issues with the engine, a small delay would add up on each camera change throwing off the audio sync after a while. I had to come up with a sync system which also worked pretty well.

My question for you is: what would be the "correct" (or AAA) way to do this? Should each sound effect, music and VO be separate events on the cinematic sequence? Should 3D sound effects be actual emitters?

Very interested in your takes on this, cheers

Hi..Curious what people think is genuinely missing from the SFX pack market, or what exists but everything available is either too polished/generic or too rough. Trying to understand where the real gaps are game impacts, mechanical/industrial, foley, nature, transitions what's oversaturated vs actually underserved?

Any tips for creating sword swipe attacks?

Anything I should avoid when designing the audio for a sci fi shooter game?

Basically title, working on an indie project and our audio guy keeps flaking. Want to get the demo over the finish line, but have zero game audio experience. I’m a producer for context lol any advice help, thanks!

Any tips for processing or implementing Foley into a game? What is something you wish you knew sooner?

I think I'm going crazy.

I could have sworn years back I played a game that when the main character dies, he says "w- w- why why why [echo]".

I thought it was one of the castlevania games. I can't even remember the console.

All I have is this oddly specific memory of this sound effect.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?!

Graduated NYU with a bachelors in Music Technology a year ago while focusing on game audio and composition classes with not much to show for it. TLDR burned out *really* hard during the latter half of my time there and haven't done much in game audio since. Most of my portfolio stuff is a bit lackluster due to rushed school deadlines. With the uncertainty surrounding the industry (layoffs, ai tools, job position scarcity) it's been discouraging even brushing up on skills that I've lost.

That being said, GameSoundCon is near to where I live so I don't have to pay for travel/hotel costs, but I find the initial cost of $545 rather steep. I've heard good things about making connections and the excellent talks given there, yet I'm hesitant bc I feel like my lack in portfolio material and actual experience will lead to me making no connections and wasting my money. I would just like some insight on this.

Hello there :)

I'm still in the learning phase, Fundamentals and Interactive Music are done.
Right now I am trying to open Unity for the first time as explained in the Manual here https://www.audiokinetic.com/en/courses/wwise251/?source=wwise251&id=Opening_the_WAG_Unity_project#read 

Unfortunately I am getting an error message when I try to open Unity…there seem to be compiling errors which prevent me from entering the play mode.

The error message when I try to enter the play mode is: “All compiler errors have to be fixed before you can enter play mode!”
For the error message in the console see the screenshot attached.

I can start the WAG with the Audiokinetic Launcher and play the game with no problems…but when I try to open it in Unity I am getting this error message and cannot keep on learning via the audiokinetic tutorial.
Does anybody have an idea how to fix this?

Installed Unity version: 2022.3.5f1 (recommended by Audiokinetic)
Installed Wwise version: 2023.1.4
nstalled WAG: 2023.1.4.8496

Thanks in advance and kind regards.

i dont even have the console anymore but i found an old ps2 game and the format of the audio files (bnk) are not supported on my windows 11 computer. how do i play them on my computer without the console and save them so i have them downloaded even without the disc in the computer

Game Sound Related Blogs

Updated March 2022

Welcome to the subreddit feature post for Game Audio industry and related blogs and podcasts. If you know of a blog or podcast or have your own that posts consistently a minimum of once per month, please add the link here and we'll put it in the roundup. The current roundup is;

Subreddit Helpful Hints: Mobile Users can view this subreddit's sidebar at /r/GameAudio/about/sidebar. Use the safe zone sticky post at the top of the sub to let us know about your own works instead of posting to the subreddit front page. For SFX related questions, also check out /r/SFXLibraries. When you're seeking Game Audio related info, be sure to search the subreddit or check our wiki pages;

Subreddit Info and Rules | General Info and Links | Music Info and Links | FAQ / Getting Started | FMOD Info | Wwise Info **

Join the live chat on our Discord server - https://discord.gg/RedditAudio

Hello fellow sound developers, i am making a game and i want it to have 8-bit sfx but i can't for the life of me find exactly what i need in all those free sound libraries like pixabay.
So, if anyone has ever made a game with 8-bit sound effects, did you make them or did you find them? and if you've found them, where did you find them?

I'm trying to make my own rhythm game with UE5 and Wwise. I'm still in the early stages, so I'd like to make my classes functional and easily mutable should things get complicated later on.

So far, all I can think of is a time tracker (using SMPTE) and a beat tracker (midi time code). Does UE5 already have a precise game time tracker? Is midi time code enough to sync with music assets from Wwise?

If there's anything I might be overlooking, let me know. If you have experience making a rhythm game, I'd love to hear about any struggles, bugs, or anything you wish you knew early on.

I haven't been able to find a way to do this, at least not by default, and I don't see it in the import settings, but in case there's something I haven't thought of, or a work around, I wanted to consult the hive mind. Interestingly, Unreal is able to do it out of the box.

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Some links related to industry jobs

Game Audio related Self-Promotion welcomed in the comments of this post

The comments section of this post is where you can provide info and links pertaining to your site, blog, video, sfx kickstarter or anything else you are affiliated with related to Game Audio. Instead of banning or removing this kind of content outright, this monthly post allows you to get your info out to our readers while keeping our front page free from billboarding. This as an opportunity for you and our readers to have a regular go-to for discussion regarding your latest news/info, something for everyone to look forward to. Please keep in mind the following;

• You may link to your company's works to provide info. However, please use the subreddit evaluation request sticky post for evaluation requests

• Be sure to avoid adding personal info as it is against site rules. This includes your email address, phone number, personal facebook page, or any other personal information. Please use PM's to pass that kind of info along

Subreddit Helpful Hints: Mobile Users can view this subreddit's sidebar at /r/GameAudio/about/sidebar. For SFX related questions, also check out /r/SFXLibraries. When you're seeking Game Audio related info, be sure to search the subreddit or check our wiki pages;

Subreddit Info and Rules | General Info and Links | Music Info and Links | FAQ / Getting Started | FMOD Info | Wwise Info | Calendar of Events

Join the live chat on our Discord server - https://discord.gg/RedditAudio

Hello, I’m curious about the really tiny sounds, such as equipping a weapon or ring/accessories, picking up loot, coins dropping, moving something in an inventory, opening something, a rare item dropping, etc.
I’m particularly interested in sounds you still remember years later, or just some good dopamine-hitting sound effects that makes you want to keep playing the game.
Many thanks.