Unit 5 - Sound design

The sound design brief will teach us how sound can capture an audience, evoke emotion and provide oral cues for environmental events. I will use a digital work station to to arrange a soundtrack, sound effects and audio. This assignment will give me skills in: sound technical software, sound editing, recording and mixing, critical listening and effective research and critical analysis. For this assignment I have to submit: detailed research into the topics raised in the taught sessions, a link to my game trailer and the sound design I have made to go with it (Foley, sound effects, theme music), pre-production documentation (requiring timestamps, list of copyright free music, a folder of copyright free sounds and Foley sound) and most importantly a written conclusion considering the pros and cons of your project and what you have learnt about sound. Research and explain all of the factors within sound design of the video game industry. I must transcribe everything that I do on my blog for marking.

Sound design brief: Response

Sound design means to create audio by using the processes of recordings, acquiring, manipulating and/or generating audio elements. To understand sound you need to know what it is. Sound is produced by a source, if there is nothing around to make a sound then there is none. Soundwaves oscillate, meaning that the peaks and trough are constantly moving back and forth in a regular rhythm. The source produces a vibration in the air partial creating a sound wave. The sound wave then travels through the air particle, until it reaches our ears. Sound is interpreted by the ear drum, that vibrate in correlation to the wave, our brains then interoperate the vibration and turn it into sound. The element that make up the sound wave are:

• Frequency means that the longer the gaps between the peaks (or troughs) are, the lower the pitch of the sound, the closer they are together mean that the pitch will be higher,

• The time is how long it takes for the sound wave to finish one oscillation cycle,

• The wavelength is the width of the widest part of the peak (or trough). The longer the wavelength the lower the pitch and vise versa,

• The speed that a sound wave travels doesn't have an effect on how the sound sounds, it refers to how long it takes for use to hear the sound. The speed of sound is about 767 mph,

• The last element is the amplitude. Amplitude effects the volume of the sound. To measure amplitude you need to measure the height of one of the peaks (or troughs) in the sound wave, as they are all the same.

The range of human hearing is frequencies between 20 and 20,000Hz, but speak is usually between 250 and 8000Hz. Volume is measured in decibels (dB).

What is sound design? - The elements that make up sound design

Learning the element of of sound design are incredible important, as this is all of the thing that sound designer look for when they are making sound, it is also what they will edit to make the sound more desirable and to fit their needs. The elements of sound is:

1. Pitch - how high or low sounding it is. An example of a high pitch would be a recorder, while an example of a low pitch would be a drum,

2. Dynamics (volume) - How loud or quite the sound is,

3. Tonality (tone) - The tone of the music (not genre). Does it sound happy? Sad, gothic, energetic, etc…?

4. Duration - How long does the sound last,

5. Tempo - How fast the sound is. Like the sound of a balloon popping doesn’t sound long, but a snore last for a few seconds

6. Timbre (instruments) - What instruments are you using and if you played the same note on another instrument how does it sound different.

(1.) When looking at music there are a few more you need to consider. These are:

1. Harmony - 2 or more notes playing at the exact same time,

2. Rhythm - the regularity or irregularity of the

3. Pulse (beat) - the most common beat is group of 4, think of the lines on a music sheet,

4. Structure - the arrangement of sounds, the structure is often repeated, think of the playable tunes in Zelda ocarina of time,

5. Texture - how is the melody, rhythm and harmony combined. What is everything doing?

Sounds can be produced digitally or in the analog format. Digital sounds are sound that have been completely converted to binary format for digital devices to use, while analog sound production is when a sound is recorded electronically or mechanically using continuous vibrations that are analogous to the original sample.

What is sound design? - The elements that make up sound design: Common mistakes

• Environmental sounds that don’t fit together. If the sounds don’t fit together it will just sound disjointed and awful,

• Poor quality. If the sound is of poor quality it is not attractive to he listener as it is unclear,

• Poorly balance dialog. Dialog balance depends on what you are doing, if you are singing you are going to have audio playing over the background music for most of the time, but if you are making something like a game trailer, it is better to let the game-play speak for it’s self, sometimes there is audio to provide context or part of a cutscene,

• Unwanted background noise/poorly recorded sources. No one wants an unclear sound, think about when you are listening to Spotify or a YouTube video you don’t want to here a dog or someone shouting or something in the background, it makes people not want to listen.

What is sound design? - The elements that make up sound design: Sound design jobs

Sound design is used in multiple different industries. Some of these include:

1. Film,

2. Music,

3. Video games,  

4. Sound effects,

5. Theater,

6. Radio,

but there are many more jobs that require sound design. A note when looking at sound within other industries that also require visuals, you need to make sure that not only the sound lines up with the beats but the movement of the visuals as well, as this will tie everything together and make it look cohesive, without doing this the time will look off and disjointed for both.

What is sound design? - An exercise to learn the basics

To learn these basic I was provided with all of the notes used in the Zelda Ocarina of Time game, widely classed as having some of the best sound design of all time. This game only used five notes, as the controller for the game console only had 5 available buttons for the player to use, this also made it easy for the player to remember the 12 songs required to use the corresponding mechanic. The notes picked were chosen because they allowed for the largest range of tonality compared to other combinations.

