VSTi for Game FX ?

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Hi guys,

I'm just about finished programming a game and I need to make some sound FX, mostly impact sounds. I'm looking for something with a good amount of presets that isn't too complicated. I'm hoping to make a dozen or so really nice impact sounds in a few days. I'm using FL Studio to play/save the sound, then Adobe Audition for post-processing. I can spend up to $200 but less or free is always better.

Thanks.

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If you want realistic or semi-realistic sounds synthesis isn't there yet. For retroish sounds any subtractive one will do. Someone else more into synthetic sfx design can probably suggest a drumsynth that works well.

If you can go over $200 I'd recommend soundsnap.com (250/year). It's a sample service with a subscription modeland huge selection. Download what seems to work and then layer and filter the hell out of it.

One option would also be Zoom H1 recorder and Rode NTG-2 microphone and record your own sounds.

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i cant think of any that will simulate real word sounds, most will be mainly drum based.

you'd be better off with samples, so making your own would be idea. get a decent Mic and start getting creative.
I saw an amazing 'making of' video for the impact sounds in a game where they smashed and ripped vegetables up to sound like bones cracking and skulls shattering. truly gross and lots of fun! :)

for retro-ish sounds try sfxr
http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html

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There was a company that released a couple of libararies exactly for this purpose a couple of weeks ago (i think in Kotakt format), but i can't remember the name, sorry.

Edit: www.samplesphere.com/
I think this is it, not sure though because i remember there were more plugins. Seems that its not in Kontakt format, i guess its an advantage for some.

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yup, what they said. film and game sound design is predominantly (layered) sample based rather than synthetic.

have a wander round designingsound.org, im sure there's some 'how we did our impact library' videos there, as well as their independent sound library list, and a lot of useful stuff on sound design in general.
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In a couple days I would forget the mic/recorder combo as that will take you too long to learn. You can make all sorts of impact sounds with synthesis, but I would also recommend against that in your time frame. Get a sample set of sfx sounds for expediency... even starting with ready made stuff, it will take you time to tweak to your particular use

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Emperor wrote: mostly impact sounds.
Can you provide more info on what type of impact sounds, ie: big space explosions, small 'body' hits, various physical objects of different size and material colliding, etc?

When it comes to general realistic SFX have a look at synths by Xoxos. Also, investigate Tassman, as it can provide lots of good fodder for further manipulation. It can give you various impact sounds and you can choose the 'material' like wood, metal, membrane or a hybrid. It's not easy to use though (if you want to create your own complex synths)!

Perhaps the quickest way to get some nice impact sounds is to get a hand held recorder and record anything that you like the sound of. A kitchen wooden spoon hitting a big frying pan or a cooking pot. Then manipulate the sounds in your editor by transposing, time stretching, applying reverb with a phaser/flanger then resampling, etc. With a few carefully chosen DSP processes you could get very good SFX sounds in no time.
http://www.electric-himalaya.com
VSTi and hardware synth sound design
3D/5D sound design since 2012

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himalaya wrote:
Emperor wrote: mostly impact sounds.
Can you provide more info on what type of impact sounds, ie: big space explosions, small 'body' hits, various physical objects of different size and material colliding, etc?
yesh, thats a good point.
OFFICIAL free competition : If you' see martiu post 'why you mad homie' or similar after this post, you are a prizewinner, and a free reverb plugin is yours. PM martiu immediately, and ask for your prize. He'll give it to you, baby!

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http://www.chuckrussomfx.com/ has some nice metallic impact sounds.

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Hey guys,

Thanks for all the help.

The sounds I'm making are short impact sounds, 'thuds' and 'chinks', maybe like when a sword or mace hits a shield, they don't need to sound realistic. The sounds don't need to be complex, they are for a presentation so I can always enhance them down the road.

I definitely want to go with soft synths (non-sample is best), it's fun tweaking and learning as I go.

So far I've been using Chromaphone (demo) and Valhalla Room. FL Studio has a build in synth called AutoGun which is pretty awesome but you can't tweak anything on it.

I wouldn't mind checking out another drum/percussion synth but the other ones I've seen are drum machines and I don't really want that. Maybe I should be using an all-around synth that has a nice selection of percussion (especially snare and cymbal) presets and definitely a noise oscillator ?

Any recomendations would be appreciated. Thanks again.

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for free:
NOISEMAKER by TAL , but any VA with cross mod (FM) is fine(even synth1 if u don't mind aliasing).
ideally u'd wanna start with a noise waveform (just select it from the oscillator section) or a metallic waveform created from the cross modulation of the 2 oscillators (FM).
then add filter(LP24) and modulate with either filter ENV or LFO (use retrigger state)...and there's even a draw envelope which though i wouldn't touch for short sounds.
what you are attempting to do is sound design (real sound design ..)..so u ultimately need to know what u r doing.
choose a clear simple synth laid out well and learn it inside out....if u have the time.

then once u know a basic synth inside out....u can move on to modulars/semi modulars like bazille etc

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You should get out and record all kind of impact sounds yourself.
:borg:

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Ok.secons try then, since you clearly want to do this as an experiment. I would take something that has complex envelopes and can easily do metallic tones,if I had to pick one it would be Absynth.

Then the sound design part - don't limit yourself to one synth instance. Divide the sound into low, mid and high frequency parts and design then invidually. Also pay attention to the attack part and release part, they can very well come from different instances. None of this isn't of course written into stone and you could be fine with less instances depending of the sound. sample the different parts of the sound and put them to different tracks in a daw and from there on work on them like you would with recorded samples. Glue them with compressors, add power with distortion, use eq and filters. You most probably want to have fiter and filter curves on many tracks too. Sampling them gives you freedom to adjust sample rate, pitch shift and timestretch, reverse the sample and so on.

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olikana wrote:for free:
NOISEMAKER by TAL , but any VA with cross mod (FM) is fine(even synth1 if u don't mind aliasing).
ideally u'd wanna start with a noise waveform (just select it from the oscillator section) or a metallic waveform created from the cross modulation of the 2 oscillators (FM).
then add filter(LP24) and modulate with either filter ENV or LFO (use retrigger state)...and there's even a draw envelope which though i wouldn't touch for short sounds.
what you are attempting to do is sound design (real sound design ..)..so u ultimately need to know what u r doing.
choose a clear simple synth laid out well and learn it inside out....if u have the time.

then once u know a basic synth inside out....u can move on to modulars/semi modulars like bazille etc
That's exactly the answer I was looking for. When you wrote "choose a clear simple synth laid out well and learn it inside out", which one do you recommend ? I would like a basic to mid level one that I can really learn but there are so many to choose from and they all seem specialized, it doesn't have to be free either, I don't mind buying something I'll use for a while. Thanks man.

PS - I'm going to download Noisemaker now.

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ACE is very good for fx... pretty easy for starting off if you stick to the default wiring, and when ready you can do all sorts of interesting wirings. Inexpensive, excellent sound quality with a good punchy attack, and for effects, cpu doesn't matter.

ACE would be good for thuds, cracks, any sorts of electrical hums, motors, harsh metallic screeches etc... I've done lots of sounds for video documentaries, but not for games... I'm still working on animal sounds like growls, barks, meows, whines, bird sounds etc. Those are really hard!



Not what you are looking for, but here is a chainsaw I did in ACE

http://draigathar.org/sounds/Ace3.mp3

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