"How do you come up with the strange, other-worldly sounds in games? (example: Torin's Passage's Boogle sounds) Also, what do you use to come up with and/or play around with them?"

Submitted by: Joe Jaquette

Answered by: Ben Houge (sound engineer, Sierra On-Line)

"Coming up with the the really weird sounds in games is one of the most fun aspects of doing computer game sound. It's always more interesting to come up with the sound of a spirit appearing, or a magic spell being cast than, say, a doorbell ringing, or footsteps, because there are no expectations for what it's supposed to sound like. Since the sound doesn't have a real world corollary, it can be anything you dream up!

"Typically, if the otherworldly sound in question is that of some type of organic object, a monster or whatever, I'll start with some kind of organic sound source. Recordings of exotic animals are great for this, since a lot of people who will be playing our games don't really know what a camel or sea lion in heat sounds like. We have a goldmine of these types of sounds on CD at Sierra, and they have proven very useful as a point of departure for sounds of spriggans and goblins. Once I get a particular sound that seems to express what I'm attempting to convey (pain, for a monster react sound, for example), I edit it for length, usually play with the pitch, and apply any of a number of digital signal processing techniques to it (using Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge) until I have exactly what I'm going for, and something that fits with the animation and visuals. Sometimes I'll combine sounds from different animals or even people (I've been known to do cameos as zombies and the like), and on a few occasions, for particularly nasty monsters, I've used non-organic or mechanical elements, like engines grinding, or dentists' drills.

"For non-character based sound effects, like magic spells, I typically employ some manner of software synthesis. I often use a computer music programming language called CSound for sounds like these. Since it doesn't rely on hardware to create its sounds, it is incredibly flexible; virtually any sound you can imagine, employing any synthesis method yet devised, can theoretically be created. The drawback is that you actually have to write something that looks suspiciously like code, and then wait for it to compile before you get your payoff (which often is nothing more than a click or silence; there's a lot of trial and error in this type of composition). Again, a lot of editing is usually required after I have obtained my sound source, such as fade-ins, reverb, whatever; for this I typically employ the mighty Sound Forge, which actually has some useful sound synthesis features built in as well.

"Here's the sound of a pyro demon getting attacked.

"Here's the sound of a magic spell being cast.

"Boogle, however, was sound maegis David Henry's masterpiece. I think his secret is to eat lots of chili."

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