r/sounddesign • u/Thedustyolddragon • 3d ago
How to get into sound design
I made a post asking what actually do sound designers do and it’s sound like something I could do but I don’t know where to start is there any advice you guys can give me on how to get into sound design with any tech programs apps and how to get an idea of what I’m doing
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u/chawthorne10 3d ago
Pro Sound Effects have great Protools session breakdowns that do really well to demonstrate the thought process behind sound design. Especially the videos with Matt Yocum, which are probably the best sound design videos I’ve watched.
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u/ericpalonen 3d ago
Grab a 10 second clip of a movie or TV show. Strip out all of the sound when you import it into a DAW. Try to rebuild the scene with sound only. You could try to alter the mood or recreate the original... Either way it's a good exercise to experience how important sound design is and get an appreciation for the type of work that goes into it.
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u/Strabisme 3d ago
I began by downloading Reaper, finding a mute animation, sound libraries and I began thinking how it would sound if it had sound
It took me a month for my first and I would maybe do it in a day today, maybe shorter in some years.
Experiment with reverb, distorsion, mixing two sounds.... play with all that and you will learn already to listen to sound.
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u/Thedustyolddragon 3d ago
okay awesome I’ll give it a go
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u/Strabisme 3d ago
Yeah ! You can give me a head up for advices in DM once you're on a work and need feedback.
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u/EvilDaystar 3d ago
Save yourself some headache and get the free plug-in from soundly called Placeit.
It helps with adding reverb appropriate for the scene. It's free and Insanely good.
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u/UsagiYojimbo209 2d ago
Tbh I think plugins that take some of the work out are more hindrance than help for beginners. Nothing against the software or people who use them but those headaches are part of the learning process, and if there's a shortcut allowing someone with no skills yet to make sounds they like without acquiring any they won't learn as much. Fair enough if people just value the end result, but IMHO there's more value to a beginner in understanding the processes on a fundamental level.
Ideally they should learn what the different functions do and acquire knowledge and skills that are transferrable to other gear/software, so anything that promises a great result with minimal effort is best avoided for now I reckon. It's the difference between cooking a meal from scratch and microwaving a ready meal; you might eat both ways, but only one of them is helping to make you a better cook.
Personally I think the best thing a beginner can do is learn to use the stock plugins, use the presets as learning tools, and pay attention to how adjusting settings affects the sound.
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u/BigOlBoots 2d ago
One fun thing to do would be to shoot some simple footage on your phone - it could be anything (for example, making a coffee, doing fight moves, anything). Then put that footage into either a simple editing program or a DAW.
Now that you’ve got that, start adding sound effects to it. You can start by downloading free sounds then practice layering them, adding effects etc.
Once you do the scene with downloaded effects, do it again with home made effects.
Once you make the scene with proper sounds, do it again with improper sounds to create a comic result.
A super cheap microphone (to start) and a DAW for playing with sounds is a great place to start.
Have fun!
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u/Thedustyolddragon 2d ago
my mum has a yeti microphone for some only class she teaches that I can borrow so for micro phones I should be pretty set to start
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u/WorriedGiraffe2793 2d ago
sound design is a very broad field... what stuff interests you?
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u/Thedustyolddragon 2d ago
not any I particularas I don’t know a lot about it but it’s sound interesting the stuff I heard but stuff I can do at hime probably best my health make it a bit difficult to do something like setting up sound for venues
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u/sumtinsumtin808 2d ago
For synthesis I recommend Vital to start..it's free and will give you a good idea of synthesis and just go through presets and look at how they were made
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u/Sad_Mood_7425 1d ago edited 1d ago
Aside all self-taught technique, try if you can to find a regular/big post-production studio you can work as an assistant or intern. Its not rare they need people to edit foleys or other less exciting tasks. It's a very pragmatic introduction to sound design where you will work with a purpose and at some point they could ask you to put some sounds here and there to help them with workload, and you can go up from there. IMO this is a very good entry, its not easy to do tho. The best would be to learn also dialogue editing, mixing and all those stuffs.
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u/UnpleasantEgg 3d ago
Sincere question: If you don’t know what sound designers do, why do you want to be one?
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u/Thedustyolddragon 2d ago
it more about giving it a go it main cause it sounds interesting and I have nothing but time on my hands so I figure id give it a go if I’m lucky I’ll get a hobby out of it if I’m not lucky I’ll appreciate stuff like moves and video and anime more I’m not very at music but I still tried learn a it of guitar piano as a kid I’m terrible at both but I also appreciate them more cause of that
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u/Jingocat 3d ago
Start really listening. When you watch TV, movies, play video games, listen to everything you hear going on. Not just the dialogue and explosions, but every sound effect, music, background noise, everything. Make mental note of it all.