Sound effects designers.. what do i need to know?

[opposite.lock.]

Hey everyone,

I was just looking for information on sound design as a profession.

Mainly,

What is expected of you to know?
Is mastery of synthesis enough?
How much does your level of kit matter?
Does anyone have links to well known SFX designers?
.. Or information on workflow?

I've been making tracks for a few years now and would like to seriously concider this as a new career move.

Any info helps me alot,
Thanks!

[Berolzheimer]

Originally Posted by opposite.lock.

Hey everyone,

Is mastery of synthesis enough?
How much does your level of kit matter?

These things are the "how", now you just need to learn the "what" and the "why".

Owning a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter.

[opposite.lock.]

Originally Posted by Berolzheimer

These things are the "how", now you just need to learn the "what" and the "why".

Owning a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter.

of course not.. it more likely makes me dangerous.

Which is why i am more interested in things like workflow and thought process. Or, how a designer would approach a project or situation. Or how they work with other people(video game designers for instance) on a project.

haven't been able to find this type of info.

[conquest]

bump because I'm interested in this topic as well.


peace.

[tribeofenki]

Does anyone have links to well known SFX designers?

Eric Persing, founder of Spectrasonic and (before of that)

creator of some Roland synth Libraries.

+ there are some books on the argument...

[Berolzheimer]

Originally Posted by opposite.lock.

I've been making tracks for a few years now and would like to seriously concider this as a new career move.

Then I think you should consider that you'll be working for years to get good at something that will then only net you a lower - middle class income.

[ggegan]

Originally Posted by opposite.lock.

Hey everyone,

I was just looking for information on sound design as a profession.

Mainly,

What is expected of you to know?
Is mastery of synthesis enough?
How much does your level of kit matter?
Does anyone have links to well known SFX designers?
.. Or information on workflow?

I've been making tracks for a few years now and would like to seriously concider this as a new career move.

Any info helps me alot,
Thanks!

Well, Malcolm Gladwell would say you need about 10,000 hours, which sounds about right. My advice would be to become an editorial apprentice or assistant at a post house and then soak up as much info as you can, because you can't really learn sound design in a vacuum.

But as per your question, synthesis is not the basis of most sound design I see on the dub stage. It is more likely to be creative combinations of recorded sound effects that may or may not be sonically manipulated in some way.

Here is a website that may be of interest to you:

FilmSound.org: dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design & Film Sound Theory

[philper]

Originally Posted by ggegan

Well, Malcolm Gladwell would say you need about 10,000 hours, which sounds about right. My advice would be to become an editorial apprentice or assistant at a post house and then soak up as much info as you can, because you can't really learn sound design in a vacuum.

But as per your question, synthesis is not the basis of most sound design I see on the dub stage. It is more likely to be creative combinations of recorded sound effects that may or may not be sonically manipulated in some way.

Here is a website that may be of interest to you:

FilmSound.org: dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design & Film Sound Theory

Based on my own experience, I'd say 10k hours if you are in a good position re: teachers and opportunities, and more like 20k if you have to make most of your mistakes on your own. Many people starting today will have to go it relatively alone, since there are few places for them to get mentored in this field anymore. For everyone though, the research, study and experimentation can never end.

Philip Perkins

[subbasshead]

10k hours sounds about right... i sure as hell know after spending a year at film school I spent 5+ years working first as a trainee, then an assistant & then an FX editor on TV series before I had the required experience & maturity to start working on films... if 5 years seems too long, maybe consider a different career?

btw synthesis? do you mean sound design, as in creating presets for softsynths or something? synth sound design is not film sound design...

maybe you should read a book on the subject?
this one gives a good overview:

Amazon.com: Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound, Second Edition: David Lewis Yewdall: Books

[charles maynes]

There are exceptions to every rule in sound design- one of the most clever guys to ever be in the business started out as a sound librarian.

It is something is really complex in description, but that CAN be easier in execution.


I would suggest making a list of the films which you are most attracted to sound wise, and choose one or three of them, and dissect the sound track to see what was done- were the sounds natural, or surreal, how much foley made up the sound experience etc...

the one hurdle the broad majority of sound effects designers (please take note- I did not say sound designers) have is being versatile enough to be able to tackle a variety of genres....


good luck though- If you are passionate, patient and have a good attitude, you can go pretty far in the trade.

[ggegan]

I don't particularly like the term "sound designer". To me it is too nebulous to mean anything. It is supposedly an invention of Walter Murch, and while I have the utmost respect for Walter (having worked with him in the past, I unhesitatingly acknowledge his genius) I think the term is really meaningless as applied today. I don't think that the current usage of the term really even conforms to the original Murchian concept, which I gather was more of a pre-production function.

The first time I heard the term was when working with Northern California sound editors who traveled to Socal for work on occasion in the 80's when the Norcal post production industry was experiencing a slump. At the time most Socal people I knew considered it an attempt by Norcal editors to distinguish themselves as "artists" as opposed to Hollywood studio "factory workers". That may or may not have been true, but that was definitely the reaction of many Socal sound editors I knew. As time went on the term caught on and now is in common use here in Socal as well.

I'm not trying to re-ignite North-South rancor, I'm just commenting on the origins and usefulness of the term. Thankfully the rivalry seems to have died a quiet death. I have absolutely nothing against Northern California editors and greatly admire the work of many of them. In fact, I was born and raised in Berkeley and worked in the film and music business In San Francisco and Marin County in the late 70's and early 80's.

Anyway, I don't see a real difference between a sound editor who creatively uses surrogate sound effects to cover something that doesn't exist in the real world and a sound designer. For that matter, mixers constantly warp things sonically as a normal part of their job. So what exactly distinguishes a "sound designer" from other sound people?

[opposite.lock.]

thanks for all the replies guys! It all helps a great deal.

The type of design i'm interested in most is synthetic sound effects and ambience. Stuff you are more likely to hear in video games and Sci-Fi films. I was wondering, are there people who specialize in this area of sound design?

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by opposite.lock.

thanks for all the replies guys! It all helps a great deal.

The type of design i'm interested in most is synthetic sound effects and ambience. Stuff you are more likely to hear in video games and Sci-Fi films. I was wondering, are there people who specialize in this area of sound design?

check the credits of the games and movies that are inspirational to you.... most of the people doing the jobs are not that hard to get a hold of....

[TVPostSound]

most of the people doing the jobs are not that hard to get a hold of....

Wouldn't that include you??!!

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Wouldn't that include you??!!

Well, I doubt anybody is losing sleep trying to find me...

[TVPostSound]

Well, I doubt anybody is losing sleep trying to find me...

Hey, we worked on the same movie, but I never found you!!!

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Hey, we worked on the same movie, but I never found you!!!

we talked in the lobby though..... otherwise, it's my Ninja invisibility....

[nikolavm27]

Originally Posted by opposite.lock.

The type of design i'm interested in most is synthetic sound effects and ambience. Stuff you are more likely to hear in video games and Sci-Fi films. I was wondering, are there people who specialize in this area of sound design?

Maybe this name will help you Mel Wesson, the first person I know that has been credited as Ambient Music Designer and Musical Sound Designer.

Nikola Zivojinovic
Belgrade, Serbia

[opposite.lock.]

Originally Posted by nikolavm27

Maybe this name will help you Mel Wesson, the first person I know that has been credited as Ambient Music Designer and Musical Sound Designer.

Nikola Zivojinovic
Belgrade, Serbia

Great!.. That is just the type of work i would like to do. Thanks for that link!

[cjguitar]

Does anybody here know how to get a hold of Charles Maynes? (Jut Kidding) :-)

[minister]

I think it comes down to choices and taste. It takes years to develop both the sophisticated sense of taste (and is influenced by all kinds of factors in your life) and the skill set to pull it off.

