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Sound design is a creative process of sculpting audio to achieve a certain vision. In films, games, and music, a sound designer tends to be more of a sonic architect, by taking something and then bringing it to life through the aural sense with his tools and abilities.
It is something of an art to make flora or an alien being come to life with just subtle or dramatic sounds. Pioneering sound designers of the past blazed that trail with early recording technologies, working in synchronizing audio with visuals.
Today’s sound wizards have powerful digital workshops at their disposal, where they can construct their tapestries of frequencies and textures inside non-linear editors and synthesizer labs. However, the approach is much the same, with aural acuity combined with experimentation and modulation: imaginings constructed inside the mind and brought to the ears.
The forms that sound design takes vary greatly depending on the medium: in film and television, subtle cues and elaborate effects enhance stories visually told; music producers sculpt synthesizer dreams and field recording collages; game designers populate virtual worlds with immersive sound environments.
The shared set of tools among most sound designers—literally working with commissions anywhere—involves synthesizers for raw elements to shape and field recorders to capture slices of reality at the atmospheric level, with envelopes, modulations to give life, and effects processors to impart space and character.
Simple tones evolve with layering, reversing, filtering, and much else into a complex amalgam. More dimensionality is added through the stereo field and the judicious use of silence. Organized libraries ensure a smooth artistic flow.
Hence, the fundamentals of these elemental building blocks are the keys for any novice starting their sonic odysseys. However, the real mastery comes with listening perception—that is, through the ability to hear how their favorite examples are nuanced and the intuition of how they were formulated. With a practice devoted to it, the ears are sharpened to develop as a sixth sense that can be a lighted guide to achievement.
