Hi guys,
(p.s if my english is bad it's because english is not my native language)

I'm working on a student pixel art game and I'm struggling to find the right sound. We're going for a nostalgic vibe, drawing inspiration from classics like Zelda Twilight Princess and the older Final Fantasy games. But it doesn't necessary have to sound exactly the same. I've tried using rompler's and modern vst's and but it just doesn't sound cohesive and muddy at times.

Normally, I stick to my trusty VSTs and libraries, but this time, I want to step up my game and create something truly unique. Problem is, when I try to blend sounds from different sources like romplers, sample libraries, and VSTs, it all ends up sounding muddy and not cohesive at all.

I've tried tweaking modern libraries with effects to give them an old-school feel, but it's just not working out.

I have the same problem when using sound design elements. When using sound design elements combined with other sample libraries/vst's/rompler sounds, how do I make these sound more cohesive as well? They sound more 'synthy' but there must be a way (that i don't know about) to make them more cohesive with the rest of the track.

So my questions summarized are:

How do I tweak sample libraries/VSTs (by adding effects/plugins) without it becoming muddy and non-cohesive?

Any must-have effects/plugins you'd recommend to alter my rompler/vst/sample libraries to make them sound more unique? Tips for making everything sound more cohesive?

Let's say i want to use some rompler sounds combined with modern sample libraries, how to make these sound more 'glued' together?

If you guys have any good youtube channels, I would like to follow those as well to become better!

Hello all. This might be a stupid question, but I have been trying to find an answer for an hour or two now, and have gotten nothing.

I am currently working on a VR game using WWISE, and one of the things that I decided to do was make a little Radio that the player can use to switch Radio Stations (just different sets of songs). In order to save on Memory, I wanted to Load SoundBanks one by one as needed for different songs so that they do not eat up much memory. I was just wondering if there was a way to Load a SoundBank from a C# Script so that I am not trying to load eight or so songs at a time.

(Alternative question: Would storing all of the songs in one SoundBank be bad for memory? I am just "The Sound Guy" so I am not entirely sure exactly how WWISE would affect Memory for the game).

Thank you all in advance for your help.

I'm going to be working on a game and I need to decide on which library to purchase soon, and it needs to be not too expensive (like not much more than 500$). I'm just doing sfx, not doing music, and the game should have an audio style that is cartoony / retro but with a bit of realism mixed in, not too cartoony.

So I'm thinking about getting the Core 5 Creator Bundle (the basic core 5 bundle) but I really want to be absolutely sure that this is going to have enough for me. The SFX list of 6,500 files with a total of 26,000 sounds seems impressive. 180 of those files are ambient music tho, which I don't need.

So yeah if anybody has used the core 5 creator bundle I would really appreciate your feedback. If anybody has a better suggestion for sound libraries just let me know.

Personal Works Evaluation Requests

Welcome to the subreddit weekly feature post for evaluation and critiques request for sound, music, video, personal reel sites, resumes , or whatever else you have that is game audio related and would like for folks to tell you what they think of it. Links to company sites or works of any kind need to use the self-promo sticky feature post instead. Have somthing you contributed to a game or you think it might work well for one? Let's hear it.

If you are submitting something for evaluation, be sure to leave some feedback on other submissions. This is karma in action.

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 | Calendar of Events

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

Hi everyone,

I recenetly got enough money to buy a recorder/mic for foley and i wanted to know from you guys if the Tascam DR-40X is a good choice. In my opinion Tascam recorders are quite good for the price and quality they offer, however, i also thought that maybe the best choice is a shotgun mic since i will not record ambient or in stereo so much.

Thanks for reading !

I believe I'm encountering an issue with my Wwise to Unreal directory paths.

My footstep event will trigger in unreal, but the switches linked to different materials for the footstep are missing. In my ABP_Manny blueprint that is triggering the footstep event, on the "Set Switch" node, the "Switch Value" field is totally unpopulated.

I can see in the Wwise browser that my switches come up as "UAsset Missing", and even my main event that does fire in game comes up as "UAsset Needs Update". I've generated the soundbank on the wwise side, and built them again on the unreal side with no changes.

I'm confused why Unreal is seeing the footstep event in the soundbank, but will not recognize the associated switches.

What is the recommended directory path for the Root Output Path? Is there something I'm missing?

Using Unreal 5.2 with Wwise 2023.1.1.8417.2904

https://preview.redd.it/d4l51tjgxpuc1.png?width=3838&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c92c1752fa1f240e52739ed1658af9234290dc5

Hi there, I'm a part of a small dev team so I take on both the sound designer and the composer role. We're currently working on a new update for our game and for this update I need to make a few new tracks, some are remixes of previous ones like the main theme. Here's where things get a bit annoying.
This time they asked me to use AI to make some of the new songs. I was expecting this kind of a request but I didn't think it would happen this soon. I'm still obviously gonna compose the music myself because they're not forcing me to use AI after all but all this is making me feel really upset. I wanted to know what you guys think and how I could move forward? Because these things really make me lose motivation...

