Written by Greg Lester
There is a flood of free and paid products for sound designers and game audio professionals out there. Especially in the beginning, it can be tricky to figure out what you actually need and what tools are worth investing in.
In this article, I’ll give you a glimpse into my personal sound design toolbox, and share some recommendations and tips to get you started building your own.
REAPER • REAPER Themes • REAPER Scripts
Plugins:
Bundles • Analysis / Spatial • Distortion / Saturation • Delay • Dynamics • EQ • Modulation • Reverb • Synthesis • Stock plugins • Other
Sound effects:
Field recording • Free sound effects • Sound effects libraries • Subscriptions
More:
Organisation tools • Backups • Other hardware • Other free software • Useful tips • Explore the Game Audio Power List
Your recommendations:
Do you have any essential game audio tools to recommend? Be sure to share them in the comments here
DAW
Reaper (Paid)
Reaper is the DAW of choice for many pro sound designers.
Its main selling points include an incredible feature set for post-production, highly customisable workflow with the ability to create custom scripts, very low CPU usage, and lifetime free updates.
With an unbeatable price of 60$ for a personal licence or 225$ for a commercial license (at the time of writing) and an unlimited trial period with access to all features, it’s one of the cheapest and best DAWs on the market.
Watch the Reaper for game audio tutorial series above
Plugins
The tools we use mould, sculpt, layer and ultimately design sounds. There are an overwhelming number of plugins out there which can be counterproductive as a tool is only as good as the hands that wield it. So my biggest advice is to download only the plugins that will benefit your workflow and get to know them intuitively. Experiment, set yourself creative limitations, learn and enjoy the process. You’ll get so much more out of your tools once you know how to use them.
That being said, the plugins listed below are ones that I use myself and can highly recommend. They are in my opinion worthy of your money and time investment.
Bundles
Melda Plugins (Free)
One of if not the most powerful free plugin bundle for sound design out there. It contains 37 amazing plugins of which most are incredible for sound design. This one is a must-have for anyone starting out as they are simple to use and offer incredible flexibility.
Learn the Melda Plugins basics in the tutorial above
Soundtoys Effect Rack (Paid)
The swiss army knife for sound design. I use this on almost anything, from giving warmth and colour to a sound all the way to crazy processing chains. At 299$ it’s an investment but it goes on sale down to around 130$ a couple of times a year so it pays off to be patient.
Analysis / Spatial
iZotope Ozone Imager (Free)
iZotope put out this amazing free plugin allowing you to control the width of a signal and visualise the audio through three different vectorscope meters.
Youlean Loudness Meter 2 (Free)
An essential tool to monitor the loudness of your mix which is a good practice as in professional environments you are sometimes obliged to conform to certain loudness standards.
Distortion / Saturation
Fabfilter Saturn 2 (Paid)
From a little warmth and saturation to full-blown distortion with tons of modulation, Saturn 2 can do it all. It has some amazing presets which are great for fast experimentation finding a tone you like quickly.
Inphonik PCM2612 (Free)
This bitcrusher (controlling sample rate and bit depth) is one of the cleanest free ones out there. Perfect for adding some crunch to your sounds or downsampling them to match the tone with the pixel art style and the retro aesthetic.
Delay
Valhalla FreqEcho (Free)
This is definitely one of my favourite tools to create sci-fi, UI and all kinds of other interesting sounds. It combines a frequency shifter with a delay and the results are mind-boggling. I recommend modulating all of the different parameters (manually, with LFOs or envelopes) to get some awesome results!
Glitchmachines Hysteresis (Free)
This delay is the ultimate glitch creation tool. It features a randomise button which I use a great deal – simply start recording and press it until you get something fun, there are plenty of happy accidents to be had with this plug-in.
Native Instruments Replika (Paid)
A pristine delay plugin that can also create huge dark reverberant atmospheres. Great for drones and ambiences as well as adding a slapback delay to sounds that need to sit in large spaces.
Dynamics
Xfer OTT (Free)
The ultimate “make it bigger” tool. OTT is awesome for bringing out hidden details in the sound by crushing the dynamics. It’s one of those effects that you have to hear and experiment with to properly appreciate its capabilities.
Learn more about Xfer OTT
Cytomic The Glue (Paid)
The name is a perfect description of what it does. I love to put this compressor at the end of my processing chains to glue all of the different sound layers and plugins together. It’s also really good at making gun sounds, explosions and other heavy transient material punchy.
