How I Design Awesome Gun Sounds | My Sound Design Process

[@greenguydubstep]

time to make tearout dubstep with this

[@PieroMinayaRojas]

Just a quick explaining of how the mw 2019 sounds were made (the video explanation is close). So the mw 2019 weapons use layers. For the most part, they use a lfe layer (like the kick), then the base fire layer (usually designed as plr or bang), then a mech layer (weapon moving parts), then an "atmo" layer (usually a few milliseconds after the other layers) and then a reflection layer (like the tail, usually a few more milliseconds later like an echo effect, it's more noticeable in weapons like snipers and ars). Most of these layers are usually shared between weapons, like the atmo and reflection layers. Also in the original source files, the atmosphere and reflection layers are loud, but in game their volume is lowered. Some weapons also have a first fire or hammer layer. Some other weapons have an special/distinct layer, like the model 680 and spr, it's like a bassy version of the base fire layer (not confuse it with the lfe layer), probably to make the weapon more distinct. And for the suppressed version of the gunshots, they usually use the same mech layer and only change the base fire, atmo and reflection layer, although in the x16 they use a different mech layer for the suppressed gunshots. Also there's different layers for hip firing and ads, as well as third person gunshots (for near, mid, far and distant).

[@SpetzyMations]

This is insane ive been looking to find realistic sounds for my videos this helps alot thanks

[@TEC_Black]

twr awakened guy??? wyd here????

[@SpetzyMations]

Lol someone found me

[@soundrogue4472]

10:15 I know I'm only doing a 2D space invader clone but this info is still helpful, even if I'm not going to use all of it in one place.

[@bahshas]

in real life you mostly just hear the gunshot and the tail after the sound of the gunshot ceases, and shell casings hitting a loud floor. also gunshots sound a lot more caliber specific than gun specific. every 7.62 NATO round is going to sound similar, things like barrel length and muzzle breaks do affect the sound thought. the mechanisms, you probably not even going to notice them really and definitely not if youre not the shooter. you may feel them, like a heavy bolt hitting the back. maybe with intelligent sound design you can emulate that feeling with sounds. the thing is guns are very, very loud. you dont really imagine just how loud they are until you hear them in real life.

[@groggod666]

Yeah this is cool and all, but not realistic or even particularly unique. I think that Arma 3, specially with mods, have way more interesting gun sounds

[@ashishhembrom3905]

Well thank God it's a video game.

[@erosennin599]

Also the "trail" is more lower pitched irl and with an added Doppler effect

[@chrisnka1988]

Offworld industries needs you to go through their Starship Troopers: Extermination weapon sounds and fix them up. Awesome video.

[@JackWse]

A common mistake with sub machine guns and Smaller rifles is that they would sound quieter when in reality they often sound louder, especially when compared to longer barrel or larger counterparts of the similar caliber.. this is because the gas escaping at the end is much higher, it's a lot more wasted gas essentially In a much higher volume coming out of the barrel.. It's one of the reasons the MP5 doesn't get a lot of Justice in terms of its actual sound profie, and pistols usually get completely scrapped In video games, when they're actually often on par than their rifle counterparts. I think the only game where I've seen the MP 5 get a proper sound treatment Was rainbow 6 3 raven shield, But pretty much everyone got a proper sound treatment in that game.. well Until the third expansion, where they clearly had a different sound team working on the weapons and it was like a Nightingale difference when you looked at the expansion guns.

[@ulyssesatsea]

Geez, thanks for making this. It was in fact super helpful as well as detailed. I'm not trying to make a realistic gun per say but all of the knowledge translates to figure out the foundations of this type of design.

[@sainterasmus4545]

Thank you so much for this video, awesome info dump. I also appreciate the links to other channels with further info. Can't wait to make audio for my first rifle. Just gotta do literally everything else for it first haha :)

[@mattgault2899]

No worries, glad it was helpful and have fun making some sounds! :)

[@hermando9537]

This helped and inspired me so much for my game project in uni. Thank you!

[@tsunamix0147]

Two things I absolutely love; Fallout 4 mods and music production tutorials/breakdowns, and it’s all in one video

[@KabioSound]

The best video on designing gun sounds, thank you very much! İ create sounds for new VR shooter, so it is super helpfull!

[@bluposn3r]

Awesome stuff Matt! Love the idea of having overlapping layers to make it feel natural, that was the main issue I was having with machine gun sounds. Helped massively!

[@AhmedShata]

Amazing and very helpful breakdown! I also like the way you constructed this video, spot on! keep it up and thank you so much!

[@bahshas]

a good rule of thumb to do that is just watch michael mann's heat (1995) and try to match it in-game

[@MarshallMcGee]

Great vid!

[@mattgault2899]

Cheers! Your videos have been a big inspiration for me so right back at ya!