I created a sequence that moves a cube from point A to point B when the player interacts with it. A looping sound is supposed to play when the sequence is moving forward and another looping sound when it's playing backwards. This is done via a simple "Flip Flop" node that is attached to nodes "Play" and "Play Reverse". The firing of sounds is done via events inside the sequence itself. It calls on the custom events inside the blueprint for the cube that I created and it spawns sounds attached to it.

I attached a "Fade Out" node to a custom event at the end of the sequence that fades out the looping sound when the cube reaches the end, but I realized that I could have a potential problem if the player interacts with the cube again before it reaches that event (since interacting with the cube will play the sequence backwards before it reaches the end). It would not reach the event that fades out the sound and, by starting the sequence again, I could have two instances of the same sound playing which is not good.

To remedy this I attached a "Fade Out" node to a custom event at the very start that fades out any looping sounds should the sequence play in reverse and reach the starting point. I got an "Accessed None" error message because it was expecting the other audio component to play as well. I placed two "IsValid?" nodes at the start (for both sounds) and another two at the end to prevent the error message from popping up. These are of course attached to "Fade Out" nodes that check if audio components exist before attempting to do a fade out. That way no errors pop up. I wanted to ask if this is a good method or if there is a better solution?

Images: https://imgur.com/a/g0kt6F4

Any advice is appreciated and as always thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I've been using the Wwise 101 course on their website for the Cube Demo. I've gotten to the end of "Lesson 1: Play the Game!", but there's no sound in the game. I've done what the instructions have said, checked google and saw other people have had the same issues but haven't found a fix for it.

Many thanks!

Jellyak

Hey everyone I'm from India, and I'm 25 years old and I have been doing music and sound design for linear media for the past 3 years and although I found some success here and there I really want to purse game audio just like all of you. But my problem I feel is my location here in India there is not a lot of gaming companies and the same goes to game related events I see a lot happening in England over a month compared to what happens in India in a year. So yeah in a nutshell it's not a ideal place to be doing the stuff I want to do.

Now here is my question..

https://www.dbsinstitute.ac.uk/all-courses/ma-game-sound this course is provided by dbs music institute and I have known them from YouTube and I use to pick a lot of info from them even before I knew game audio was a thing for me. TBH I thought they were some YouTube channel at first.

This is an one year course and covers pretty much everything about game audio implementation and everything surrounding sound designing for games.

But I have already completed the Wwise 101 and I'm on my way to finish the rest so will I be wasting my money taking up this course? But the main reason I choose this is because If and when I get a doubt I get to ask the tutor right and the career guidance support with people in the industry will be a huge plus for me and also I get to meet like minded people. Also being in the UK allows me to just walk in and hopefully get an intern opportunity at least which will not be possible at all in India.

The course starts by September.

I would love to hear your option thanks so much.

Hi!

I was looking for this question everywhere but couldn't find anything. Sorry if there is the thread about this topic already

My question is how to balance volume in game? I already know that there are some volume standarts like -23 LUFS overoll but is there any articles, books or something that can explain how to set volumes in games? Like how loud should be music in game, how many sound sources should be playing at the same time and so on?

Hello guys! Can someone help me with WAAPI? I want to delete RTPCs from wwise using waapi, however, ak.wwise.core.object.delete seems only work on audio objects and buses.(I get an error message saying "can't delete object" when trying to delete RTPCs) What's the right way of doing this? Thanks!

edit: I have tried 2 other methods:

1.using "ak.wwise.core.object.set" to set RTPC to an empty array, this doesn't work because it seems only append to the array, not overwrite

2.using "ak.wwise.core.object.setProperty" to set the RTPC property to an empty array, but this keeps raising an error "property doesn't exist on the object"

I saw people talk a lot about them but never saw someone explain the difference between these 2 in terms of application.

Hey all. For Sound Designers working in the industry who have moved or relocated, I'm curious to know what people's experience has been like finding work in the US. I am a Canadian citizen, when I tried in the past I was told that sponsorship/assistance wouldn't be possible but I'd love to hear what others' experience of this was like.

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

This will be a question for those who have dabbled in the combination of Wwise and Unreal before - I've found myself in a place where I'd like to trigger a 'play this sound as the actor is destroyed' scenario, but destroying the actor kills the audio playback from the Wwise event immediately. The context here is trying to spawn an impact once a projectile makes contact with a collision preset in Unreal, of the block all dynamic type.

One thing I've tried is using the 'set hidden in-game' node after the AK event and plugging in the mesh as a target, which has the effect of removing the mesh, but if I go walk my character into the location of the sound, it triggers off again about a 100 times causing all kinds of distortion. Just looking for a clean method of 'play this AK sound' and then destroying/deleting the offending actor object accordingly.

The chain being used here is as follows: On Component Hit (Box Collision) > Break Hit Result (to get location of impact) > 'Spawn Emitter at Location' (generates a particle effect) > Post Ak Event (with AK object referenced in the target) > Set Hidden In Game (Propagate to children checked) > Delay (2 secs, long enough for audio to finish) > Destroy Actor. Its crude and not the best solution, so open to some other ideas.