To help us get to grips with Bandlab and experiment with the basics of sound we were provided with these 5 notes and told to make our own piece of music from them. My piece was quite sad tonally as I think it reflected my frustration of Bandlab at the time. It is quite a short piece but I think it sounded alright in the end. This is the link to the little track that I created: https://www.bandlab.com/revisions/9169be69-7ac8-ee11-85f9-6045bd2e11f9?sharedKey=Rs3rtRPAGkCo8_WkkMQ5UQ Have a look if you want, it is only a few seconds.

What is sound design? - What do I need to be a sound design?

What is sound design? - What do I need to be a sound design?: Microphones

Microphones are an electronic device that captures sound waves and converts them into an electronic signal, this signal is then sent to another piece of equipment that can produce sound waves (like a speaker), it will then read the signal and reproduce it. One other option is to send it to a device that can be used to edit the sound, by enhancing it, or mixing it with other sounds (using a sound editing software) or editing the different elements that make up the sound like, pitch, tempo, volume, tone, timbre, etc… There are multiple different types of microphone used for recording in different ways. These include omnidirectional, bi-directional, shotgun, cardiod, condenser and dynamic, etc… They all have different polar patterns that suit different situations. A polar pattern is the shape of the area a microphone can respond to and detect sound. The most often used is the cardiod microphone, dynamic microphone and condenser microphone. 

1. The cardiod microphone (named for the heart shaped polar pattern) is used because it focuses on the sound straight in-front of the mic, doesn’t pick up any noise behind it and the quality of the sound. This is why it is commonly used by singers and podcasters, everyone really (5.),

2. Dynamic microphone are for loud sound, they are not great at pick up quieter ones, so they are mainly used to record things like live broadcasts or another example is instruments like drums. These microphones are great for this because they have a high grain threshold, where as a microphone with a low grain threshold would most likely be damaged in recording. The only issue is that the microphone has to be close to the source of the sound in order to pick it up (6.),

3. The condenser microphone has superior transient response and frequency, where it can pick up sudden and short sounds like when someone claps their hands. The recording produced by this mic a clean, clear and identical to the source (7.).

There are also some variation of these 3 types of microphone, such as subcardiod, supercardiod, hypercardiod, a large diaphram condenser, etc… There is also a microphone called a zoom mic. It is a high-end device, that enhances the audio quality by zooming in on the source of the sound it is trying to collect and removing ambient noise. These microphones are made up of three cardiod mics elements and a circuit (called the correction equalization circuit) that corrects deficiencies in the amplitude of the sound it is recording.

What is sound design? - What do I need to be a sound design?: Props

Another useful thing in sound design is props. Props are used by Foley artists. Props can be used to create lots of different sounds even if they aren’t actually the object/thing that originally makes the noise. Sound design is all about getting the best out of sound and as long as people recognize the sound for what the sound designer want it to be, it doesn’t matter what actually made the noise.

What is sound design? - What do I need to be a sound design?: Smartphones

Smartphones are used by virtually everyone and they have the ability to record sound, YAY! This means that anybody can record and make their own sound at any time. A pc is obviously the best device to edit sound on and a microphone is obviously gets the best results when recording sound, but a phone is a useful tool that can be used anytime, anywhere, unlike big bulky pc and microphone, that you don’t really want to carry around. Smartphones are also useful in the fact that you will always have something that can record on you so that if you come across n amazing sound and you don’t have your normal equipment on you, you can still record it, it also allows people to share the sounds they record, which other people can then buy or use freely for their own work, if they are struggling to find the sound they want themselves. MEMS (Electric condensers) microphones, these mics can be used for anything (although you will get varying results), they are small, they have high quality sound, they are most commonly used for electronic communications. They are generally omni-directional and are very fragile.

What is sound design? - What do I need to be a sound design?: Music/sound production software (DAW)

Foley is used to describe sound that is added after a clip of video is taken, most of the time it isn't even the same object that is making the sound in reality and is something else entirely. Foley artists do this to find the best sound for the clip, by recreating it in imaginative and interesting ways. It usually betters the sound(s) and more pleasing to the ears than the actual sound does and relates to the things that is happening better. 

The term Foley comes from the name of a man, called Jack Foley. He was the person who created the art form known as Foley, in the 1920's. Two of his most known feats is that he created a comical motor sound for a film called "Pink Submarine", so he burped, recorded and reversed the sound then looped it. Another was when he somehow created the sound of 3 people walking with his own feet and a cane.

(The official trailer to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (15.))