[@mangaas]

If you want to get in the weeds of mixing a little bit more the "tail" in outdoor environments, if you make the stereo image wider in the later end of it as it dies out, you really mimic the soundscape of big open areas. The furthest reverb hits you last, and comes from the furthest areas all around you. You can just fade in a separate channel with the same "tail" already with wider stereo imaging, or if your software lets you automate it, and you can just use automation to swing it to the "Wide" end as the reverb dies out. If there are structures around in the video, like a building to your left, you can then cut out the reverb on the left side early, as the nearby reverb hits you first, and the further reverb is occluded because of the structure. Not sure what software you're using if thats something that's easy to do. *edit, nevermind, just realized you're a sound engineer, and this is your day job. I thought you were a KZbinr talking about gun sounds for videos.

[@GermanGameAdviser]

thats how a shoutout is done gg

[@sankarkdk3629]

the best video i see for designing guns...thank u matt

[@amaanrehman277]

2019 sound design was perfect

[@valcoucoi]

Really nice and smooth editing!

[@soundrogue4472]

I FINALLY found a video like this after having to be hyper specific, ffs YT!

[@I-AM-LXL-]

Very detailed tutorial video! Looking forward to more works like this!

[@NeverRnB]

Great Video, I highly recommend The Recordist gun sounds too 🔥

[@Echelon111999]

This!

[@lucafardelli]

Very helpful Matt, keep the great work! 🙌

[@UnknownUnknown-cd4hh]

How do I apply this to my weapons? In my unreal engine game project? Do you know any tutorials?

[@mattgault2899]

So it’s a lot to get into but you can use a Middleware like Wwise to get audio into your game. If you visits Wwise’s website you can download a free version and they have a bunch of tutorials on how to use it to implement sounds. Unfortunately I’m not aware myself of any great tutorials off the top of my head but I’m sure if you search Wwise + Unreal implementing gunshots I’m sure there’s content out there to get you started! Hopefully this was some help :)

[@UnknownUnknown-cd4hh]

@@mattgault2899 I’ll look into that. I appreciate you having the time to comment back, and keep up the great work!

[@bahshas]

i have a sony "studio monitor" headset and most of the gun sounds in games do not sound incredible on them but those same soundfx do sound good on speakers from a 2012 laptop. if you can make soundfx sound good in one of those headsets they will sound good on anything.

[@soundrogue4472]

4:49 you overlay your sounds? I just code that in for the game when using the sound files.

[@mattgault2899]

Yup that’s for sure a way you can do it! This is more layers sounds when creating that initial sound file. So 3 layers make up the transient, 4 make up the mech and so on

[@maximiliaanhendrikx1396]

Really informative video, thanks a lot for this!

[@CyberwaveOrchestra]

One thing that I don't understand is the use of the tail sound. Why is this more practical than having everything dry and adding reverb in game engine depending on the situation? How can you know where your sounds will be used in order to create corresponding tails? I sell SFX in soundpacks and I have no idea about where the end use will be.

[@mattgault2899]

That’s a great question! So you can definitely use reverb to make at a tail, however personally I find it can sound quite artificial. When your inside a structure it’s sounds great but for large open spaces I find using a tail sample can be more authentic and provide a little more character to the sound. As for use in game for example in Wwise you can have random containers for each gunshot (outside, inside, tunnel, etc.) and have switches in the engine so when your outside it only plays outside shots, when your in a tunnel it will only play inside shots etc. these can have different tails in those containers or you can use reverb in those same switches. It’s personal preference really, but I find tail samples to be more authentic and they help to make the shots more unique! Hope this helps!

[@CyberwaveOrchestra]

@@mattgault2899 It helps of course, thank you ;)

[@andershofsten6142]

@@CyberwaveOrchestra I want to add to this. Do note that this is based on my personal opinion as a sound designer working in games, and I am sure that there are plenty of approaches to this. Another reason to bake the tail into the audio itself is to save on resources; imagine that you have 50 players in the frame all at once; how would you handle 50 reverbs? Would you have to make a system/setup that limits resources? How would this affect other sfx in the shot? What takes precedence and what streams (audio being played) will get prioritized and which doesn't? If the reverb is in the background, will concurrency cut it off for a new gunshot, and how does that sound? Baking the tail in would simply be a case of firing the event and letting the concurrency handle it and that's it. If the gunshot gets cut off it can setup with concurrency to slightly fade out and sound entirely natural. If possible you should always try to save resources, because you never know when you will need them. Having 50 reverbs in one scene sounds terrible. What about setting it up so that all players inside the frame/bounding box uses the same reverb? That works, but every reverb decay would take up a stream even though the actual gunshot got cutoff for another gunshot, so either then you have to manually stop the reverb for this particular gunshot only, or somehow limit the concurrency of what the reverb plays back. Playing a sound with a baked in tail solves this easily.

