Role Of The Sound Designer In The Games Industry:

The sound designer is a key member in the process of creating a video game as sounds can be used for multiple things such as setting the mood, portraying emotions, making the game realistic, etc. However being a sound designer isn’t as easy as just recording a sound and putting it into a game, there are many options and skills required to be in this field of work.

Recording:

The sound designer must be comfortable recording sound and all the elements that go along with that such as making the conditions of the recording area suitable so that there is the least amount of background noise or interference. When recording the sound they must use equipment that best suits them so that if anything goes wrong they could quickly find out why or think of a solution. If a person didn’t know the piece of recording equipment then human errors will occur meaning you will slow production down altogether which has a ripple effect to all the other departments.

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Modify Sound:

Modifying sound is a very useful and crucial technique for the sound designer to have as this could ultimately speed up the process if needed. If they had little time the sound designer could record something roughly and later on modify the sound so that it suits what they have been asked to create or if a step in the snow wasn’t loud enough they could use this skill to change that without losing the original sound. Using this could also save money if doing multiple takes cost money than they could just do one take and modify the sound until they are pleased with the result.

Understand Pre-Production:

Pre-production is when the sound designer will create all the relevant sounds and needed sounds during this stage before the actual production of the game begins as this saves time when creating the game and the sounds are basically the storyline as a certain event happens when a certain sound is played (sound can be seen as a template). Understand pre-production as a sound designer is very important because you would need to understand the time that you have the sounds that you need to create so that you don’t miss the deadline or waste time generating sounds that aren’t needed.

People Management:

Having good people management skills is needed if you are going to be in charge of a team of people or even when working when others which is most definitely going to happen as not just one person could create all the sounds for a video game. To have this skill you must be confident as you will have to talk to a group of people at once, you must be decisive as you will have to tell people what to do based off their strengths and weaknesses and finally you must be strict with deadlines as you don’t want to slow the production of the game down causing complications that puts your department in a bad light.

Create Digital/Simulated Sound:

This is a crucial skill to have when it comes to being a sound designer as there are just sounds which cannot be field recorded such as a spaceship so the designer will have to study all the sounds of a spaceship from films, other games or TV shows and then generate their own custom sound based off this. Another possibility is that the sound that the game needs just simply doesn’t exist and the sound designer will have to create a sound that fits the purpose that he has been asked to meet. Also if they went out and did a field recording but the sound wasn’t good enough or not a good enough quality then

Role Of The Sound Designer In The Games Industry:

they may have to re-create the sound based off the field recording that they have.

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Quality Control:

Being able to determine whether a sound is of a good enough quality or to the highest quality possible is a positive trait as the difference between two sounds could be very crucial when it comes to a certain part of the game so being able to determine which is the best quality sound best suited for the purpose whenever you need to make a decision. Also you do these quality control checks at intervals so that you know all the sounds are actually working and don’t clash with any other sounds that will be in the same sequence.

Develop/Use Software:

Being able to use the industry standard software to the best of its ability is a skill that has to be developed over time but once mastered it becomes extremely useful as you will know your way around the software’s user interface so you can edit the sound I whichever way possible. You will also know the shortcuts for that software which will save time in the long run and make it easier to make many different versions of the sound you are trying to create so that you can re-visit hem if you make a change that you feel doesn’t suits the purpose.

Communication With Other Departments:

Communication with other departments is essential when in the games industry as you are all working together to create one big project and if some departments don’t talk to each other then things may not match. In this case I could be talking about the sound designers and the animators not constantly communicating with each other could cause problems such as the characters dialogue not matching the animation of the characters mouth moving or event happening with a sound that just completely sounds out of place. Communication is a basic function that everyone should be comfortable with as you will always have to work with other departments or have interval meetings to check that nothing has changed from the original plan.

Editing:

Being able to edit sound is a craft that will occasionally come in useful when you begin to listen to the sounds that you just recorded to ensure that you are happy with the quality and everything but if you feel that there is a problem with the sound then you will be able to edit/tweak the sound (without re-recording it or creating an entire new sound from scratch) until you feel that you have got the sound that you set out for in the first place or maybe something even better that you could only do with editing.

Play/Record Instruments:

Knowing how to capture a wide range of sounds from many different instruments can be very useful as it gives you many potions of different routes to take your sound in. Also knowing this you can record a full orchestra which are commonly used to create tense/horror music. However if you could play the MIDI keyboard which can replicate the sound of many instruments they you could do everything that you wanted from where you were sat.

Field Recording:

Role Of The Sound Designer In The Games Industry:

When going into the role of being a sound designer being skilful at field recording is a beneficial skill to have because if you wanted a certain sound for the background such as birds tweeting then field recording would be the best option if you can get the right atmosphere outside without any other background noise to interfere. This is sometimes better than creating the sound yourself with software as field recording gives you a more natural sound that the user can relate to as it could bring back memories for them.

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