Case study: Introduction

For my case study I have chosen The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (totk) trailer. People were worried when the trailer was first revealed, that the games had gone back to their old narrative led game play of Ganondorf taking over Hyrule and the stereotypical kidnapping of a princess, in this game that would be Zelda, then trapping her in Hyrule castle and Link would have to save her and Hyrule (. The games that were most known for this plot was Mario by saving princess Peach and Link by saving Zelda, this is probably because these games were both made by the same man, Minamoto). This rumor was only supported because the game included the 3 original characters being Link, Zelda and Ganondorf and not much of the plot, although a bunch of returning characters from botw and new ones were teased. Despite these worries the game was released in 2023 and it turned out that people had nothing to worry about, it was a massive success. It was an open-world adventure/exploration game, much like it's predecessor The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (botw) (released 2017), although this time the world map has been expanded with sky islands and the depths. The visual aspect between botw and totk is obviously has commonalities since totk is a sequel to botw and most of the models of returning characters, enemies and environments were recycled. They are both visually stunning (although the game can't be hyper realistic due to the capabilities of the Nintendo switch), the game developers have made the 3D models resemble the art style of anime, but with a western European aesthetic to the designs and environments, although the deep seated Japanese culture within the anime style does leak through onto some characters, the biggest example being Ganondorf's base form. 

Case Study: Visuals

Ganondorf looks completely different from all of the character designs, the Japanese aesthetic is much more present in what he wears, as it is reminiscent to a samurai. When you awaken him in the game his hair is down (2:50 in the trailer, its not very clear, you might have to google it), but in the flashbacks with his normal body (before he transforms into the demon king), his hair is in a ponytail with like a top knot at the base (3:03). In Japanese culture the top knot is sacred, it's only supposed to be touched in circumstance akin to death, but it is sometimes cut off when a warrior loses to another in battle in respect for their victory and symbolizes the loss of their honor. When he is in dead-like stasis state, he doesn't have the top knot. This suggest that he is like a dead body and has lost it because he lost his honor from being defeated and imprisoned by Raru (1:42). Once he reawakens he is still in the form of the demon king (1:18) and doesn't have the top knot, meaning that by embracing evil he has lost the right to be the king of the Gerudo people, as the top knot is also a symbol of status in Japan.

Applying sound to a silent game trailer - Hollow Knight Silksong: Silent analysis & the sound score I used for it

I decided to pick Hollow Knight Silksong as the game trailer I want to analyze. This is because I played the original Hollow Knight game, really enjoyed it and I am really looking forward to when this game releases, by adding sound to a trailer that excites me I hope that it will help motivate me to do this project. I am not great at sound or music, never have been, I can identify the things that have been used and why in it, but I am not good at putting sounds together, I just don't have a knack for it, so I think I am going to really struggle with getting motivated to do this project. Sound is something I really don't like doing. One of the reasons I chose this trailers is how long it is, as it is about 30 seconds shorter than your average trailer and I have played the previous game so I already have a good understanding of how the game should sound, plus no one actually talks in Hollow Knight, so I don't really have to worry about adding it other than the typical anime sounding gibberish that plays in games when the text bubble comes up. I also think it would be best for me to watch it silently a few times and write down below what sounds I think would best fit the trailer at specific time stamps. I think that if I watch it with sound first this could directly effect the sounds that I chose and cause me to try and find sounds that are exactly like the ones already used in the trailer, which will take ages and end up in me making a replica of what it already sounds like just a lot worse. I am going to write down what sound I think I should use here before looking for a sample that matches what I am looking for, then I will add a reference to the name of the folder of sound samples I have to submit, by doing it this way I can combine my plan and development document and it will help me to write a conclusion by showing me things that I didn't get to do or was not happy with.

• (0:00 - 2:03) Background music. I'm thinking that this music should be mid-tempo, varying pitch, medium volume, a slow to average tempo and I think the timbre should be made up of classical instruments like the piano, violin (lots of strings) and maybe some low pitched brass instruments. Due to the them of the Hollow Knight franchise, I think the music should be a combination of classical, opera, church choir and gothic sounding music, as the aesthetic of the game is combination of gothic, Victorian and maximalist. The sound I decided to use for my background track was: 332578__kelewin__dharmadrone. I had to lower the original volume for this as it was to loud and you couldn't here the environmental effects and sound effects over it,

• The next part of the animation that would need a sound is slash make that comes up on screen to introduce the team cherry logo (0:00). I am looking for a sound that is a combination of a impact of the slash and the air flow that would be caused by the movement of the slash. I ended up picking 93759__toyoto__wooshs-03.wav. I would end up using this same slash sound for every slash made by the Hollow Knight in the game as it creates consistency and makes it seem like the Hollow Knight is responsible for attacking the screen causing the transition, because they want to show you the next part of the trailer to show you what they can now do,

• There is also background effects for this part of the animation mainly black particles moving in the wind (0:00 to 0:09). I'm going to find a weak wind sound for this section as the particle are moving quite slow, it suggest that the tempo of the wind is slow. The sound source I picked was 181248__mario1298__weak-wind.wav,

• During the first part of the trailer the main character is being transported in a carriage by 6 guards. obviously there would be noise from this so I need to look for a rattling carriage sound and marching footsteps,

• From 0:06 to 0:07 the speed of the wind intensify, which you can see in the animation due to the tempo of the moving white mist and the volume of it, as it is much more prominent than the speed of the moving particles from 0:00 to 0:09. In the end I picked the sound source called 706465__brunoauzet__strong-wind-and-sea. The original sound I picked for this section was 454370__kyles__wind-strong-gusty-storm-blow-through-crispy-fall-trees-in-alley2-more-center, but it was to intense and didn't fade in properly because there was just to much of a difference between the pitches of the sound, so I ended up changing it to the one above as it fit together with the sound of weak wind better,