[philper]

re: "Sound Designer", I've heard the term used to describe a person who was in overall charge of the non-musical sound of a project (I had this role on several TV series), under whom the location sound and transfer people, the sound editors and the mixers worked, answerable directly to the show directors and producers, esp. the executive producer since the SD had had input into the audio budget for the whole series (with several directors, editors, mixers etc involved). I've also heard it used in a more game-biz sense, as a person who makes original audio-constructs for fantasy creatures, machines and situations that don't exist to record directly, and who has no other responsibility at all--they deliver their audio to the editors or the dub stage like a composer. A last usage is from the theatre world, where the first use of the term I heard of was to describe Dan Dugan's audio work supporting the legit-theatre productions at ACT in SF in the 1960s. I agree that the term generally seems to make more questions than it answers anymore, so I tend to avoid it. However, many sound editors now routinely act as "sound designers" as part of their jobs. If this is a common generally as it is in my world, then perhaps the term "sound editor" is enough, since people will understand that that work can now encompass much more than just editing dialog and existing SFX audio.

Philip Perkins

[ErikG]

I think there are good terms for what we do and everyone should use them sensibly and this is my take on it.

Sound Supervisor: Sound editor in charge of the sound (post) team, he might be an actual sound editor or perhaps in more a managing role typecasting character sounds and beeing in charge of making sure that all the various parts (BG's, Sfx, Dia, ADR & Foley) go together as per the directors intentions.

Sound Editor: The guys and girls that actually do the job, more or less (or not) overseen by a sound supervisor.

Sound Designer: A specific sound editor in charge of creating a specific sonic stage for the characters or creating imaginary character sounds.


To me combining stock sound fx's is not sound design in any way.
Recording and manipulating and/or creating new sounds in various ways might be, but not always in my definition as we all do this a lot of the time without actually beeing a sound designer per se in my opinion.
In my view the sound designer is specified by the director/producer/sound supervisor to be in charge of a specific sound design, this is not a self made role imho (even though it might have started that way).

[philper]

Originally Posted by ErikG

I think there are good terms for what we do and everyone should use them sensibly and this is my take on it.

Sound Supervisor: Sound editor in charge of the sound (post) team, he might be an actual sound editor or perhaps in more a managing role typecasting character sounds and beeing in charge of making sure that all the various parts (BG's, Sfx, Dia, ADR & Foley) go together as per the directors intentions.

Sound Editor: The guys and girls that actually do the job, more or less (or not) overseen by a sound supervisor.

Sound Designer: A specific sound editor in charge of creating a specific sonic stage for the characters or creating imaginary character sounds.


To me combining stock sound fx's is not sound design in any way.
Recording and manipulating and/or creating new sounds in various ways might be, but not always in my definition as we all do this a lot of the time without actually beeing a sound designer per se in my opinion.
In my view the sound designer is specified by the director/producer/sound supervisor to be in charge of a specific sound design, this is not a self made role imho (even though it might have started that way).

I think this is the best lay-out of the terms I've heard. My job on those series was really sound "supervision" although I wasn't sure that "sound supervisor" was a job title used outside of reality TV at the moment. If it isn't it should be. I would like to keep the term "sound designer" for someone doing much more blue-sky work than effects cutting or even creation, kind of more like a lighting designer in theatre or a composer in film, someone who is really inside the director's head about what the production needs as far as new and original and maybe not picture-motivated sound that isn't music (but acts like music).

Philip Perkins

[ErikG]

spot on philip
Time to go to bed.

Happy New Year Everyone!

[ggegan]

Originally Posted by ErikG

I think there are good terms for what we do and everyone should use them sensibly and this is my take on it.

Sound Supervisor: Sound editor in charge of the sound (post) team, he might be an actual sound editor or perhaps in more a managing role typecasting character sounds and beeing in charge of making sure that all the various parts (BG's, Sfx, Dia, ADR & Foley) go together as per the directors intentions.

