Music vs Film Sound Design

A question I get somewhat often in how sound design for music differs from sounds in film or video games. Generally speaking, they’re very similar, just used slightly differently. In this post I’ll have some audio examples, so be sure to wear headphones or use speakers!

Instead of playing scaled notes and regular rhythms, like in music, film and games can get away with a lot of one-shot sounds (sounds that just play once) at any frequency. Synthesizers are great for this as they can replicate any frequency, as exists in nature. If you want to recreate a monster growling, it’s likely not going to be a perfect note, and will likely change frequency as it growls. You can of course modulate pitch in music, but getting it to not clash with other pitches can be problematic. This is less of an issue in sound design, as dissonance can actually help sounds protrude!

The actual sound design is very similar though. Back to a growl, dubstep uses sounds like this often, albeit generally intentionally more metallic and tuned to specific frequencies for set durations. The techniques used in dubstep, such as using wavetables, lots of modulation, waveshaping, filtering, audio-rate modulations, and distortion are quite common in general sound design as well. Other genres also make use of these same techniques in different ways.

More gentle genres, such as ambient music, is also very similar to creating ambient soundscapes for film or areas in games. while the melody and harmony may not exist, the synthesis methods used to create water drops, cave reverberation, wind blowing, and birds chirping often even uses the same synthesizers as in ambient music! Granular and physical modelling synthesizers are very common for both.

You can even use the same synthesis technique for leads as you do noisy electrical hums!

More traditional music tools are also great for general sound design. Glissando violins, brushes on a snare, cymbal rolls, percussive aspects of acoustic guitar playing, and unique instruments like the taishogoto and guqin are all very useful in creating new and unique sounds, not because they’re unique in themselves, but because of the environment they’re in. A jazz percussionist’s brushed snare sounds very different than a brushed snare used to replicate the sound of cloth catching on stucco, but when combined with the visual, it works.

I guess the best summary here would be, “it doesn’t matter what your tool is, it matters how you use it.”