Hello,

i want to start to learn FMOD + Unity basic, i've checked some videos and even bought a video class on Udemy, I've learned some basic stuff but i would like to learn online with a teacher as i feel it would be much better having an online tutor where i can specific questions about the things i need and some of the problem i encounter during the learning process.

is there a place where i can find online teachers?

Today I walked around a front porch. The porch has different surfaces. One of them has some gravel and plants.

I was listening to my footsteps to come up with some good recordings.

Then I turned and heard the twisted sound of the shoe bottom making an interesting sound.

Have you ever thought about incorporating twist footsteps for when the character turns around?

Hello people, I am making a game with many channeling spells and so I need sound effects that are more than a few seconds. However, when I search or purchase sound effects packs, all of them only have clips that are like as little as 1 second long for a single burst effect.

This makes me wonder whether there is an insider technique or know-how to convert short clips into longer ones, and that's why all the assets packs only provide short clips.

PS: I am not an audio engineer and I have not edited audio at all. I am willing to learn some basic skills. Appreciate if anyone can point me in the right direction. Thanks.

Hello!

I am planning to attend Champlain Colleges game sound design program, and apart of that is choosing a programming language to learn. The choices are Java, C++, or Python. Which one would be most beneficial for the industry?

Thanks!

Looking for something comprehensive, informative and to the point that is not out of date by 10+ years. Some of Fmod's own tutorials are very old, but I'm hoping the Celeste project would help me make sense of things, although if not, then I'm screwed. A lot of YouTube videos are the usual tips and tricks whereas I need an actual tutorial to teach me the groundwork. Thanks!

I want to learn how to make plugins/programs with Wwise's SDK, and I do have an idea of what I want to do. IIRC, ducking in Wwise can't be panned (e.g. if a priority sound occurs on the right, it ducks the left and right sides equally), so I'd like to make a plugin that will allow that to happen. Is this something I can do with Wwise's SDK? If not, what's a plugin I can make that isn't super complicated and has practical use?

Hello all, I have a game object that gradually expands in scale and am wanting to scale the audio emitter width/distance accordingly.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to achieve this in Wwise? The built in 'distance to game object' RTPC doesn't seem to be scaleable.

Personal Works Evaluation Requests

Welcome to the subreddit weekly feature post for evaluation and critiques request for sound, music, video, personal reel sites, resumes , or whatever else you have that is game audio related and would like for folks to tell you what they think of it. Links to company sites or works of any kind need to use the self-promo sticky feature post instead. Have somthing you contributed to a game or you think it might work well for one? Let's hear it.

If you are submitting something for evaluation, be sure to leave some feedback on other submissions. This is karma in action.

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 | Calendar of Events

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

I've been banging my head and can't figure out how to reference a wwise AuxBus object in unity. What I want to do specifically, is to change the AuxBus on an Akroom through code while the game is running, I have the ID of the AuxBus, but the problem is that the Akroom class requires an AuxBus object, not ID. I'm hoping for a method like "GetAuxBusById()" which allow me to get an object with provided ID, but couldn't find any.

Hey guys! I wanted to pick some brains of other sound designers on this. I have a gig coming up for an indie football game and my client is asking for city-specific cheers tailored to his game. Since I don't have access to an actual stadium of people, I need to figure out how to make a small group work.

My initial thought is to get about 10 people to voice the cheers and layer each take 2-4 times and possibly getting the group to use different voices on each layer. Then additional delay/reverb/chorus to make it sound more like a stadium. How would you guys go about this? I haven't done a job like this before so I'm not really sure where I'm going to land with this approach.

I recently came across an ad for innit audio. The claims made in the ad made me skeptical and I thought I would asks here for more information.

According to them "The Innit algorithm generates a 360x360 3D soundscape, enabling gamers to experience sound from any direction and distance. This increases immersion, and enables strategic decision making, providing a competitive edge by making every sound more precise and realistic." - Don't most 3D games already have 3D audio? How could innit be better?

"Yes, Innit works with every sound source which is played on your PC. It enhances the games you play, the music you listen to, and the series you stream." - How does one make non directional sounds directional?

quotes extracted from https://help.innit.audio/hc/en-gb/categories/19296634016273-FAQ

I've been told that for audio programming, Wwise integration is considered a higher level challenge (or at least higher than the level I'm at). So far, I've only used the Wwise Integration tool plugin in Unreal, but I'm assuming that for proprietary engines, I'd have to program that myself. Is that why Wwise integration is considered difficult? Is it worthwhile for me to learn how to do that if I want to progress as an audio programmer? If so, how do I begin how to "figure it out"? Would I be basically creating my own plugin for a game engine? I'd love to hear back from people who have personally experienced doing stuff like this!

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

Let's say I wanted to import a bunch of rock samples and play them like a synth, is there a good paid or free plugin like this? Where I can import a bunch of different samples and it will play it back continuously and randomly to create cool textures.