[TUTORIAL] Sound Design: What do you want to know?

[Valkyrie_Sound]

Hi everyone,

I'm really passionate about sharing my knowledge of sound design and UE4, and I'm keen to know if there's an appetite for sound design tutorials. If you saw this type of video on YouTube, what sort of topic would you want to see?

I'm planning to cover everything from the very basics of recording and editing your own sounds at home, all the way up to using those sounds in UE4. This would include everything from footsteps to weapons, dialogue to ambient sounds, music to interface sounds, etc. It would cover UE4 cues, mixing, reactive mixing, reverb editing, volume control via user menus and a lot more. I'd also like to include tutorials on both FMOD and Wwise (covering installation and coupling with UE4 all the way up to using that middleware to manage audio using blueprints etc.). I'm also thinking of looking at taking existing free projects on the Marketplace and demonstrating how to change or add sounds to those.

A sort of one-stop shop that assumes no prior knowledge and which focuses on providing practical tutorials in bite-sized videos.


Thanks,

Ash @ Valkyrie Sound

[TerrorMedia]

I would say narrow it way down. Basics like recording at home have been covered to death by people on youtube. Save the time and effort for more useful information

I don't know why people use stuff like FMOD. The engine seems perfectly capable on it's own already am I missing something? There is already a great tutorial on FMOD integration but I have never seen anyone cover Wwise so that might be worth doing.

As far as controlling sound in the engine there are quite a few tutorials and example projects covering the basics of it like changing volume and building an audio settings menu in your game. What they don't cover though is stuff like cues, reverb and so on. The most useful thing you could do a tutorial on is how audio assets are handled within the engine. Tutorials on attenuation, reverb, occlusion etc. Also some less obvious things like keeping the soundtrack of the game consistent both in quality and volume. Basically a best practices for audio assets. Even though it's been done many times something on using audio to your full advantage artistically in your game could be great. Everyone has a different perspective on that or some additional bits of advise on it so you can't have enough people talking about that really.

I have a decent understanding of a lot of this so for me I'd like to learn more about creating dynamic sound. Is that the right way to describe it? Basically using lots of individual audio assets to create a mix that changes based on what is happening in game. I know the engine can do a lot more now but I haven't tried actually creating audio with the engine so that is still a mystery too. Those are a bit more advanced though so maybe start with the other stuff lol.

[ClavosTech]

Suggestion:

Best practice when recording Sound-FX + Soundtrack Music Tracks to avoid common mistakes etc... One thing that happens a lot is Clipping when mixing / mastering multiple tracks into a single WAV, and when layering or playing individual sounds together on top of each other inside UE4 etc...