Making UI Sound Effects
Hey everyone!!! Andrei here hoping that you’ve had an awesome week! Up until now, I’ve talked to you about music in Paralives such as how we produced some demos to test the musical direction of the game (if you wanna check that out, here’s the link to that Patreon post!). But today we’re gonna give things a little twist and talk instead about UI sound effects! What are they? How do we make them? What’s up with that puppy? All your questions will be answered 😌 This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it, thank you!
In the above video, you just saw parts of our Paramaker showcase video with clips of me recording the sounds you hear on screen! The rest of the audio from the gameplay is muted. The sounds showcased are a tiny bit edited and were the simplest ones production-wise to show in this post, the rest are too edited or processed with effects. The lil’ pup next to me at the end of the video is Kurama, being curious as usual. So without further ado, let’s talk sound!
What’s a UI Sound Effect?
As the name implies, a UI sound is basically just audio triggered when the player performs an action in the user interface (UI). Let’s say you’re in the Paramaker then push a button to create a new Para and hear a beautiful “Boop!” sound. This lets you know that you did something and rewards your action. Before starting to make them, we gotta keep in mind many things such as the layout of the UI, which options are more important, the duration of the sound effect (most UI sounds tend to be very short!), among other things.
How Do We Record Them?
There are many ways to design a sound effect but it all comes down to 2 types of approaches: synthesis (using digital sources) and foley (using real life sources). In Paralives, we decided to go with foley to have that cozy, organic character (“BOOP!”). Believe it or not, the way I come up with all these sounds is by finding as much junk as I can around my house or at the dollar store, banging it together in all possible ways and making sense of the chaos I created. I could use anything from musical instruments, toys, clothes, cosmetics, kitchen tools, food, trash, furniture, myself (!), basically anything. In my experience, the cheapest junk makes the best UI sounds.
How Do We Polish Them?
After hours and hours of recording, comes the part where I’ll relisten to all of the tracks to find the best sounds for what I’m looking for. I tend to look for sounds that have potential to complement a specific game functionality rather than something that sounds like a finished product. Then, I edit those sounds (trim, fade, change pitch) and process them with effects (equalization, compression, ringshifting, etc) and voilà! On average I actually end up using only 3 to 5% of all the sounds I recorded. Here’s a screenshot of the Logic Pro project displaying all the sounds I’ve made for the Paramaker so far:
Each small colored rectangle is an individual sound. There’s around 2100 ish of them here but some of them are repeated.
Overall, it’s a super fun but very weird process recording all these little sound effects. You can get so creative with literal junk and it can sound amazing. And this only encompasses one type of sound in just one single game mode!!! Imagine for the rest of the game! I’ll be needing a wider screen for the next screenshot. I’m curious to know, what part of the sound design are you mostly looking forward to in the game? Did you like one sound specifically? What kind of sounds do you think will fit the cozy world of Paralives best? Thanks y’all for the love and support, it really means tons.
Have a cozy and warm weekend,
Andrei 🎵🎹
(BOOP!)
Comments (63)
Cool!
Hi, I haven't heard of "ring-shifting" before. Is that some type of waveshaping technique or a layering technique?
Woops! I meant to write "ring modulation". I tend to use it very sparsely when I want to give a completely different character to a sound or make it sound less agressive. Thanks for that SketalDaz!
This was a very cool post! Thanks :D
Damn, really wish I could share this with my voice-over/audiofile friend. :) VERY COOL POST!
Legit makes me even more excited for this game. And it's amazing to be able to support for so long <3
That is So Interesting 😃I always wonder what the sound is when I use all my electronics. They make such unrecognizable sounds.
The bubble "bloop" is so satisfying!
Also, I’m really excited on the ambience and sounds that Paras get to interact within the town.
We need more showcases like this. Love ur pet ❤️
Foley ART.
This is so flippin' great!
This is so cool! Love what you've done with the Foley work and I like how they sound!
This is so cool!
How fun! Love the behind the scenes!
Love it
The lil dog at the end!! I absolutely love it all 😊😊✌🏻💖
Please show us more 😊😊
I'm in school for game development and honestly stuff like this gets me excited idk why lol. Amazing what all you can do with just things lying around the house!
Wow so cool *-*
Haha Kurama as in from Naruto? Too cute xD
Yes! 👀
That's so cool!!
Very cool! I didn't actually know the term for them before today (I'm mostly a visual artist, when it comes to sound I just appreciate the end result from afar), but I have a special place in my heart for any behind-the-scenes stuff that includes peeks at how Foley effects (and practical special effects in general) are put together. I always find the solutions y'all come up with really ingenious and neat.
ooooh it's all pratical? amazing!!!
I really love this!!! =D Thanks for sharing it!