• At 0:07 to 0:09 the environment has movement, unlike the previous ones, in the form of grass getting blown about, so I need a background environmental noise that is the sound of leaves blowing quietly in the breeze,

• I will also need a sound for bird wings flapping and some crows squawking at the time stamp 0:07 to 0:09, as some startled birds are used for the slide transition. I've decided to use the sound of a crow instead of any other bird, due to the gothic theme of the game, a medium sized black bird, that is the symbol of death fits the criteria,

• At 0:11 to 0:18 the Hollow Knight begins charging up an attack to escape imprisonment, so I need to add some kind of dramatic, gothic, action music to the scene, to build up tension for the escape. I wasn't fully sure on what type of music I wanted for this bit of the trailer, so I looked through Freesounds and found a few sounds I liked then played them along with my background music and listened to see if they went well together. In the end I picked a sound sample called 492553__soundflakes__diablo-wrath-diablo. I had to shorten this sound sample slightly to get it to fit into the specific time stamp section,

• At 0:12 0:18 I need the sound effect of an explosion charging and going off as the knight is charging up for an energy attack where energy whips bursts out of their body, allowing them to escape. I feel like an explosion noise for this bit will continue to add tension and exaggerate the power of the attack. The sound I ended up picking was 256658__cubicapocalypse__x_explosion, I had to turn the volume down on this bit so that you could still here the background music. I made this an overlay over the dramatic action music at 0:11 to 0:18,

• At 0:16 the energy whips are released and lock onto the surrounding environment, before causing the full explosion. The first whip to wrap its self around the hook has a better grip that the second group of 3 whips that are trying to hold onto the side of the bridge, so I am going to use two sound effects and combine them to create the desired sound. I want the first singular whip to have more amplitude and a lower pitch than the second sound. The sound I decided on using for the first whip was 541988__rob_marion__gasp_weapon-slash_3. The sound I picked for the second group of whips was called 574820__wesleyextreme_gamer__slash2.ogg,

I'm really happy with how this section of the trailer currently sounds, if I could I would have liked to tweak the whip sounds ever so slightly so they had a bit more of that icon whip crack sound in them, but it isn't something that ruins it for me so I am still very please. one other note is that all of the sounds fit together quite well.

• At 0:18 to 0:20 the environment changes to a forest type location and you can see the Hollow Knight walking through the environment, so that would naturally cause the foliage to rustle, I will also need to uses the same crow sound as the one I used for the timestamp 0:07 to 0:09 as an overlay, since there is the silhouettes of a murder of crows in this scene to,

• The knight is also walking through three environments so I needed to find a fast, light, walking footsteps sound 0:18 to 0:23, so I found a sound called 682771__thomasanthony321__running and shortened it slightly to fit in the time stamp frame. I quite liked this sound as it fit my criteria perfectly and I didn't really have to do much with it,

• From timestamp 0:23 to 0:25 I will need another background environmental effect sound this needs to be resemble the sound of moving underwater. The silhouette of a fish can be seen on screen this is how I can tell that it is underwater. The sound I ended up using is called 366159__dcsfx__underwater,

• At 0:23 to 0:26 the Hollow knight jumps twice once to a platform, then from the platform, into the next frame and then onto another platform. It is imperative that I get the jump sound perfect as this will be used multiple times through out the course of the trailer, I took me a while to find the right sound. Original I was going to use a sort of grunt sound for the amount of effort that the knight has to put in the jump. It didn’t sound right on its own though so I went looking through the entirety of the free sounds library and found a sound called 686986__tailssonic__little-fighter-jump. this sound was focused on the sound caused by the movement of the character, this fixed the issue. I then overlapped the sounds so that they played at the same time this way I would be adding more dialog to my trailer, to help to balance out the lack of it and the sound would be truer to real life. I’m not sure what happened but by the time I was nearing the end of completing my trailer all of the jump grunts I put into the track got deleted and I didn’t have enough time to add m back in. Don’t really know what happened there,

• At 0:26 there is an enemy in the frame and has wings that buzz like a bee. I need to find a buzzing sound. After looking through free sounds I found a buzzing sound that sounded like a swam of bee and a sound that sounded like one singular bee in the end I went for the swam as this enemy is a lot bigger than a real bee so I think the sound would be louder, this sound was called 481647__joncon_library__bee-buzzing.wav. The sound of just one singular bee buzzing sounded to much like a fly anyway,

• At 0:27, there is a sword slash on the screen again to introduce some text to the screen that will promote features of the game. This slash is done by the hollow knight, so I am going to use the same sound as I used to introduce the team cherry logo at the start of the trailer,

• At 0:28 there is a medium, sized enemy walking toward the hollow, so I need to find a sound for this, every element of the sound need to be the average, as the is a medium sized monster it makes sense to have every part of the sound mid,

• The scene at time stamp 0:27 to 0:30 has lava in it this means there will be a low pitched, low amplitude and slow tempo boiling sound in the background. I ended up looking on finding a sound that Foley was used to produce on free sound, it is called 133901__audionautics__lava-loop.wav and was produced by boiling a very thick mixture of water and corn syrup,

