Hi guys, everything alright? I hope so. I'm here to explain a bit how was the process of creating music and sound FX for our submission to Ludum Dare 45; バクラウ Bloodless. Check out the game on the link below;

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/bloodless

Part of this jam group is already known to me from other works, which greatly facilitates the process of creating a game from scratch. As usual, we spent the early hours discussing some ideas for the game's mechanics and trying to decide what the plot would be and how it would impact the mood we'd like to build for the game.

After deciding the scope, plot, atmosphere and especially pacing of the game I was able to start the sound activities. Usually I try to start the audio work by the hardest part, which in my case is gameplay music.

MUSICS

Here is the gameplay music of Bloodless! I put it on youtube so you can listen without leaving the page and without interrupting by the sound effects of the game.

https://youtu.be/ODZfVTqewao

The first thing I try to do is go looking for references related to the style / era in which the game will play. In this case, our game was set at the end of the shogunate.

. Koto Main Reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSkcW5w_L1o

. Mood Reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eddo9EfH4RU

. [Faster music reference with more elements. Ideal for battles: https://youtu.be/UNIVofhSXqE

To find good instruments to use, I searched for reference songs that use them in their composition.

.Koto - Stringed Instrument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDTp_YQizqE

.Taiko - Percussion set widely used in Japanese culture festivals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxcpk63TtmQ

.Shinobue - Type of transverse flute with a very characteristic sound of Japanese classical music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24BT9S1hGE

.Kabuki - To give a more striking feature to the composition, I also used vocals from Kabuki - popular Japanese theatrical style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiKUurfoRhE)

Once I've made a selection of what kind of sounds and instruments I decided to use, it's time to go to the software to start composing. The program I currently use is Ableton Live, both for songwriting and sound FX creation. I like to use it mostly because of the flexibility it gives me to create anything I want.

In Ableton, I used Kontakt 5, a software that uses sound library as an instrument. I ended up using more than one library to make the sounds in the music more diverse.

Ableton Live with Kontakt´s default library.

Ableton Live with Koto library.

I used sounds from both factory libraries that came bundled with Kontakt, as well as libraries from other companies. For the percussive part (Taiko) I used a library I really like called Decimator Drums.

Another plug-in I used was DVNbitcrusher, excellent free VST to reduce audio quality and create an older sound feature. Perfect for giving that grainy feel to the sound.

I used basically the same preset for both songs of this project

SOUND EFFECT

For creating sound FX for the game, the process was a little simpler. Most of the sounds were either recorded or caught on the internet and edited until they were just the way it fit the atmosphere of the game.

What I usually do in jam is first check if I have the sound or a sound that is close to the one I want. If I don't find it in my sound FX libraries (paid or free), I will search for the sounds on the internet. I often use YouTube a lot to look for a specific sound, or to hunt for some sound that I can edit and create something different from that. Believe it or not, most sound designers use YouTube a lot as a source for new sounds.

Regarding the free sound bank, I always refer to the Sonniss library. In addition to being free to use, with incredible audio quality, there are over 20GB of sounds that you can use freely.

After editing all the sounds that would go into the game, I used DVNbitcrusher to reduce the audio quality giving an 8 bit gaming sound feature.

Well, that's it folks. This was a bit of the workflow I usually use in game jam. I hope you enjoyed, and if you have any questions, just ask;)

Hugs!

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