Sound Editor: The guys and girls that actually do the job, more or less (or not) overseen by a sound supervisor.

Sound Designer: A specific sound editor in charge of creating a specific sonic stage for the characters or creating imaginary character sounds.


To me combining stock sound fx's is not sound design in any way.
Recording and manipulating and/or creating new sounds in various ways might be, but not always in my definition as we all do this a lot of the time without actually beeing a sound designer per se in my opinion.
In my view the sound designer is specified by the director/producer/sound supervisor to be in charge of a specific sound design, this is not a self made role imho (even though it might have started that way).

Supervising Sound Editor is even a pretty nebulous term these days. I know some big name supervisors who do a lot of hands on work, some who are really just front men (as in client relations) for a crew of independent editors and some who mostly handle logistics. Some supervisors go through and spot every effect and some leave it all up to the individual editors. These days one is also likely to work on a film with one dialog editor and one FX editor and they are both credited as supervisors. I guess they are supervising themselves. It doesn't really matter to me one way or the other as long as the editorial job satisfies the clients' requirements. Ultimately the term Supervising Sound Editor doesn't really define much except that that person has to take ultimate responsibility for the quality of the editorial job.

In terms of Sound Designer, I don't see a consistent job description for all the people taking that credit, and I don't see a consistent credit given to all the people who do the job you describe.

Like I said, it doesn't really matter to me. Many jobs overlap these days. Editors mix in the cutting room, Mixers edit on the dub stage, Sound Editors and Mixers both do sound design, Composers do sound effects and "sound design", Sound Editors and "Sound Designers" do music. I can't tell you how many times I've seen music editors get really upset because they feel some sound effect is straying into their territory, and I have had to dump sound effects because there were sound effects in the music that conflicted with what the sound editor cut. (The sound editor almost invariably loses that conflict).

[ErikG]

As far as I can remember reading somewhere the use of the word had to do with sound editors not beein eligeble (sppelling?) for various awards, and thata specified role as sound designer actually is...

Right or wrong?

But personally I think that the overuse of sound design is beeing its own downfall.

I have yet to ever credit myself as a sound designer, although I have often designed sounds both as a mixer and as an editor.

In Sweden a few years ago there was this push from the Swedish CAS to start using a swedish new word for what we do. Why?
Because editing (cutting and moving and shuffling stuff around) is not all that is done by editors and editing for various reasons in the mind of many peopl is a technical role and not a creative one.

OTOH Picture editors have always been recognized as a creative role regardless of the name editor...

Incidentally in sweden it's not actually called sound editor it's called "ljudläggning"-"sound placement". The word editing would only be used for pretty low level jobs in a film.

Isnt it strange how things differ and yet still are the same.

[Rick Sanchez]

How about "certified aural manipulitist"

[TVPostSound]

How about "certified aural manipulitist"

Wrong business!!!!

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by ErikG

I think there are good terms for what we do and everyone should use them sensibly and this is my take on it.

Sound Supervisor: Sound editor in charge of the sound (post) team, he might be an actual sound editor or perhaps in more a managing role typecasting character sounds and beeing in charge of making sure that all the various parts (BG's, Sfx, Dia, ADR & Foley) go together as per the directors intentions.

Sound Editor: The guys and girls that actually do the job, more or less (or not) overseen by a sound supervisor.

Sound Designer: A specific sound editor in charge of creating a specific sonic stage for the characters or creating imaginary character sounds.


To me combining stock sound fx's is not sound design in any way.
Recording and manipulating and/or creating new sounds in various ways might be, but not always in my definition as we all do this a lot of the time without actually beeing a sound designer per se in my opinion.
In my view the sound designer is specified by the director/producer/sound supervisor to be in charge of a specific sound design, this is not a self made role imho (even though it might have started that way).

The producer and director rarely care if there is a "sound designer"- so I would have to disagree about that being an absolute. In my experience, the Supervising Sound Editor determines the need for a Sound Designer, and is usually the one to hire for the position.