• During the time stamp 0:27 to 0:31 the Hollow knight is running, so I need to find a sound for someone running very lightly on their feet. I imagine the Hollow Knights footsteps as being very light because their feet barely touch the ground they just skim it for the around a millisecond, this means that the sound needs to have a higher pitch (as a low pitch would give the illusion of weight), a fast tempo, low dynamics, and the sound of the impact of the step needs to be short in duration. This sound has to be perfect as I will need to use it again. The sound I decided on was 408390__turchinoa__running-animal.wav, although I would have liked it to be a little faster,

• At 0:28 the hollow Knight slashes an enemy,

• At 0:28 the Hollow knight jumps into the air straight after the attack,

• At 0:29 the Knight attacks again,

• Then jumps in mid-air. I’m not sure if I am going to add a sound to this jump as there is no build up of force or effort required to make the jump, it’s more of a mid-air change of direction by changing the weight distribution, 

• At 0:30 the Hollow knight jump again and is air born while the scene changes,

• At 0:30 to 0:32, I need another environmental background noise, since the knight is now underwater. The sound I need needs to have low pitch, slow tempo, low dynamics and a long duration. The sound itself needs to sound like a combination of when you use a water cooler and it glugs, a whoosh sort of sound for the movement of the knight and enemies in it and a low sounding waves sound for the movement of the water on the surface as it will echo downwards. The sound I picked for this was 366159__dcsfx__underwater, it wasn’t perfect but it was the best sound I could find for what I needed it for in the trailer,

• At 0:31 the knight jump again,

• At 0:32 the knight jumps a second time,

• At 0:32 there is also an attack directed at the hollow knight, I used the slash sound for this,

• At 0:32 the larger enemy fires a laser beam at the . I’m not sure what kind of sounding laser beam I want for this sound yet, so I am going to explore a few different options first. The only criteria is that it need to be short, with little charging time. In the end I picked 608515__louislingg__cinematic,

• At 0:32 the knight jump a third time off of a wall they almost collided into. This is also used as a scene change,

• At 0:33 to 0:35, the scene changes to a Victorian type factory environment, with lots of moving cogs, I want to find a sound for the movement of the cogs. This can be a pretty generalized sound, but I need a the sound of multiple cogs moving not one singular one,

• At 0:33 the hollow knight attacks an enemy,

• At 0:35 they attack another,

• At 0:35 they attack the third and final enemy, this slash is amplified for the scene change animation, which conforms my theory that it is them responsible for the scene changes,

• At 0:35 to 0:38 the hollow knight runs through a mossy cave environment,

• 0:35 to 0:38. I am not going to add an environmental noise here as the cave doesn’t really, just moss on the wall so it doesn’t need one. I should add an echo for running footsteps though over the running sound I’m using, as cave echo. These best of the footsteps and the echo need to have similar timing, but the echo need to be slightly later as the sound is delayed,

• There is an enemy on the ceiling for 0:35 to 0:38, the walk toward the Hollow knight to chase them, their footstep would need to be the same as the medium sized monster, but the tempo need to be quick as they are moving faster and the volume need to be louder as they are slightly bigger,

• The enemy from seen in the previous time stamp also fires multiple blasts at you 0:36. I think the sound of a machine gun firing would fit this well as they both fire multiple blast in quick succession. I ended up finding the perfect sound, called 538302__franklinrook1984__authentic-m60-, although I wish I could have made the sound decrease over a gradient, but I don’t know how to do this,

• At 0:38 the character jumps,

• At 0:38 the knight is fighting an enemy with scissor, which they snip at them, I think this is my favourite attack in the whole trailer because it funny, all of the other enemies fight with massive blast of laser but this one just snip scissor at you. I want to include the sound of a dramatized scissor snip here, I’m hoping if it is a bit more dramatized it will make the enemy seem more of a threat and continue to add rising tension to the scene and hyper up the viewer. The sound I ended up picking was 546366__panosa__snip-with-scissor (1).wav. I wasn’t happy with how this turned out, as it was to quiet and you couldn’t hear it. At this time I had reached the 16 track limit on BandLab and had to combine some of the separate sounds in to groups of different sounds that did the same thing, which made it harder to edit one particular sound as if I wanted to change volume of one I would for all of them,

• At 0:39 the Hollow knight slashes an enemy,

• From 0:39 to 0:40 the knight is running,

• At 0:39 an enemy throws a bomb at the Hollow Knight. I want to use the icon cartoon whistling sound effect here as everyone recognize it, so I found a sound a called . I had to shorter the length of the sound to fit it within the specific animation frame, which made the sound sound a bit off as the whistling effect started off to loud,

• At 0:40 the hollow knight slashes,

• At 0:40 the Hollow knights slash causes a massive explosion. I wasn’t quite sure what sound I wanted for the explosion as the sound varies depending on what makes the explosion so I types the word explosion into FreeSounds, found a few options I liked and tested how they would sound with the rest of the trailer sound I had already made. The one I liked best was called , so I used that one,

