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:

 

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Magnetophon

$10

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Advanced Propulsion

$99

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Universal Emotes

$119 $90

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Computer Sounds: Sci-Fi Minipack

$10

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Latest releases:  

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  Foley Sanitize Play Track 19 sounds included $15 $12

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  We have created a small library to help with the ongoing need for safety videos during this strange time in our lives. From hand sanitizer’s to spray bottles, we have compiled a library to cover all forms of day to day sanitizing.

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  Cars A Modest Porsche – 2020 911 “992” Carrera S Play Track 198 sounds included $20 $12

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  Jump in a hot-off-the-assembly-line 2020 Porsche 911 “992” Carrera S from the comfort of your home or studio chair. This library won’t lose a cent of value when you drive it off the lot!

  Great for linear work or games – especially since it includes an easy-to-use Interior vs. Exterior mockup folded down to 2-channel files (ISO’s also included separately).

  This is our premiere foray into sound libraries here at Steamboat Sound, and we worked real hard to make it equally high-quality and easy-to-use – we hope you enjoy!

  Recordings include:

  Mockup channel order (panned, for easy editing in NLE):
  Channel 1 (left) – Exterior
  Channel 2 (right) – Interior

  Isolated tracks of all Exterior and Interior perspectives on idles, revs, engine starts & stops, various speeds, and more!

  Interior knobs, buttons, dials, seatbelts, sunroof, turn signals, buttons, windshield wipers, door open/close.

  Recorded with industry-standard equipment used on theatrical films and name-brand commercials, for your listening pleasure.

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  Materials & Texture Magic – Arcane Forces Play Track 3,700 sounds included From: $109

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  MAGIC SOUND EFFECTS REDEFINED
   
  Enter the world of MAGIC – ARCANE FORCES, where supernatural entities can be heard raging with ultimate power and fury. The distinctly forceful and kinetic character of this comprehensive sound effects library and its designs is supported by countless pristine source recordings of the elements being pushed to their limits. Whether in post production or sound design for games, MAGIC – ARCANE FORCES gives you the edge on the other side.

  WHAT’S INSIDE:
  INCLUDED SOUNDS – KEYWORDS
  ACID, ARCANE, BARRIER, BREATH, BUFF, CURSED, DEBUFF, DIVINE, ELECTRIC, ENERGY, FIRE, GLASS, ICE, IMPACT, LIGHT, LIQUID, METAL, PROCESSED, PROJECTILE, RUMBLE, SEQUENCE, SUMMON, SWEETENER, SWISH, TELEPORT, TEXTURE, VOICE, WATER, WHOOSH, WIND
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  Footsteps The Shoe Collection: Soft Hardwood- Woman’s Knee-High Boot Play Track 620+ sounds included $12 $10

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  “The Shoe Collection: Soft Hardwood – Woman’s Knee-High Boot“ by Periscope Post & Audio, provides 22 high quality footsteps on soft hardwood floors with the knee-high boot.  The audio files are recorded at 24bit, 192k with mono and stereo recordings.  The Sennheiser MKH-60 was used for the mono files with a slightly more distant mic placement than the stereo files, which were recorded with the Sennheiser MKH8050 and the Sennheiser MKH-30 near the shoe.  From different walking speeds, to jogging, sprinting, jumping, hard stops, scuffs, and more!  There are several performances with each file to fit the right action you need.  That’s a whopping 620 footsteps between the mono and stereo files!

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  Vehicles The Pulse Jet Snowmobile Play Track 28 sounds included $179

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  Recording of the Pulse Jet Snowmobile. Powered by a 50 Hz Pulse ethanol/water jet engine the same used by a WW2 V-2 rocket.

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  The Pulse Jet Snowmobile sound collection shares 28 clips of field recordings in 1.42 gigabytes of audio. Powered by a 50 Hz Pulse ethanol/water jet engine the same used by a WW2 V-2 rocket, this bundle presents the snowmobile racing at extreme speeds for a mix of perspectives.

  Both onboard and exterior perspectives are shared in two takes. The exterior perspectives arrange microphones at a mix of distances at the beginning, end, and middle of the racing strip. The onboard microphones were positioned onboard the body and at the jet engine to portray steady fast driving, with bonus custom mixes of the onboard and exhaust tracks.

  The sound library includes iXML, Soundminer, BWAV, and MacOS Finder embedded metadata, metadata keyword import files for 7 languages, and Pro Tools and Reaper mixing sessions.

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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