Hello,
i am an Experienced UE4 Developer but super new to Sound stuff. I want to do some dynamic Wind or more stylized “woosch” sounds depending on the speed of an actor.
I have no idea where to start, so maybe someone can give me some Terms to search for or have any good Tutorials or examples in mind.
Thanks !
Wooshes are very interesting and there many approaches to woosh sound design and implementation.
A more traditional approach would be to design a library of woosh sounds appropriate to the aesthetic context and character of your movement. Then “predict” the onset by evaluating velocity and picking from your library based on the onset timing.
The benefit of this approach is increased control over the aesthetic design.
Sourcing wooshes can be fun but probably time consuming (and sometimes dangerous). Here’s a video I took years before working at Epic of a coworker and myself recording wooshes:
Sound design, at a foundational level, can be encapsulated nicely by the process of Subtractive Synthesis where like a sculptor creating a statue with marble, you as a sound designer begin with some rich source element and then take away the parts that are not the sound you want.
This is done by two methods: Spectral (frequencies) and amplitude (volume).
That is why the essential subtractive synth topology is:
VCO => VCF => VCA
VCO being your harmonically rich source sound (oscillator)
VCF being a filter that subtracts frequency content from your harmonically rich source
VCA being your amplifier which shapes the gain of the amplitude (volume) of your final output.
All of these can be enriched by modifying the amount of their influence on the sound signal over time.
As an example to bring it back home to wooshes, many years ago I recorded a simple experimental patch for generating wooshes where my VCO output random noise, the VCF was a BandPass type with an envelope ramping up and down its center frequency and a VCA that ramped up and down the gain output of the sound with another envelope.
https://soundcloud.com/danreynolds/w…ing-patch-test
So you want to learn Sound Design ;), I recommend learning more about Subtractive Synthesis with an appreciation for harmonics/overtones and how they influence the character of a sound. Here’s a video I made years ago about the harmonic series:
Bringing it back to UE4, now that you have more fundamentals under your belt, you can start investigating some of the more advanced features like the Modular Synthesizer and Source Effects which provide everything you might want to design systems for wooshes.
Resources:
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Sou…dp/0262014416/
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Audio-Im…dp/1138777242/
https://www.amazon.com/Welshs-Synthe…dp/B000ERHA4S/
@dan.reynolds
Wow Thank you for you extensive Answer. To be honest i was fearing a Sound Design answer because its a lot of effort.
Do you think it could be possible to get some pre recorded Wooshes and Pitch and blend between them dynamically to get a Dynamic Sound controlled by a parameter like speed ?