MPH Sound designer

1. Michael Hughes 06/02/2015
The role of the Sound Designer
Sound designer is a job role in the games industry that requires
experience with sound equipment, knowledge of computer games and the
industry and the ability to record, modify, edit and integrate sounds.
A sound designer doesn’t just record sounds for a computer game. Often
times they have to create and modify them. To do this, they need to
understand the software and hardware that comes with Foley artistry but
also understand where to find the natural sounds for field recordings too.
Some examples of Foley artistry can include using meats or fruits to
generate a punch sound, or metal clanging sound can be created by hitting
2 metal pipes together. Field recordings are the use of portable
equipment, in different locations to take “natural” recordings of sounds.
It’s not all about creating sounds however; Sound designers may also need
to understand pre-production techniques such as script writing. The reason
this is important for a sound designer is so they have a basic plan of
what sound they need to produce for what scene, for instance if they read
a script and see that gun fire is needed, they can plan how they will
create the gun fire sound effects (field recordings or Foley artistry).
There is also a lot of management that comes hand in hand with becoming a
sound designer. For instance a lead sound designer would need to have
people management skills when it comes to managing staff, system
management skills would also be needed.