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Hello,

Next year, I will teach the basics of sound design in Protools, how to create a good template, how to use plugins, create sound effects, ambiences, etc...

I thought to give them (students) trailers to add sound, make partnerships with schools in video games.

Do you have any other ideas to share that would be interesting for them ?

Thank you in advance !

Best regards.

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8 Answers 8

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  • bring in industry people. they are incredible storytellers and their stories are real.
  • field recording. especially hydrophones, dishes, also covert binaural recording - loads of fun and can be done indoors and outdoors.
  • foley sessions - as much fun as field recording. try organising a live foley session - it's very hard and very rewarding. tons of silent films out there are suitable for this.
  • guerilla sound editing - take the standard tools away from their hands and give them something unexpected. test how much of that is skill or just memorising.
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  • Further to that last... ask them to come up with sound design using only a simple recorder -say an H4N or similar - eq, delay and a pitch shift plug in(since varispeed is no more). Many great films (including both of AFI's Top 100) were done with little more than this for sound design. Having to work with minimal tools will teach them a great deal about the concepts rather than just pushing buttons.
    – Sonsey
    May 18, 2012 at 20:13
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Consider introducing them to typical workflows and letting them assume roles within that workflow for each project. On one project someone could play producer, or "game designer," or sound supervisor. You know... people making the creative decisions, people supervising the work, people setting schedules and deadlines and such. I think it will help demystify the process and prepare them for how professionals work, and prepare them for the importance of things like teamwork and communication.

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That very much depends on the academic level of the course and the exact subject area being covered. Can you clarify?

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It is a specialized training course for students in sound design for video game who have good knowledges in sound. They've already done two years of study before in music composition, sound recording and mixing.

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Foley, implementation (UDK/Unity3d/Other), field recording.

Starting a course on monday with game design/grahics students. They're beginners though so my plans won't apply to yours :)

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    they will have classes on Wwise, Unity3D and Fmod, but for field recording that could be a great idea to get them out to record (like videos of Rick Viers/The Sound Effects Bible). Thank you :)
    – Cédric
    May 4, 2012 at 15:46
  • Awesome! I actually do that with my students at Stockholm University even though they're beginners. Just throw them a couple of Zoom H4n and get them out in the field. Hopefully you have better equipment :D
    – Reachground
    May 4, 2012 at 17:37
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    For now, the equipment is limited (several mbox 3, a zoom H4N and a AKG C414) but I will try to release money from the school director :p I do not know if you saw the advertisement for the sound design of Audi, but if one day I could do something like that with my students, that'd be great ! Check this out : youtube.com/watch?v=RAmpfp9m4rQ
    – Cédric
    May 4, 2012 at 17:56
  • Ohhh, that was sweet. Yeah something similar would be an excellent exercise. Atm I'm planning for the class I'm starting tomorrow. There's one more thing I do that is very appreciated. I let them send me clips of games with great/horrible audio which we then analyze together. It's a whole different approach compared to doing it yourself and always teaches me as well :)
    – Reachground
    May 6, 2012 at 10:49
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History, cultural background and "the purpose" of sound design.

I think there just might be a tendency to focus too much on either technique, application or student self-practice/self-development.

But from the perspective of culture and humanity, understanding what purpose sound design and art plays to people, seeing significant works of art and having discussions about their meaning, might just have much more significant impact on students than any of the pragmatic things and techniques that can "always be learned" and which, in the end, are mechanical. To get them to think about what they're really studying and dealing with in the grand scheme of things and why. And for them to possibly gain appreciation for sound design that's "(culturally) significant" through seeing the great works of the past that are recognized as significant in some way.

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I would personally teach them client/supervisor interaction skills. Along the same lines as what jeremyscottolsen said. Real world situations or as close to that as you can get. Many people can fiddle with knobs, sounds and patches for hours and figure out how to make it work. But can you do it with a deadline approaching, 4-8 people sitting behind you, last minute direction changes and sometimes conflicting feedback?

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During the course: create a soundlibrary some Sounds or Exempels in School and a Lot of Samples as homework. A Lot Lot Lot of Samples! So You See if they are motivated enough!

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  • Carrot tends to work better than stick.
    – mavavilj
    Sep 10, 2013 at 8:13
  • Its no punishment, you let them explore the fun of creating sounds piece by piece :)
    – Tobias Schmidt
    Sep 10, 2013 at 10:52

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