MY SOUND DESIGN PORTFOLIO
BY DARIEN SMITH

A recent project I have been working on is the sound design for a time trial space simulation game.

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In this game you take control of a interstellar cruiser, flying through rings throughout space.  each time you go through a ring it gives you a speed boost. All while this is happening there will be obstacles in the form of asteroids that hurdle toward you, obstructing your path and potentially damaging your ship.

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My job was to create the sounds of the ship flying, including the engine, rockets and speed boosts; as well as this I created the sounds of the laser guns, and the asteroids as they barrel toward your ship.

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These are the sounds I came up with:

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Laser - I created this sound with a synthesizer called Sitrus, a recording of a real gunshot, and a Sub bass with reverb, EQ, and pitch automation.

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Spaceship Boost - for this sound I created two separate loops, one for the engine which is a modified recording of a tractor with FX; The other is the rockets which I created with white noise pitched down and time stretched, pink noise pitched up, a recording makeshift flame thrower from a can of deodorant  and a lighter (pitched down), and finally reverb added to the whole sound

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The reason I made the two sound separately is so they could be effected independently in the game. I had the game developer effect the pitch of the engine relative to the spaceships speed and amplitude of the rockets relative to its speed. this made for a more realistic and dynamic sounding spaceship.

 

This is how it sounds in game:

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As this is a space based racing game, I wanted a fast paced, futuristic soundtrack with arcade elements. Part way through creating the track I felt it needed some drums. So it happens that the games developer Mitchel Turner, knows his was around a drum kit. after finding this out I had him in a recording studio to do the drumming for the track. This is what we created:

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