Stock sounds are so much cheaper than a sound designer and are available much faster than a sound designer’s work. We’ve all heard stock sounds in games, especially in UI, and the Wilhelm scream, so why get a sound designer? Surely you could learn how to design sounds yourself or task a composer to do it if you needed them in your game, right? The acclaimed Chained Echoes, which credits 80 people, had a revered soundtrack but sparse SFX When you view the idea of sound in your game as only...

Learn how sound can communicate important elements of your story: worldbuilding, displaying character, and more.

Your room may be giving you an unreliable idea about how your film or game sounds. Everything from the height of your ceiling to where your speakers are positioned can influence which sounds you miss and which sounds stand out. Does this matter? When you're the person responsible for assessing the efficacy of music, sound effects in your game, or the audio in a film, this absolutely matters. When our spaces aren't catered to accurate listening, we make mistakes based on what we think is...