5 sound design-focused YouTube channels worth following

AKASH THAKKAR

Akash Thakkar is an award winning composer/sound designer/public speaker who specializes in video game sound. He has an amazing backlog of short, focused sound tutorials that are a lot of fun to watch. Not only does he do great sound design but he also gives great career advice so you should also subscribe to his newsletter!

Notable videos:
Video Game Sound Design – 4 Essential Techniques
Making Horror Ambiences
Free Sound Design Tools

ROBERT DUDZIC

Robert Dudzic is a sound designer for Hollywood movie trailers (Infinity War!) as well as music libraries such as DAMAGE which he co-produced alongside Heavyocity and Native Instruments. Among his other videos, his “How I Use What I Use” series is a hands on, detailed look at how Robert records and manipulates his sounds. It looks like he’s just getting started bringing great educational content so let him know you want more!

Notable videos:
Creating organic drones
How I Use What I Use 4 – Horror trailer sound design
How I Use What I Use 5 – My creative process

INDEPTH SOUND DESIGN

Indepth Sound Design deconstructs film/TV sound (from the actual stems!) so that you can examine the intricate layers that go into quality sound design. There are also commentary layers so you can hear the various sound designers and re-recording mixers go into detail about how the different sounds and mixes were created. If you’re familiar with the Indepth Instagram page then you’ll be happy to know the YouTube videos are much higher quality and also feature 4K UHD picture.

Notable videos:
The Dark Knight Rises – “The Bat” aircraft sound design deconstruction
Terminator 2 – T-800 vs T-1000 sound design deconstruction
The Bourne Identity – Car chase sound design deconstruction
The Social Network – Trent Reznor vs. Elvis Costello music and sound design
 

Popular on A Sound Effect right now - article continues below:

 

1

Eclectic Whooshes 1

$24

2

Post Apocalyptic Trailer

$59

3

Urban Environment Guns - FIBUA - Fighting In Built-Up Area

$199

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Alarms

$39

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Latest releases:  

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  Nature & Countryside Birds and Nature Play Track 86 sounds included, 124 mins total $89

  Over two hours of birds, crickets, cicadas and frogs primarily from Southern Ontario, Canada, but also from Britain and Costa Rica. Specific calls and ambiences from the forest, the beach, the neighbourhood or on the dock of a quiet pond. Essential sounds to bring background tracks to life.

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  Trucks, Buses & Vans MAN Lion’s Coach 2015 Play Track 760 sounds included $249

  The 2015 German MAN Lion’s Coach tourist bus includes 760 clips in 41.05 gigabytes of audio. It features the sound of a 6-cylinder 460 hp Euro 6 diesel engine.

  The collection includes a total of 29 synchronized takes from exterior and onboard microphones. The exterior microphones captured departures, passes, arrivals, ignition, shutting off, idles, and doppler horns from 9 microphones at 4 positions. The onboard microphones were placed inside, at the exhaust, in the engine, the luggage hold, and in the washroom in 15 perspectives (including an Ambisonic perspective) as the coach drives at steady RPMs, with gearshifts, and ramps. Also provided are 4 designed mixes of the interior, exhaust, engine, and luggage compartment.

  The package comes complete with performed effects of doors, wipers, fans, and more, Pro Tools and Reaper mixing sessions, impulse responses, and full Soundminer, BWAV, and MacOS metadata embedded in every clip.

  Add to cart
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  Game Audio Packs & Bundles AAA Game Character Wizard Play Track 384 sounds included, 11 m mins total $39

  Fight the forces of evil and call upon arcane magic with a heroic protector of your fantasy world! Introducing Epic Stock Media’s new voice sound library “AAA Game Character Wizard”. This sound collection features an ancient male game character hero facing immeasurable odds. He’s a conduit of nature, wields a legendary staff, has magical abilities and enjoys saving the day!

  Library highlights:

  • 13 battle cries and sayings
  • 5 breathing types – exhausted, running, frantic, quiet
  • 16 coughing recordings – sickly, wheezy, deep, short, throat
  • 12 sad cries – short, explosive, pitiful, brokenhearted, sniffling, wailing
  • 108 immersive custom dialogue lines like by fire be purged, I am a servant of the sacred fire
  • 40 fight vocals – big, growl, swing, throw, groan, grunt, quick, painful
  • 25 jumping vocalizations – big, single, double jump, windup, painful
  • 21 Laughing voice files – chuckle, evil, confident, hearty, short, hilarious
  • 37 pain vocals – dying, wounded, hurt, and sayings
  • 107 stock dialogue lines like alright, affirmative, attack, no

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  Drones & Moods Dare_Small Pack Play Track 50 sounds included, 11 mins total $10

  “Dare” is a small pack of 50 atmospheric elements (WAV, 96kHz/24bit) suited for horror productions.

  Thanks to his dark tone, this library is great to induce tension, fear and oppression in your game, movie or trailer. If you want to evoke the sensation that someone or something is hiding and watching you, this library is great for you.

  The following musical instruments were used to create Dare: An Ukulele, Transverse flutes, a Kalimba and a Melodica.

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  Ships Container Ship Voyage Play Track 157 sounds included From: $64

  We had the chance to make the crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean on a cargo ship container (ATLANTIC STAR).
  We boarded in the Antwerp industrial port in Belgium, sailed the English Channel, and then stopped at Liverpool’s industrial port.
  Then we crossed the North Atlantic Ocean to reach Halifax, Canada. This trip took us 10 days, 10 days of sounds recording.

  Through this trip, we were able to access places that normally are closed to the public: industrial ports, and a container ship.

  -The completed sound bank (Stereo + Surround-Ambisonic) contains 154 files record in 24 bit / 96 kHz

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SYNTHHACKER

If you want to be a well rounded sound designer then you’ve gotta know your way around a synthesizer. Synths can give you ominous textures and 808 kick drums that can help your gunfire sounds pack a wallop. SynthHacker makes hyper focused synth design tutorials that cover a wide variety of styles. So watch that Justice style nu disco pad tutorial and then go make some serene sci-fi drones.

Notable videos:
How to make deep organic pad sounds
How to make Strangers Things style synths
How to make a Blade Runner synth lead

MARSHALL MCGEE

Marshall McGee is a sound designer at Avalanche Games that also makes videos about sound design for games, film, and TV (mostly games). His videos discuss how some iconic video games sounds are made as well as going into his own personal sound design experiments. Many of his posts have a video essay style feel and are extremely well edited and easy to watch.

Notable videos:
The sound design secrets of Horizon Zero Dawn
Making a powerful punch sound from scratch
The sounds of Uncharted