[@ardaerdo2023]

Thanks, great stuff

[@zimonski52]

Awesome video! I guess that the only thing missing from your super detailed links and references is the Reaper theme which u are using :P What is it, looks very slick?

[@mattgault2899]

Cheers mate! I use the "Hydra" Reaper theme which you can download here! stash.reaper.fm/theme/2085/HYDRA.ReaperThemeZip

[@mordeau7402]

Huge man! gave me much needed inspiration thanks a ton!

[@aliscgu121]

perfect

[@VGB2]

What are the names of the weapons displayed in the video? I don't quite understand. Can you tell me the model? Thank you.

[@artofadval]

This is a GEM of a video! Thanks so much. I hope you get the views you deserve :D

[@scantrontest]

Are all these sounds from the BOOM Assault Guns Library? Which ones are you using?

[@mattgault2899]

Yeah bunch are from there and a few other libraries but I lost the session a while ago so unfortunately I can’t be specific on the samples. Apologies!

[@one_ak]

Really good video thank you!

[@thekvassnik]

Nice video man! It helped out a ton!

[@cheney7231]

so good

[@YungPr1nce]

good lesson

[@Tunova]

Am trying to make a huge sound pack for gta v to make all sounds as realistic as possible. But knowing how certain guns sound like is hard since it’s usually too loud to be recorded. Do you have any tips?

[@mattgault2899]

So I would suggest some weapon libraries from the recordist or BOOM. The construction kits especially have professional recordings of real weapons which could be helpful. Unfortunately like you said without the right location and equipment it can be hard to get a clean recording. Another note is most weapons have a very similar sound if it’s completely realistic so you may need to do some light design work to differentiate them regardless. Hope this helps!

[@HeliMarjut]

Cool! Thanks a lot, great video.

[@jerryvang094]

Where can I get those gun sound effects?

[@mattgault2899]

If your talking about the ones I made in the video, I unfortunately can’t distribute them due to licensing :(

[@THEYEAR2143]

Great workflow and sound quality ! What would the sound programmer need to intergrade loops/triggers for the weapon sounds in the game ? What do you need your rendered samples to look like ? Thanks

[@mattgault2899]

Cheers mate and great questions! 1. To integrate the shots, most of the time the programmer (or even designer) would usually use Middleware. Thats a program like Wwise or FMOD that we use to essentially tell the game engine what to do, you can absolutely use the in engine audio systems but generally middleware is just a lot more helpful. So for example playing a single gunshot sound for each shot through Wwise could look like this: - All variations of a single shot are put in a 'Random Container'. (A container that will randomly play one of its sounds when called). - That random container is put into a ‘Shoot’ event. (Events are what the game engine uses when needed). - In the game engine that event can be set up to be called by many different ways. Like triggering the event when a ‘shoot’ animation' plays. (via animation tagging), triggering the event when the ammo counter changes or triggering the event when a muzzle flash/projectile is spawned etc. You can also do additional things like culling voices so they don't get overpowering and messing with volume and pitch randomization, effects etc. There are some better ways than others all depending on what you want and how the game itself is constructed. Different distances would be different events and only get called when the gunfire is certain distances away. As for gunshot loops its mostly the same as above but there are usually 2 events: Loop Start - The start event could have like a shot or mech one off sound and the start of the loop itself, this can be triggered for instance like when the fire button is pressed. Loop Stop - The loop stop will have a one off like the last shot or the tail of the shot as well as the call to stop the loop, which can be called when the fire button is released for example. 2. Ideally the rendered samples have the exact right amount of space before starting that you want, like if the gun fires the frame after the fire button is pressed you'd also want your sample to start immediately and not have any space before hand. (As it will play from the start of the sample, not the start of any audio, which can also be changed and edited/faded in Wwise anyways). Mono, Stereo, Quad whatever you want just as long as they are consistent and make sure to leave space after in the render in case of reverb or effect tails, don't want any sudden cut outs or pops/clicks! This is a big oversimplification of course haha, this is more the process and basic idea to get it to play correctly. There is so much more you can do in Wwise in terms of real time effects, volume and distance manipulation, layers and so much more! Hopefully this was helpful and made some sort of sense!

[@THEYEAR2143]

@@mattgault2899 Thank you so much for the detailed answer!

[@rzen1th503]

great stuff, dude

[@rinyas]

Amazing video

[@AlexiaDehShark]

Are there any other sites hat can to get gun sounds that dont cost a litteral money just to get sounds

[@mattgault2899]

The only places I could think of that may help would be Freesound.org (user uploaded free samples) and signing up for BOOM Libraries monthly free samples which can sometimes include weapon content. Recording firearms is an expensive process so most gun content will be paid. Hope this helped! :)

[@flix717]

Thanks for the video! but where do you actually get the foley recordings from? do you record them yourself?