EQ
Fabfilter Pro Q3 (Paid)
Fabfilter is renowned for its amazing UI and the ProQ delivers. This is an incredibly accurate, powerful and easy-to-use EQ that I use on a daily basis.
Modulation
Glitchmachines Fracture (Free)
Another awesome “happy accidents” plugin by Glitchmachines. Equipped with delay, buffer and filter modules it excels at turning transient materials into interesting textures.
Cableguys PanCake (Free)
This nifty tool lets you modulate the pan with LFO’s and envelopes that you can shape and customise to your liking.
Xenakios PaulXStretch (Free)
This is an absolutely crazy time-stretching plugin letting you either load in or capture sounds with the built-in recording function and radically time-stretch them. It then adds reverb to smooth out the sound letting you create dreamy pads, ambient atmospheres, drones and a huge variety of other interesting sounds.
Reverb
Valhalla Supermassive (Free)
A crazy combo of delay and reverb where you can get some insane sounds from modulating the different parameters.
Smartelectronix Ambience (Free)
One of my favourite reverbs. It’s incredibly quick and easy to dial in and excels at subtly putting sounds in the background to become part of the ambience with its diffuse sound.
Synthesis
Xfer Serum (Paid)
An incredibly versatile wavetable synth that can create anything from gentle UI sounds to planet-destroying lasers and everything in between. Serum has a passionate community of creators who make awesome tutorials and presets so you can utilise it’s full potential very easily.
Vital Synth (Free with paid upgrades)
This one is a community pick. It’s the new synth on the block and it’s here to stay. You can modulate anything and everything and easily create your own wavetables.
Boom Enforcer (Paid)
This subharmonic enhancer is incredible for beefing up gunshots, explosions, footsteps and many other things. It’s easy to use and offers tons of amazing presets with tons of customizability.
MH Thump (Free)
The free and slightly more lightweight solution to Boom Enforcer still packs a punch!
This will make the job of adding subharmonics to your sounds a lot easier and faster.
Stock Plugins
Reaper has some amazing stock plugins that shouldn’t be overlooked. They are easy to use, sound and work great. While they don’t have the prettiest UIs you’ve ever seen, they are more than up to the task sonically and I often find myself using them over some premium plug-ins for the sake of simplicity!
Some of my favourites are:
- ReaEQ: the stock EQ has very low cpu use makes it perfect for large sound design sessions with lots of instances.
- ReaPitch: a great frequency shifter plugin with the ability to pitch the formants.
- ReaVerb: an excellent reverb module with the ability to add and stack various reverb types including convolution reverb, a reverb generator an echo generator as well as effects like high pass & lowpass filters, gain, trim, stretch and a reverser.
Other
iZotope RX – Elements (Paid)
This is one of the essential tools for cleaning up your recordings. From hums, clicks, and excess reverb to background noise and clipping, RX is the swiss army knife for any field recordist and or audio editor who struggles with these common issues.
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Scripts & Extensions for Reaper
Reaper allows you to customize all aspects of its workflow, and there are some excellent third-party scripts and extensions that can improve your workflow and save you lots of time.
Themes (Free)
The Reaper UI is an acquired taste, but thankfully we can change the theme to our liking. I’ve linked some of my favourite themes below including the one I’m currently using:
Reaper Scripts (Free/Paid)
Part of what makes Reaper a powerhouse of a DAW is the huge number of scripts you can download to optimize your workflow.
If you’re unfamiliar with scripts and how to use them then I recommend watching the video below.
Learn more about Reaper Scripts above
ReaPack – MUST HAVE (Free)
This tool is a package manager for reaper scripts saving you lots of time and effort when installing and updating new scripts.
MFXlist (Free)
This awesome script lets you view, add and remove plugins from the sidebar.
Download: search MFXlist in your ReaPack extension (or download from the GitHub Page that is linked here)
SWS Extensions (Free)
This bundle is a must-have for any Reaper user. It brings tons of useful actions to your fingertips that you can simply assign to any keyboard shortcut.
Learn more about the SWS Extensions above
NVK Sound Design Tools (Paid)
Nick von Kaenel has created some awesome Reaper scripts specifically for sound designers. They are huge timesavers when it comes to workflow and I personally use the nvk_LOOPMAKER on a daily basis.
Organisation Tools
In our jobs, we have to deal with huge amounts of sound files, schedules, bugs and other information. Below I’ve listed some tools I use to maintain oversight, find what I need quickly and work as efficiently as possible.
Google Sheets (Free)
An absolutely essential tool for keeping your projects organized and collaborating with team members in real-time on asset lists, bug lists, and various other documents.
Learn more about Google Sheets above
Library Managers (Free/Paid)
Soundly (Paid)
As a “sound hoarder” my library has quickly grown extremely large. This can make it incredibly hard to find the right sounds I’m looking for. A sound library manager solves that problem by letting you organize your local library to easily find any sound you need quickly and efficiently as well as providing some additional features.
Soundly is my tool of choice as it’s very affordable, lets you edit metadata in the browser and has a smart search engine (utilising AI) to make finding sounds easier than ever. It also offers Google Drive or Amazon S3 integration so you can access your entire sound library anywhere on the go.
The last but probably best feature is that it comes with a huge sound library that receives regular updates.
Learn more about Soundly above
Reaper Media Browser (Free)
A free alternative to Soundly. While it doesn’t have some of Soundly’s advanced features, it’s a useful file manager built into your DAW and works well, especially when starting out.
Sound Effects
Building your sound library is a never-ending process. Starting out with nothing can be very daunting so I’ve put together a couple of methods and tips to help you get going.
Field Recording
Recording your own sounds is not only an amazing way to build your library, but you’ll train your ears and get unique sounds that no one else has.
I recommend getting a basic handheld recorder as it will enable you to get high-quality recordings. I’ve listed some recommendations below:
Zoom H5 (270$) – Learn more about this
Tascam Portacapture X8 (650$) – Learn more about this
Sony PCM d100 (900$) – Learn more about this
Independent Sound Effects
The independent sound community has released 1000s of ready-made sound effects libraries. You can explore the selection by searching below, or browse here. Try a search below to discover what’s available from the sound community:
Free Sound Effects
Here is a selection of completely free sound effects libraries from the independent sound community:
The two newsletters below are definitely worth signing up for as you get high-quality SFX free with each edition:
Subscriptions
Some services offer subscriptions that give you access to thousands of sounds to download. This can be incredibly useful when you need a specific sound that you can’t record yourself but don’t want to buy an entire sound library.
I personally recommend Soundly’s sound library subscription, which comes with their library manager software as it’s very extensive and gets updated regularly. Additionally, you can request sounds for them to add to the library and they are very diligent about fulfilling them.
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Backups
People usually don’t think of backups until it’s too late. Unfortunately, I was one of the ones who learned the hard way. Not only is it frustrating but it can cost you and your client a lot of time and money.
External Hard Drive
I personally recommend getting an external hard drive to back up your work locally. A 2-5 terabyte one is ideal (WD Elements 2TB External Hard Drive) as audio and game dev projects take up lots of space.
Free File Sync (Free) I use a program called Free File Sync to easily back up any new data onto my external hard drive on a daily basis.
As a Windows user, I’m not sure what options are available for MacOS, and can’t recommend anything from personal experience, but a file sync utility app is definitely worth looking into!
Cloud Backup Service (Paid)
Unfortunately, local backups are not 100% reliable, as local drives can be destroyed in a house fire, flood, or other incidents. This is why I also recommend backing your data up in the cloud. Backblaze (Paid) is highly rated by lots of game audio folks and I personally use it as it my cloud backup service of choice as it’s easy and affordable. For the basic subscription, you get unlimited storage and automatic upload in the background on all of your data.
Other Hardware
Some essential things I can’t do my job without that I highly recommend investing in at an early stage in your career.
Headphones
Headphones are a great alternative to speakers when you don’t have the ideal acoustically-treated listening space, and generally good to have to reference your mixes, when doing work on the go, or field recording.
I personally recommend: Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro (150$) (open back for the studio):
Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro (150$) (closed back for noisy environments):
Second Screen
The nature of our job requires that we have a lot of different programs open at any given time. From the game engine, middleware, spreadsheets with bug lists and asset lists as well as our daw, sound library manager, and a bunch of folders.
A second (in my case third) monitor has been an absolute time saver and allows me to monitor multiple things at a time. Definitely a worthwhile investment!
