You Hear That?

Hmmm... Seeing that the last time I covered the topic of audio in game primarily on game music guess it would be better to talk about sound effects this time round. Interesting finds as I did my research into this topic which includes some videos which will hopefully give everyone a idea what sound design is about.

Like the artists, the guys working on sound design also have to go off and source their own sounds. Of course most big developers have huge archives of samples for their own use, some generated on the their own some licenced off others. Out of the many sounds in those collections there are some of the most iconic and instantly recognizable which is then re-used in games over and over again just because players can associate those particular sounds to specific franchises. Good examples include the mushroom upgrade sound in Mario games, the menu navigation sounds in the older gen Final Fantasy to the individual calls for each Pokemon. Back then the consoles weren't able to accurately replicate sounds made by recordings via microphone so most developers pretty much had to compose their sounds with the synthesizing equipment.

Composing sound effects was pretty much the same as composing music. As the video above demonstrated the sound effects can be played on an instrument but the type of composition approach is different to that of music. Its like how we try to come up with onomatopoeia to convey sounds into words but this time the composers had to produce sounds which has to be somehow associated to the subject matter with a couple of notes. However that was back then, now that that technology has improved the quality of sound that consoles can produce is considerably better.

The things people do to get their sounds effects... Wished I could find more behind the scenes video recordings cause I really am curious how far people are actually prepared go to get the one recording they need to a sound effect. Now sound are sometimes overlooked as one of the least important features in a game. While for most part it's kind of true, I mean as long as it's not terribly annoying most tend to ignore or take no real notice to the sounds. But I feel in some games the sound effects is just one of the key elements used to make games feel more immersive. To some immersion is so damn important  they will go as far as getting the latest surround sound system and jack up the volume. Imagine playing a good survival horror with that kind of kit, lights out and huge screen.

Now that is pretty incredible. Though I cant imagine a developer going as far as to make a game which is playable to completely blind people its pretty cool how well placed and composed sounds in game can allow the blind to enjoy video games.