THE DOG THO
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
That looks like so much work O_o Of course I know everyone on the Parateam is working hard, but explained like that it really shows what's involved behind the blanket term "work". I think the sample you gave us is somewhat misleading, because we're never going to listen to those sounds in a void like here, there's going to be background music (for the Paramaker) or background gameplay noise (for life&build mode), so the sounds you presented to us felt somewhat "too much", but they'll later be drown out by everything else a little bit. So for instance the scissors sounded very big and distorted, but in the moment, especially after clicking dozens of times before and after it, it'll seem completely normal to us instead of this huge snapping sound we have now. Somehow it's maybe even what we're looking for here, sounds that are individually great but end up blending nicely. It's fascinating how our perception of one sound will change over time :)
Hey ladyteruki! That's such a good insight on the post! It's true that the experience of hearing the sounds individually rather than in context with ambience, music and all is very much different just as much as hearing the sound in a recorded gameplay rather than triggering it yourself in your own game. I hope we'll soon be able to show you a more complete soundscape of the game once I make more progress on the rest of the sounds. Working on it!! :)
These sounds are perfect for the feel of the game. Really feel in tune with the visuals. I never really thought about sounds in a game before but this makes me really appreciate all the work that goes into this. Glad you’re on the team Andrei!
I love seeing this. I always notice tiny details like that and what you have gone with really fits the game well.
I love it Andrei, thank you so much!! And it's so interesting. I know it might take a lot of time so it might not be feasible, but I would be so interested to see how you make one of the more complex sounds too. Like... what do you start with, how do you change the sounds to make what you end up with.
Hey Zah!!!!! Thank you 😁 I'm happy you found it interesting! I'd be very happy to show in the future stuff like the ambience sounds and how they'll work as an interactive sound system rather than individual sounds. But as for sound "designing" goes, it's pretty much messing with the sound through effects, pitch shifting, trimming even reversing it and most of all combining them. I really hope we'll get to show you soon 🪕
This is so cool! Thanks for sharing. I hope Kuramo gets a promotion from assistant to voice actor when it comes time for sound design for pets :)
What a good assistant!
Love seeing the details, so fun how the sounds get made! Also, the puppy in the background was such a good puppy for being so quiet!
Soo cool😃😄😄
This is so cool! I'm really loving the sandboxy/schoolish feel of all the sounds! The water and the cards were my favorite! Will more of the sound process be shared in the future? 🥰
Hey Victoria! Thanks so much :D Chances are yeah, definitely you'll hear more of the progress of the game's sounds! I'd love to make a post on ambient sounds in the future
That is so cool
I swear I truly love being a part of this journey. 🥹
Oh how I would LOVEEE to have this job
Florp!
This is so cool to see! Now I'm going to rewatch the paramaker video and listen for these sounds! I'm most looking forward to atmospheric sounds! I hope that there might be some breezes blowing through trees, birds chirping, or perhaps the sound of traffic in a busy part of town.
That was such fun to watch and listen to!! Thank you for sharing. One of my favorite cozy feel good sounds in games right now is hearing 'wind chimes' which immediately elevates my mood, calms me, and makes me smile. I'm so impressed with how talented the Paralives team is and I'm loving all the details you guys are so willing to share with us. I believe it will make playing the game all the more special! Great work and I'm looking forward to more!!
Blowing water bubbles sounds is so funny😂 , love the dog ^-^
That's so cool! Thank you for showing these details!
Really cool. I'm kinda curious about the reason they don't use "sound packs" which is what I think most development teams do
Hey Phillip! We are actually considering using sound packs for certain sounds, especially Foley and Ambient sounds! However, for the UI sounds, I wanted to make them myself since they make a big part of the game's identity
That's so cool I love how people come up with Making sound effects
Haha, really funny. Kudos to the dog. 😁🐶
I'm so looking forward to in-world sounds. Nature sounds like waves (maybe the sea sound could vary depending on the weather like storm is louder than a windless sunny day), birds, vegetation rustling. But one type on sound I really hope makes it to the game i different types of shoes and different types on terrain. I just love the sound of high heels on wood for example
Hey Domon! That's a really great idea! Making different dynamic layers for ambient sounds is definitely something we have in mind and are trying out! I'm pretty sure we're also gonna have different surface sounds for footsteps. Having footwear variations for those would be a plus
Little do people realize that pets are a vital part of the official creative process.
Very creative! Would love to see more of those at some point~
I love Foley work, it's such an interesting part of game development (and movies and tv shows and almost every other type of media lol). These sounds really do add a cozy feel, and makes it stand out from other games!
Cool! Also hi, irl puppy. 😘
my dog would start barking lmao
That video was like ASMR 😂 so fun to watch!
yesss thank youuuuuuuuuuu
This is so cool!
This is amazing! Plus cute doggo!