I would go for 24 inch and above but you’ll have to consider your desk space.
Audio interface
An audio interface allows us to route sound from the computer to headphones and speakers and connects a microphone to record sounds into our DAW.
I recommend the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with two microphone inputs that will allow you to record in stereo with pretty good preamps.
Microphone
Unless you’re on a laptop or using a webcam with a built-in microphone you’ll have no way of talking to your clients and co-workers (remotely).
The audio quality on your first zoom call with a client can make or break your first impression with them.
So having a headset or microphone will help a lot and obviously being able to record sounds directly into your DAW will also speed up your workflow.
If you’re on a very tight budget and already have a handheld recorder focus on just getting
Webcam
Whether you’re working remotely as a freelancer or from home during a global pandemic, showing your clients and coworkers your face is important for building trust and connection.
A webcam makes that possible. Most basic webcams will do but I personally recommend the Logitech c270
Notebook
To-do lists, ideas, sketches and occasional journaling. My notebook is a trusty companion and an essential tool to keep my head clutter-free and days organised.
My method of choice is the bullet journal but any notebook will do.
If you want to learn more about the bullet journal method (which is a great productivity method) feel free to dive into the rabbit-hole below:
Other free software
These are some more useful programs that I use on a daily basis which speed up my workflow.
Bulk rename utility (Windows)
This is an incredibly nifty tool for renaming lots of files which you’ll be doing more often than you’d expect to in this industry.
Notepad++ (Windows)
This source code editor allows you to do all kinds of great things including copying things like folders (with content) inside of Unreal Engine and pasting them into Notepad. Then you can copy the code it spits out and paste it back into Unreal again to paste the folder with the content. This can be a huge timesaver when doing repetitive implementation where you want to copy-paste multiple different things.
Open Broadcaster Software (Windows)
This program lets you easily capture your screen which is really useful because you will often find yourself needing to record game footage.
It’s simple to use and lets you configure your audio outputs as well as camera inputs so you can even record little tutorials with a webcam and multiple screens.
Useful Tips
Set a budget!
Each month on payday I put part of my earnings into a savings account specifically for new gear. This helps me save up for big purchases and sets a spending limit for the times I get a little bit too tempted by killer deals. Doing this helps me to maintain healthy spending habits and not buy things I can’t afford.
Do you need it?
There is an abundance of incredible tools in the world of sound design. It can be all too easy to get lured into picking up a new shiny toy. Even for things I’ve listed here, ask yourself whether they would be useful to you personally.
The following questions help me decide if a purchase is worthwhile:
“Why do I need this? What problem will it help me solve? Can I achieve the same result with tools that I already own?”
Additionally, a good question to ask is “How much time will this tool save me?” Purchasing a tool that will save you 2 hours every week (8 hours every month = 1 whole workday) will often quickly pay for itself. Calculate your day rate and figure out the amount of time it will save you over the course of a week/month/year this will help you in your decision.
Invest in quality!
There have been countless times where I bought the cheaper version of a product only to have it break on me within a very short period of time.
Price does not equal quality but I am a firm believer in saving up that extra bit of money to get better tools that last you longer which will save money over time!
Try it first!
This is a lot easier with plugins than with sound libraries but you can check the sound effect/metadata list to have a glimpse of what’s in the box. This should give you a better idea of the type of assets and the number of iterations you’ll find.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I greatly appreciate Asbjoern for giving me the chance to write this. I also want to give a huge thank you to Jonny Sands who was instrumental in putting this together. Best of luck on your sound design journey!
About Greg Lester:
Greg is a sound designer at Soundcuts and is passionate about learning and education. In his spare time, he creates videos demystifying game audio. Explore his game audio videos here
BONUS: Explore the Game Audio Power list
Newest game audio stories • Essential game audio interviews • Game audio guides & resources • Essential sound design guides
Game sound effects:
Most popular game sound effects libraries • Newest game sound effects libraries • Overall most popular sound effects libraries • Search for SFX
More game audio resources:
Books about game audio • Podcasts about game audio • Game Audio Groups • Audio events • Game audio jobs • Find game audio pros • Showcase your audio skills • Game audio on social media • Branching out: Free 60+ page guide: How to succeed in 18 types of audio jobs
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Your recommendations:
Do you have any must-have game audio tools that you’d like to recommend to others? Be sure to share them in the comments below: