Video Game Inspired Soundscape Production

As part of my developing my Spatial Audio experience, I investigated experimenting with Foley and ambience emulation to develop a realistic soundscape through recording and processing audio samples to replicate a person moving through a rainy railway sight. My approach was inspired by a vast array of open world RPGs (Role Playing Games), from the dank caves of Tomb Raider to the spatial impressions created by Ubisoft in the Assassins Creed team.

In this article, similarly to my film project, I will dive into where each sound had come from and my creative thought process when manipulating the audio to its final result. Below you can check out the final product as well as take a look around the Logic File (sorry PC users) in which this all took place:

Project Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gRehSHFQGgFbiClyH5quDMHwRLP-CK6F?usp=drive_link

Final Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mnMLSdK28l2Ylyto8QSVm46a4zyhjF19/view?usp=drive_link

The table below shows the different sounds included in the recording and what the original audio was, along with the creative processes I undertook to achieve its distinct sound quality, and its recording method.

Sound Effect	Original Audio and Processing	Recording Method
Train Pistons	Strumming strings on an Acoustic Guitar without holding down a fret, layered across three different tracks (Recorded through Direct Input). Compressed to make brighter. Low Pass filter applied to accentuate the ‘chug’ of a train; low shelf applied for accurate emulation. All tracks send to a group bus with a limiter of -2.0dB threshold for consistent balance. Panned across stereo field for spatial accuracy to match the character’s perspective.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone (Cardioid).
Train Funnel	Blowing into a half full water bottle, quantised, and chopped for fast train ‘puffs. Compression applied for stronger transients. Stereo panning corresponding to the Pistons through automation.	iPhone 13 microphone.
Rainfall	Bacon in a frying pan with an extractor fan in the background (imitating wind/atmospheric noise). Filtered with a mid-range shelf and cuts from below 200 Hz and above 800 Hz. Reverb bus heavily applied (setting shown below in Figure 1). Panned around the surround field to alternate rain strength and the character’s location in the soundscape, changing the binaural angle (Fig. 2) and distance (Fig. 3) through automation as this is an atmospheric sound rather than purely a repeated sound effect.	Zoom H5 and SM58 dynamic microphone.
Footsteps in grass	Nike Trainers stomping on a Tesco ‘Bag 4 Life’. Alternating speeds to differentiation between the character walking and running through the railway. To emulate locational difference, I used automation on the panning to make the footsteps travel across the stereo field. This stereo impression compliments the changes in location for the other sounds that travel across the stereo field (shown in Figure 2).	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.
Train Whistle 1	Human whistle, pitch corrected with 0.00ms response time to sound mechanically processed (Figure 4). Same reverb bus applied to emulate echoes in a mountain range. Roughly a concert G# pitch.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.
Train Whistle 2	Another human whistle with a rough pitch of B, aimed for two different pitches for a detuned style sound. Same processing applied as the other whistle, with both being layered for a fuller sound.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.
Bridge Movement	Rubbing a blown-up balloon, high pass filter applied to sound like squeaks of the railway tracks.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.
Ambient Effect	Natural harmonics on an acoustic guitar, played on the first two strings at the 12th fret. Occasional spot effect in the mix.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.
Birds and Duck Noises	Creates animal noises to enforce an outside sounding environment. Sample sourced from https://freesound.org/.	N/A
Human Jewellry Movement	Two different sounds recorded from a Zippo Lighter. One channel is lighting it whilst there is no lighter fluid inside, whilst the other is opening the metallic lid.	AT2020 Condenser Microphone.

Figure 1: 

Figure 2: 

Figure 3: 

Figure 4: