All language subtitles for Sword Combat Sound Design Tutorial ｜ Ghost of Tsushima

Hi there David here from David
David audio.com.

And in this video I'll be showing you
how to create some sort of combat sound

effects by breaking down a redesign I did
from the video game Ghost of Tsushima.

So I actually took a little combat
sequence.

I redesigned it,

put in all of my own sounds,
and I'll show you later by later

what I used, how
I used it, how process did

so that by the end of this video,
you'll be able to go

and use your own sound effects,

record your own sound effects, and
and create your own sword sound.

Combat sound effects.

All right, so before we jump into it,

if you are a sound designer,
I have a little gift for you.

It is my five layering techniques guide.

This is a guide of different
layering techniques

that are used to create sound effects
and other professionals use as well.

So, if you want to, I'll be free.

Links will be in the description below.

All right. Let's get into our project.

All right.

So here we are, within Reaper.

And, this is the little sequence I have,
and I like I normally like to start,

I like to play a bit of the original game
audio so that we can listen to what,

is in the actual game,

and then I'll play you my redesign,
and then we'll go from there.

So, for this video, actually,
I won't be playing the whole,

of the video here
because there is some talking in there.

So, unfortunately I won't be able

to play the whole thing,
but I'll play a little clip.

So just we have some ideas of

of the quality of sounds
and the types of sounds over here.

So let's have a listen here. I'm.

I've done,

All right.

So there's a little bit
of the original game audio.

And now let's have
a listen to the redesign.

One more time.

Yeah.

All right,
so that's the full redesign there.

Not very long, but, a lot to go over here.

So why don't we start?

You know what?

Let's start with something simple here,

which is just going to be the background
ambiance.

I usually end with this,
but I'll start with it here,

just because it kind of sets
the tone for the scene.

Obviously it's
raining outside a little bit, dark. So,

what I did is
I had a recording that I had done,

from, at my house when it was, the
when there was some rain outside.

So, this is the recording here.

And then what I did is

I just added some track space around here,
and it's very low, ratio here.

You can see it's at 9.5.

And basically what I'm putting in
there are all the sound effects,

all the,
the weapon swings and metal impacts

and all of that, is going through this
channel so that it kind of,

because I want
those to be more important than the rain.

So the rain is kind of a background thing.

But yeah.

So, so that's all that's doing there.
Nothing. Nothing complex here.

I recorded this with the little music
pro's, microphones with my zoom F6,

and and that's it.

So it's, it's just my own little recording
I did here.

All right, let's jump into some of these
sound effects that I created here. So,

right, right at the beginning here.

I started off with this, with this sound.

So let's have a listen to it,
and then it will break it down.

All right.

So for these sound effects,
for these, like, swords,

sounds, there's a few different layers
that I like to use.

So let's go over these.

So the for the first one
here that it uses this one

and it's just a swing.

So I don't remember what I saw here.

I think what I did here was a
I had a metal pole

and it kind of
had like a hole in the middle.

So it kind of created this,
like tonal sound.

So it sounded really nice
and so that is the swing sound.

That's the swing portion.

And again
here you can see I had a track spacer

just so it doesn't mask
any of the other elements in here.

So I'm putting I think
probably this element through in here

so that it doesn't mask it.

So that's the first layer.

Next one here we have

some some sword sound.

So the way I created this was actually
just scraping two knives together.

And then also I also had a knife impact.

So I had like knives
hitting knives together.

And then so that's what I did.
So I scraped them.

That was like one recording
and then the impact

and that was the other recording put them
together. And that's how I got this.

So this is like it's
kind of a design design sound already.

But I just kind of stuck it in here
because it's all kind of nice.

So it was like the other.

So you get

the whoosh
and then you get the metal, scrape impact.

And then I just wanted to emphasize
that quite a bit more.

So here I have some other metal sounds.

So again this is emphasizing a bit lower

frequencies, lower pitch together.

Right.

So you get to get a fuller
sound with that.

