Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Sound sound sound

After recording and editing around 250 finalized sounds, I came to the conclusion that they don't fit in alongside pure digital sounds. Any echo at all in the recording environment is very noticeable.

That said, I began my search again for a method of making digital goopy sounds.

I managed to get a decent result with Sytrus + some pitch vibrato, chorus, and flanger effects mixed together. Here's the initial sytrus sound, followed by the result after filters. (I edit Sytrus while the filters are on.)


Before filter: https://clyp.it/b3mdkj0n
After filter: https://clyp.it/a2vzsbb4


One of the benefits of this method is that Sytrus nor the filters have their timing syched, which means that all the little worble noises that make up the sound will be slightly different each time. As a result, you can record a series of notes at different times, and pitches, and get variations easily. An hour or two will get you around 28 sounds.

This was already a decent result, however you can also change the pitch and speed of a sound, and then "compose" with it.



This is the same sound as above, but "arranged".

Basically, you can take one sound, or even multiple sounds, and compose them like you would a song. Especially by combining multiple sounds, you can come up with entirely different results.

This is actually pretty handy for all kinds of sound effects, by the way, and it's part of how I make sound effects. To give a quick example, here's FL Studio's default snare drum "composed" to  sound like a gunshot or something.




Lastly, the other benefit of this method is that I can actually use it with the recorded sounds to make them sound a little more digital.

Original recorded sound: https://clyp.it/0kraw0hh
Same sound with changed pitch and arranged: https://clyp.it/njmna1us

Of course, now the only problem is that sort of have too many options. Too many is better than none, of course. That said, I do get suck of staring at waveforms for hours on end, though, so I'm looking forward to finally settling on a set of sounds and being done with the revision.


52 comments:

  1. Mind blow "mind blow voice sound effect"

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  2. Thanks for sharing, Kyrieru. I'd love to see your process sometime, if you ever Stream again or anything. I can't do sounds at all. ;___;
    Any advice or anything you have would be awesome, too. Your sounds are great. Is your method specific to Sytrus, or can we do this kind of stuff with any DAW?

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    1. Any synth will do so long as it allows you to make sounds from scratch. As for the whole arrange method, that can be done with any software that allows you to compose with audio files.

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  3. >too many options

    You could always sell them as a sound pack for other developers to use.

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    1. It's not that I have a ton of sounds, it's more that I know I can consistently make more, whereas before I was struggling to make sounds that felt like they fit.

      I don't think I'd sell digital sounds, since I can always use them. As for the recorded sounds, I feel like they wouldn't make very much. I'm sure there are free packs floating around.

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    2. >they wouldn't make very much.

      This might be true, but if they're already made it's basically free money.

      Why NOT? Unless you'd prefer to keep them to yourself.

      There ARE free sound effect packs floating around, but not all of them are quality and this is especially so for any 'lewd' oriented sounds for h-games. There's a reason so many h-games have bad sound effects. Not enough easy-to-find sfx for that kinda thing and not every dev is/has a good sound designer.

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  4. Wait.. so.. all those 250 previous sounds are unusable?
    That's horrible! How much time did those take / how much delay has been caused?
    Hang in there Kyrieru, we love you, please continue to push on despite the setbacks, and take your time (even though... I seriously can't wait till it's finished >~<)!

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    1. They aren't usable, but I didn't think they fit the style.

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    2. They aren't "unusable"*.
      I'll probably use them for a different game in the future.

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    3. Something that I noticed about the recorded sound was that the reverb and echo was nonexistent in the digital versions, so the sound environment was different; there is less "presence" to the recorded version. I wonder if your perspective on whether the sounds are usable would change if this was, say, a first person game rather than a sidescroller.

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    4. Many of the old sounds are NES-like and simple, so things like reverb sounds out of place. If all the sound effects were recorded, or if the digital effects had reverb, then it would be a bit easier to fit them in the mix. Especially in games had environmental sounds to muffle out the natural reverb.

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  5. it sounds like you're having to much fun with that

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  6. Which version of FL Studio do you use?

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    1. Why do you not update?

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    2. The later version had annoying differences in the UI. Overall the version doesn't matter too much anyway for something like this.

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  7. It's interesting what you can do to these sounds with a little modification. I'd love it if you made more tutorials on your process, hell throw them on Patreon if you have to justify your time. I feel others would be interested in this as well.

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    1. Only problem with tutorials for stuff like this is that there's a lot of fiddling around "until it sounds good", which isn't the best thing to have in a tutorial lol.

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    2. I'd argue that the fiddling around is the most important part of the tutorial, actually. Like the others say, I'd be really interested in watching the process from nothing to working sound. There's not much out there on sound synthesis.

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    3. Well, the way I learned how to use Sytrus was watching tutorials on making drum sounds. The information from that basically just carried over. There isn't a whole lot of info on how to make specific things, but luckily you can make most things with a little messing around.

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  8. The arranged version (or a1) sounds like the when the enemy would be finishing inside the protag. Probably your intention but a6 definitely sounds more like the insertion sound.

    I don't really think the sounds were bad on previous games but hey, if you can improve then why not.

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  9. Mamono Assault ForceJanuary 6, 2017 at 7:41 PM

    This is neat.

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  10. This is repetitive.

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  11. One thing you can do if you have too much reverb on your acoustic sounds is to composite multiple sounds together (using only the beginning, before reflections from the room are part of the sound, and the middle of the sound, when the actual sound is louder than the reflections coming from the room), and then (paradoxically) use a very small amount of reverb/delay to kinda fill in the gaps as it were. If you have a big blanket or comforter you can fit over wherever you're recording, you, and your mic, you can also dampen the reflections that way (it'll also work if you can stick blankets and towels and stuff like that on your walls somehow). I think the final one sounds good!

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    1. It's tough to find a workable solution where I live. There isn't a whole lot of space for setups that can be moved into quiet rooms easily.

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  12. ... so. What about the release?

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  13. Whats the news on Noaika? The demo itself is 10x better than most games. H-content or not.

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    1. There's still a lot of work to be done on Noaika, so I'm going to release things before working on it so that living costs/debt aren't an issue. Anything I release before Noaika will be free to anyone who pre-ordered Noaika while that was up.

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    2. So.... is there a chance that you can just release eroico/others and not get the sound 100% perfect? I mean picasso didnt go back to his old paintings and touch them up because he was dissatisfied with them.

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    3. A painting is done and sold once. Games are digital copies and sold en masse for years after their initial release.

      If you didn't care about quality then you wouldn't be looking forward to the revision to begin with -__-

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    4. Actually I'm looking forward to it because i never bought it in the first place; and since you're doing a revision I might as well wait for it to be released...your move

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    5. That's my point. You're asking "why put in more effort?" when you're explicitly waiting for the version with more effort -__-

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    6. I honestly dont care for the sound either...

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    7. I'm not waiting for extra effort, I'm waiting for it to be done >_>

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    8. a pair of idiots
      2 for one sale!

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  14. So is Noaika confirmed for the Switch then?

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    1. Yes. Local multiplayer with tiny controllers is very important to me so I cut a deal with Miyamoto and he said he'd call me back with more details after I give him my bank info.

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    2. You could also make great use for the motion controls like shaking off enemies. Ah also HD ice cubes.

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    3. Local multiplayer with tiny controllers is going to be fucking awesome, lol.

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  15. Anything new today? Nope not today.

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    1. Lol. For some reason Eroico has been the most fun h-game I've played. So i was somewhat excited for it. But these monthly delays.. make me not care anymore.

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    2. sadly, no one cares about you either anymore

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