I’m nearly at the end of my creative
endeavors, and there’s a reason this one is last. When you’re interested in
producing audio dramas, sound design comes with the territory. It’s a core
component of any audio production, and, like music, good sound design can make
your listener either feel things, or roll their eyes and tune out. But boy oh
boy is it one of the most challenging and time consuming aspects of production.
Think about a scene from your favorite
movie. Bonus points if it’s animated. Or better yet, sit down and watch it. Close
your eyes and just listen. Hear each sound. Every one of those sounds had to be
found or created from scratch, located from what is likely a huge and hopefully
well-organized sound library, and placed just right in the timeline to make it
believable. That was just one of those sounds. Now imagine doing that for each
one, whether background or up front. That is sound design. Making sound effects
by hand – sometimes literally – or buying ones other people have made from a
pre-existing library. Organizing them in a way where they’re easy to locate
when you need them. And kudos to you if you can remember which sounds you have,
because that helps.
I’ll never forget my first audio drama. I
knew nothing. I used room temperature raw hamburger to simulate the sound of
maggots crawling on raw meat, scratched my nails on our cement walkway for
talons scraping stone and held a ton of water in my mouth and spat it slowly
out to simulate vomiting. It was fun. It was also a terrible microphone, and
the end result showed. And then I found Freesound.org, a website where other
people created and uploaded their own sound effects. There’s a lot of crap on
that website, but a lot of fantastic sounds too. With their help and my own
creative sound effects, I managed to turn a simple narration into an audio
soundscape which I was actually very impressed with. I cringe to listen to it
now, but given the circumstances, it wasn’t bad for a first try.
Over the past 13 years I’ve found, created
and even purchased thousands of sounds for various projects. I’ve organized
them into folders as best I can and have a somewhat decent system figured out
for searching. And it’s still easily the most time-consuming part of the
process. I never really thought about it at first. It’s just something I needed
to be able to do. Even during an hour long radio drama, easily my most involved
and complex project to date, I never realized just how much went into creating
a believable soundscape out of sounds which often have nothing to do with the
sound you want the listener to think they are. It was only when a friend of
mine asked me to create a number of ambiences for her own creative works that I
realized sound design is easily my least favorite part. And she even paid me
for my time, which is a rarity. But working on these audio dramas, and spending
an entire month creating multiple Halloween soundscapes for my wife’s job’s
fundraiser has taught me that I am quite good at it.
So where do these two opposing bits of
knowledge leave me? I think the answer is simple. I need to be paid for my work
with sound design. I’m both too good at it and dislike it enough that I don’t
want to do it just for fun. With voice acting, I need the practice and
exposure, so while there too I’d like to be paid for my work, I will do it on a
volunteer basis for those reasons. Same with music. Nothing beats earning
compensation for a composition, but here too, I need the practice, and just
genuinely enjoy it. With sound design, it’s different. It doesn’t bring me the
same joy. SO unless I’m doing it for my own personal project, or as a favor for
my wife’s work, I suppose, then I think I’m done doing it for free. Except for
the visual novel project I already committed to working on, because I value the
person I’m working with and will see my commitment through. It’s actually
cathartic realizing this. Hopefully I can stick to it.
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