[@mattgault2899]

Thanks! So you can absolutely record them yourself (for example a lot of the foley was nerf gun handling) but sites like BOOM library, ASoundEffect etc, have some great sample packs of actual weapon handling.

[@mattgault2899]

Sorry I didn’t see this comment till now, my apologies! I use Reaper as my DAW and Sony Vegas for video editing. As for DAWs I think they all work and it’s whatever one you like the most (although reaper is the most affordable) and as for video editions I think DaVinci Resolve is free and does everything you’d need it too! Hope this helps! :)

[@silahlkomando121]

where can i find mech or bass sounds?

[@mattgault2899]

So I know BOOM and the Recordist have some great mech libraries but you can also use anything like tools, containers and other randoms bits and bobs. As for bass it’s just a kick drum sample so any music packs are good and there are a ton of free music libraries out there. Hope this helps!

[@G9D2]

Great video! Appreciate the breakdown a lot. Can I ask how you approached making the tail sounds?

[@mattgault2899]

Thanks! So as far as approaching tail sounds go I first think of the weapon, the bigger it is the deeper and longer the tail lasts (single shot weapon might have a slapback delay on them too) where as smaller weapon have a sharper shorter tail. Then I’ll look at the environment, what’s the pre delay going to be, is it forested or a valley, is it enclosed and if so then how much sound should reflect and what are the materials in the space. Basically I figure out: Size and power of the tail -> what is the space -> how reflective would the area be. Then it’s just iterating on the details so give the weapon some more character like adding synthetic layers for a sci-fi gun or adding low end or high end to convey the weight and power or speed and danger of the weapon, also to help differentiate between weapons. Hopefully this made some sort of sense and was a little helpful!

[@00.Emergency.00]

Thx ✌️

[@RogueBeatsARG]

Making gun sounds out of Garand Thumb videos cause libraries are expensive lol

[@mr.pineapple8735]

You should try AfterTouch Audio libraries, they're really cheap

[@notwods]

I wanna be like you when I grow up

[@SillyAnimalsDen]

Are the package are free to use into making a game? or you just showing it to us where to look game sound effects?

[@mattgault2899]

So if I am understanding the question correctly, the free packs I have linked are more to design sounds for games. The tools and packages to design the games themselves are separate, although I do think there is enough free stuff around to be able to make a basic game. Hope this helps! :)

[@massaBeard]

Hey Matt, I'm making a battle royale and need more realistic weapon sounds. Are you open to discussing a potential job?

[@dewanxt]

I need iw4x gun sounds

[@theonewhoshines]

you can do reload sounds?

[@TheSorrow55]

did you work on WWISE before ??

[@mattgault2899]

I’m currently working with/learning Wwise but I haven’t specifically worked on Wwise before if that’s what you’re asking :)

[@TheSorrow55]

@@mattgault2899 i just i want ask you how i can install Opus codec on wwise in thier site they have some info about it beside pcm + vorbis but when i want convert wav there is no opus its just pcm and vorbis + adpcm , that is confused me

[@mattgault2899]

Unfortunately I’m still a beginner myself so I’m not too sure. Might be a platform thing or possibly only available when using a commercial version (as in you’ve paid for it to use on a commercial product) Sorry I couldn’t be more help!

[@TheSorrow55]

@@mattgault2899 its ok bro i find the way its simple , and they never explain that to u in the site

[@faxx_8848]

3:55 software name?

[@mattgault2899]

That’s my DAW of choice Reaper! (With the Hydra theme/skin)

[@faxx_8848]

@@mattgault2899 thank u :D

[@NEAProds.GameCentralHub]

Are there any alternative software to make the Gun sound effects? I have also downloaded the sound effects that had all the different parts of guns, and see if it can be done in other software such as audacity. It's for my own projects too by the way. I want to learn as much as possible. @@mattgault2899

[@legitnub]

this might be a stupid question but what software are you using in this video?

[@mattgault2899]

Not a stupid question at all! I’m using Reaper as my DAW, Soundly as a library organizer and then Sony Vegas for video editing.

[@legitnub]

thank you!

[@matlarasta]

Hey ! Where can I buy ?

[@mattgault2899]

Hey! Unfortunately I cannot sell these sounds due to licensing. Sorry! If you are looking to but the sounds I used to make them then BOOM library and ASoundEffect have great weapon sound libraries.

[@matlarasta]

@@mattgault2899 thanks 👍

[@toobox1774]

gg

[@realmcafee]

i just steal them from everywhere and ask one of the many delusional musicians i barely know that they should help me edit them.

[@Ra1d1k-c2v]

булочька с сосиською чай бутерброд

[@seamus7d]

i actually hate guns that sound so fake

[@shaka5962]

Zzz

[@zpJose]

Amazing video