• At 0:42 the hollow knight strike a massive enemy,

• At 0:42, a massive enemy the strikes the ground, I need to find a sledge hammer like sound hit rock (as this is the material of the environment) for this, as it attack isn’t a slash and as a result the sound needs to be lower pitched, with a higher amplitude and a longer duration to get the desired effect,

• At 0:43 the hollow knight attack again,

• At 0:43 scene change were a medium sized monster is chasing the hollow knight, so I will need to add in a medium sized monsters footsteps here,

• From 0:43 to 0:45 the medium sized creature is also slashing at the hollow knight so I will need to add in the slash sound here in quick succession,

• From 0:43 to 0:45 the Hollow Knight is running,

• from 0:45 to 0:47 there is a large monster running across the scene, so I will need to find the sound of footsteps with, a long duration, low pitch, slow/mid-tempo and high dynamics,  as this will portray the size of the creature compare to the Hollow Knight and medium sized creatures. The sound I ended up picking was 320401__yadronoff__heavy-footsteps.wav. I didn't think this sound fit perfectly but it was the best out of all of the choices on FreeSounds as the other ones had environmental noises in the background and that is one of the common mistakes in sound design,

• At 0:46 the hollow knight jumps,

• At 0:46 the Hollow knight strikes the large monster,

• From 0:47 to 0:48 there is a love moth type creature powering up, I imagined this sound as sounding like some Sailor Moon, Power Puff girls power up sequence, so I tried to find a sound that would reference this as well as match the movement of the character in the animation. I imagine this sound as having a high pitch, with a varying tempo, high dynamics & positive/fantasy tonality. The sound I ended up picking portrayed the reference I was going for at a good enough standard and was pretty much in time with the movement of the characters animation. This sound is called 577056__timbre__beefier-versions-of-anot,

• At 0:49 the hollow knight causes a loud explosion. I'm going to use the same explosion sound as the one where they escape the carriage, as it is the same attack,

• The enemy in the scene 0:49 to 0:50, also needs the buzzing bee sound effect as the have fast moving wings like the other enemy using the buzzing sound effect,

• At 0:50 a large monster jump in the air. I need a heavier sounding jump sound effect for this as the creature needs to exert more energy to get into the air. This sound needs to have lower pitch, be a longer durations and have a higher amplitude than the hollow knights jump sound,

• At 0:51 the heavy monster lands, I will need a loud and deep bang sort of sound effect for this. The effect I used is called 577056__timbre__beefier-versions-of-anot,

• At 0:52 the creature roars, I will need a deep, loud, long growling sound for this,

• At 0:52 the creature summons a massive attack from the groups. This needs a sort of rumbling effect before an expulsion and then the sound of rock falling, this sound will need a varying tempo, low pitch and long duration. The sound I picked is 127951__waveadventurer__blast.wav,

• At 0:52 to hollow knight jumps,

• At 0:53 the hollow knight is running to evade an incoming attack,

• At 0:54 the hollow knight jumps,

• At 0:54 the enemy jumps into the air,

• At 0:54 the enemy slashes,

• From 0:54 to 0:55 the hollow knight runs,

• At 0:56 an new enemy jumps into the air,

• At 0:56 the hollow knight lands then walks,

• At 0:57 the enemy releases a group attack like the one at 0:52, just at a lower magnitude, so I will reuse the sound from this but drop the volume, to decrease its noticeability and therefore intensity,

• At 0:58 the new environment mainly consists of lava, so I can reuse the previous sound I found for this as the environmental background noise,

• At 0:58 a new massive enemy appears roaring, I can use the same roar as massive creature from 0:52 but I will need to up the volume to show that this creature is larger and more dangerous,

• At 0:59 the massive creature attacks causing a section of the ground to give way and lava to burst out. For this sound I will need to find one that sound like the sudden release of pressure like and explosion then a "poof" sort of sound. The sound I ended up going for is called 127951__waveadventurer__blast.wav. I did find an interesting sound that I could apply in a Foley type manner for this which was a shaving foam bottle exploding, but it doesn't seem to be in my file for some reason, either way it is in my sound assets file still, it is the one called 416079__davidlay1__shaving-cream-can-release,

• From 0:59 to 1:00 the hollow knight walks,

• At 1:00 the scene is changed with a slash,

• From 1:00 to 1:02 the hollow knight is running,

• At 1:02 the hollow knight encounters an enemy that seems to be charging up a blade attack, I imagine this as a scream, like the powering up ones from Dragonball,

• At 1:02 a new friend appears that is shaking some maracas (I think they are maracas?), so I need to find some kind of sound that is either it or can mimic it. Thinking about it you could create this sound using Foley by putting some frozen peas in a bag or tub and slowly shaking it,

• At 1:03 a door opens. The door looks to be made of cast iron, so it the sound needs to have some kind of a metal screech to it, with a heavy bang at the end. This sound will need high pitch for the screak and low pitch for the bang, with a mid-tempo, a medium duration and a high amplitude,

