Monday, September 4, 2017

Is it worthwhile recording your own or buying stock sound effects?



A unique graphical aesthetic is obviously important when developing a game. I wonder if the same is true for audio? Is it worth investing my time in recording, producing my own sounds or should I just buy stock effects?




Answer



I like to follow this rule of thumb:



  1. Use off-the shelf components wherever possible.

  2. Replace them with unique elements as necessary!


We've recently used a lot of stock music from IB Audio, and stock effects from Sound Ideas and Sound Dogs.



  • Music: Places like IB Audio are nice, because they provide solid music at prices far below what we'd pay to have pieces created for us.

  • SFX Collections: CD/DVD effects collections such as Sound Ideas' are great, because we have access to the same, quality, royalty-free libraries that the big Hollywood studios use.


  • Individual Effects: We use Sound Dogs because they provide a la carte effects, which means that when we've needed a single sample of cheering spectators, we had it.


This gives us the ability to focus on dev elements such as gameplay and concept testing. And, when we want to create something unique, such as a theme song or a sound effect of a space toilet being flushed into another space toilet, we can do that too.


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