Sonic Design:Final Project

Sonic Design:Final Project

5/12/2024 - 5/1/2025 (Week15 - Week 17) 

LI YUHAN / 0379857


For the final project of our "Sound Design" course, our core task was to reconstruct all the sound effects for a silent game video. This was a complete build from the ground up, covering environmental atmosphere, character actions, and various interactive sounds.

Project Planning and Professional Recording

After understanding the project requirements at the beginning of the semester, I began planning. In week eleven, having selected the first vedio as my source material, I promptly booked the school's recording studio, hoping to complete the core sound effects in a professional environment.

On Monday morning, I entered the recording studio with two classmates and began working under the full guidance of our instructor, Mr. Razif. Thanks to the professional equipment and environment, we efficiently recorded a large number of dialogue lines, routine action sounds, and material interaction effects. However, for sounds that could potentially damage the sensitive studio equipment or required specific conditions—such as water sounds or using a microwave—we decided to record them later at home.


Home Recording and Creative Discovery

After the professional recording session, I moved on to the more experimental phase of home recording. This process was like sonic alchemy, searching for possibilities among everyday objects.

The most enlightening discovery came from simulating the character's jump sound effect. After several unsuccessful attempts with other methods, I accidentally blew air through a straw into a glass of water—a series of dense, crisp bubble-popping sounds, "pupu," emerged. This turned out to be the perfect sound effect I had been searching for to represent the character's light, springy jump. To capture the cleanest version, I worked until 2 a.m., waiting for the entire building to fall completely silent before successfully recording it.

Similarly, the bomb's "beep-beep-beep" warning sound came from a household microwave, and the muffled thud of explosions was simulated by stomping hard on the floor. While recorded in a limited home environment, these sounds were full of unexpected creativity.

Post-Production Refinement and Audio-Visual Synchronization

After importing all the audio into editing software, the most meticulous phase began: audio-visual synchronization. I entered a state of intense focus: eyes glued to the millisecond markers on the timeline, repeatedly comparing the visual action with the rise and fall of the sound.
The video runs at 24 frames per second; even a 0.1-second misalignment can create a sensory disconnect. I ensured the frame of the character landing perfectly matched the footstep sound, and that mechanical rotations aligned precisely with metal grinding noises. For a continuous fight scene, I split a long sound effect into several segments, adjusting the rhythm and volume of each one to build a dynamic auditory hierarchy.

Audio Processing and Integration

To better integrate the home-recorded sound effects into the game world, I performed detailed post-processing:
  • Added room reverb and EQ processing to the stomping sounds used for explosions, making them sound more like they occurred inside the game environment.
  • Applied pitch adjustment and layered subtle textures to the straw-in-water bubble sounds, using them to represent a series of small explosions.
  • Added a metallic-textured reverb suggestive of a confined space to the sounds of the character moving through pipes.
  • Used pitch modulation on the recorded curtain-pulling sound to make it seem lighter and faster, fitting the object's texture within the game.
  • Applied parametric EQ to ambient sounds (like grass rustling and cat footsteps) to enhance presence and better match the visuals.
  • In track editing, made extensive use of crossfades and clip overlapping to ensure smooth, natural transitions between different sound effects.
stomping sounds 

character moving through pipes

a series of small explosions




to ensure smooth

Summary

After completing the project, my auditory perception has been permanently altered. I now instinctively deconstruct the sound design in films and TV shows and listen to the "sonic character" of objects in daily life.

This project was far more than a technical exercise. It gave me hands-on experience with the complete sound design pipeline: from前期 planning and professional collaborative recording, to creative home Foley work, and finally to meticulous post-production synthesis. I gained a deep appreciation for how sound constitutes half the universe of immersion, and how the process of creating sound is essentially learning to listen to the world more profoundly.


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