• From 1:04 to 1:05, there is a monk type person who seems to be explaining something to the hollow knight. I've played the games prequel, so I know that no one actually talk and it would be strange for returning player to listen to this and hear people actually talking words, so I'm looking for some kind of cute, friendly sounding gibberish, like the audio in animal crossing. As this is a persons voice it is best to go for the averages for all of the elements of sound, because when people are deciding whether the elements of a sound they are listening to is high or low the thing they compare it to is speak, because this is the sound we hear most often,

• From 1:04 to 1:05 it looks like the hollow knight is strumming their sword like a guitar, so I will add in the sound of someone strumming a guitar here, I'm not exactly sure how I want the strum to sound yet, so I'll probably find some sounds I like then play it alongside the parts of the trailer sounds I have completed already and use the one that fits best,

• From 1:06 to 1:08 the hollow knight is riding on a large creature that is running, so I am going to find a sound for heavy fast footsteps. It needs to have a fast tempo, low pitch, high amplitude and long duration. The sound I ended up picking was 320401__yadronoff__heavy. this sound fitted the requirements I need it to pretty well, but to nit pick here the creature has eight leg so I would have liked to edit the sound so that it hit the ground more often, but alas I don't know how to do this and couldn't find any better sound to represent it,

• At 1:09 the hollow knight strikes an enemy,

• From 1:09 to 1:10 the hollow knight charges something up, which has a small discharge. I imaging this sound being kind of like a laser beam charging up, but with more twinkly sounds and a much lower discharge. I found finding a sound for this very difficult, as I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, as it looks like an explosion, but it isn't one, it is quite hard to define magical as a sound because magic doesn't exist, and the animation has a lot of complex elements to it, such as energy swirling around them (as this is a trailer the timing of the animation step and the beats of the sound have to match otherwise they will not look and sound right together),

• At 1:10 the is a slash to change scenes,

• From 1:10 to 1:12, the hollow knight is running,

• From 1:12 to 1:13 the hollow knight is walking,

• At 1:13 a friend of the hollow knight comes out of their shell. I imagine this sound as a pop, but not a high pitch quick pop like a balloon burst, more of that thing people do (that I can't) when the flick their finger off of the inside of their cheek causing a low pitch, long duration and high amplitude pop sound,

• From 1:13 to 1:14 the shelled creature talk, this need to be similar in the elements and tonality of the sound to the creature that speaks from 1:04 to 1:05, but it needs to sound different enough that you can tell it is a different person speaking, if their was no video to go with the sound,

• From 1:14 to 1:17 there is a feminine looking creature in the scene that appears to be signing, they look happy and like they are enjoying themselves, so I imaging the tune is happy, possibly humming. I'm not particularly looking for anything specific for this only that it fits the tonality that I imagine it being and that it fits with the movement of the character,

• The feminine character from 1:14 to 1:17 also has a tiny bell on their head that jingles as the move. due to the size of this bell, the pitch is going to be quite high and the is going to be short and the volume is going to be low, it would be more of a dinging sound. Due to the high pitch it matches the tonality of the song I think they are singing, since low pitch is generally considered to be quite sad, while higher pitches are generally considered to be happier,

• From 1:16 to 1:17 another creature in the scene takes flight, there wing movement is also quite fast, so I imagine this would be a buzzing sound as well (since this game is based on bug, the wing movements of creature are generally fast moving, and less like the slow flaps of a birds wings). I can reuse my previous buzzing sound effect for this,

• From 1:17 to 1:18 the ground is shaking, so I will need an earthquake sound effect for this,

• From 1:18 to 1:20 a large creature attacks and runs across the screen. I can reuse my other large creatures footstep sounds from 1:06 to 1:08 for this,

• the hollow knight jumps at 1:19,

• At 1:20 the screen is slashed for a screen transition,

• From 1:20 to 1:23 the is someone manically stirring a pot. I'm probably going to have to find the sound of someone stirring a pot and hitting the sides in the process, then speed it up drastically,

• From 1:21 to 1:23 the pot explodes, I can use my previous explosion sound for this by decreasing the volume and pitch to the intensity of the explosion (basically much less than the previous ones),

• At 1:26 the hollow knight jumps,

• From 1:26 to 1:27 there is another character charging enemies whilst riding a small creature and the hollow knight is running so I will need to use the sound of the hollow knight running twice (as they are both small creature, I can reuse the sound), and overlap them so that the beats of the footsteps are interwoven and it seems like the creature and the hollow knight are putting their feet down at different times,

• From 1:26 to 1:27, the guy riding the small creature is taking out a  number of enemies with a jousting pole, so this will make a sort of high pitched (due to the scrape of metal on metal), short to mid-duration sound at average amplitude (as this is not a heavy weapon it isn't going to make a massive amount of noise),

• I imagine the guy holding the jousting poles from 1:26 to 1:27, is going "wooohooo!", since what they are doing looks fun,

• From 1:27 to 1:29 I need to use the lava background environmental effect again as it seems like they are in some kind of metal production site,

• From 1:27 to 1:28 the hollow knight walks into the scene,

• From 1:27 to 1:29 there is a GINORMOUS figure kneading some smelted metal. I imagine this sound being multiple tiny high pitched pings, low amplitude, with an average tempo and lasting for the duration of the scene. This sound should also be introduced with an increasing amplitude gradient as the focus of the scene changes from the hollow knight to what the guy is doing,

• At 1:29, there is a medium sized creature chasing the hollow knight, I can reuse the medium sized creatures footsteps here as well,

• At 1:29 the hollow knight is running,

• At 1:29 the hollow knight jumps,

• At 1:29 the hollow knight attacks,

• The monster attack from 1:29 to 1:31 with a giant smoke bomb attack. I'm thinking of getting a tear gas bomb explosion to represent this,

• At 1:30 the hollow knight jumps off of the wall,

• At 1:31 there is a slash used as a scene transition,

• At 1:31 the hollow knight jump from a platform to a new level,

• From 1:31 to 1:32 the knight can't make the jump in one go so they release a hedgehog bomb (???🤷‍♀️) and double jump off that, the sound of this bomb would cut out the sound of the jump. Imagining a sound for this is really hard, but the only way I can really describe it would sound like the onomatopoeia "pict!" I'm really going to struggle finding a sound to do this,

• At the 1:33 a menu is opened and a new weapon is selected, when this happens a slash appears on screen. I'm going to use my slash sound here as well,

• At 1:34 the hollow knight throws a bomb, I want this to be the iconic bomb drop whistle effect. When I looked for this effect the duration it took for the whistle then the explosion was way to long for the scene so I had to change my original idea to more of the swish from an arm throw and a short duration, mid amplitude impact sound. The sound I chose was called 445331__luzanne0__balloon-popping.wav,

• From 1:34 to 1:36 the hollow knight is running,

• At 1:36 the knight jumps from one platform to another,

• At 1:37 the hollow knight then throws a little bug drone in to the air that follow them. I'll probably use the same arm throw "swish" sound from 1:34, but crop out the bomb impact,

• At 1:38 the scene changes to another lava based environment, I can reuse the same lava background effect I used previously here for this,

• At 1:38 the hollow knight attacks,

• At 1:39 they start running,

• At 1:39 the lava explodes upwards, so I use a sound I have already found to represent the explosion of the lava, this is the same sound from the attack from the large monster at 0:59. This sound effect is called 416079__davidlay1__shaving-cream-can-rel. This is an example of a use of Foley as although I didn't record the sound myself, I am using a sound to portray something other than what it actually is,

• At 1:39 the hollow knight jumps,

• At 1:39 the hollow knight jumps again,

• At 1:40 the hollow knight attacks,

• From 1:40 to 1:42 the hollow knight uses something to replenishes health. I kind of want to reference The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild heart replenish sound, as this is one of my favourite versions of health replenishments. The sound I ended up picking was called 531176__ryusa__synth-chiptune-8-bit-ui-i. the sound was a little more retro than I was going for, but it does the job and was really only one of the suitable sounds for this,

• From 1:42 to 1:45, the hollow knight throws some kind of bomb that turns into a massive saw blade, a chainsaw would be the best sound for this. The sample ended up picking was called 380159__yottasounds__chainsaw,

• At 1:45 there is a slash for the scene change,

• From 1:45 the hollow knight the slash SFX, but instead of attacking they are shielding them self from an oncoming attack. I will be using the same slash effect here as well, if I can't find another one that is similar but distinct enough that you can tell the difference. I am trying to create consistence with the sound ranges of all the weapons, because there are so many sounds in this that sound similar, I need to made a distinctive group of values for the element of sounds for weapons' so that the listener can identify the difference between a weapon and the guy kneading the metal at 1:27 to 1:29 for example,

• At 1:46 the enemy slashes the hollow knight,

• At 1:46 the hollow knight slashes the enemy,

• There is then another slash for the scene change,

• From 1:47 to 1:48 the hollow knight is swimming. Nothing else happens in this scene. So all I had to do was find an environmental background effect for the movement of water to play between these time stamps. The sound I picked was called 132047__kolezan__water,

• At 1:48 there is another slash transition,

• From 1:48 to 1:51 the hollow knight is building up an energy explosion. The sound I ended up using is the same as the massive explosion when the hollow knight escapes capture as they are of the same magnitude,

• From 1:51 to 1:53 there is a bell that swings twice then explodes, I have no idea how I am going to make the explosion but the bell sound is easy. I am going for more of a church bell sound due to the gothic nature of the trailer and previous game. The sound I ended up using was called 343419__klankbeeld__church-bell-8pm-vill. I ended up having to use the sound twice in succession to each other and crop them down, as the original sound is to long for the scene, it ended up with the sections not fading into each other great. I made the second play of the sound drag out longer, as I had no idea how I could create the explosion so I decided just to extend the duration the second bell is playing,

• At 1:53 there is another slash screen transition,

• From 1:55 to 1:56 there is this absolute nutter of an enemy that is slashing in quick succession,

• At 1:55 the hollow knight jumps,

• From 1:55 to 1:56 the hollow knight is running,

• At 1:56 there is another slash screen transition to the Silksong logo, 

• From 1:56 to 2:01 there is a fire crackling effect in the background, so I will add this sound in as a background environmental sound,

Applying sound to a silent game trailer - Hollow Knight Silksong: Conclusion