And then you also have this one here.

This is more of a,

it's a, I guess a more of a blunt sound.

So you get the, the sound level of the
like you're hitting, a metal

something that's,
that's a bit harder and more blunt.

Right.

So it just helps that, again,

you're kind of filling out the frequency
of the sound, help filling out,

it makes the sound feel bigger.

And then the last element here

and this one's kind of optional.

It is a, an impact
sound, like a kick type of sound.

So let's let's have a listen here.

So you can see here let's look at some of
the processing on that I did on this.

So I did some tweaking here because
of probably some resonant peaks here.

Let's have a listen.

Yeah.

You can hear there's like this
a peak right at around 300.

If I take it off it, you don't hear it.

Right.

And then I just reduce some of the bass

because it was probably a bit
too busy again here putting,

track spacers so that it doesn't clash
with any of the other layers.

No masking going on,

and then that's pretty much it.

So this layer,
I actually created this using,

a technique that I like to use
to create new sound effects.

I'll link it up in the cards above,
but basically, I create a whole bunch

of, like, weird sounds,
and then I go in, chop them up,

and then I basically created
a kick out of this,

but I kick, I say, it's a kick.

It's like, same idea.

I was like, I'm pitching down,

the sound really fast.

So you get kind of this impact on
and then a process and stuff like that.

Anyway, so I'll put a link for the video

if you're interested
to see how I created this.

But this is it here.

It almost doesn't feel like it
fits in the video.

Like in the, in the, in the scene here.

But if you so if you take it off

let's have a listen with it off.

And then I'll put it back on
so we can hear the difference.

So that sounds okay.

It sounds sounds fine,

but you're just missing the weight
of the impact of the of the hit.

So with this on now right.

You really get that weight that,
that that just helps

to make it punch you in the chest
and makes it just sound so much better.

So that's what that is doing there.

And I did that for pretty much every time
there was a sword hit or clang.

All right. So that is that first sound.

And you can see there's three elements
that I like to use.

There's the woosh.

There's the the metal scrapes,
the metal hits and then the kicks

or sorry, like four elements,
I guess you could say. Right.

And you're going to see this happening
for all of these sort of impact sounds.

So that's, that's the first one here.

Next, what I'm going to do
is they're going to be the same thing.

So let's have a listen to this one here.

So this is the second one.

Right.

So again
I still want to have something similar.

So we'll see here this again
another war sound.

It's probably something similar

from the same recording session
that I did for the previous one.

So just so there's that kind of continuity
and sound, if you will.

So there's that wish.

And then here I have that metal impact,

okay.

That's more high frequency content
right there.

Sounds good.

This one's more mid.

And you can see here I did have an EQ.
Let's see what I'm doing.

Yeah. So I'm just kind of reducing
a bit of the lows here.

So if I take it off

right you have that sub.

And I didn't really need it there
because I knew

I was going to add
some sort of kick after that.

So that's why I took it off from here.

So now with these two.

And then with the wish.

Right.

And then finally the last element here
is going to be our kick.

Right.

So that's that's the sound here.

Again it sounds kind of extreme.

You don't need it technically
I'm saying need it. You don't need it.

You could use some other kind of sub
element here or some other kick or punch

or impact sound here.

But I find that these have been,
like these worked really well.

At least I like them.
I like the style of them.

But again, you could definitely experiment
and try to replace it with different,

different like, impact sounds here.

So altogether now we have this again.

You can see here, similar elements here.

You have your, your wish to metal hits
to fill out the frequencies of the metal.

This one's more pitch down. And then,
of course, you have your hit down here.

Right.

So now, together with these two.

Right.

You have these, different pitches,
different frequencies being accentuated,

especially here.

It's a bit lower than the second one here
is going to be higher.

Right. You don't want it to sound same.

So that's that's that's you
can you can hear it obviously.

And you can tell
because I'm using different samples here.

So all right let's move on to now
the next impact sounds here,

which is down here.

All right.

So let's have a listen to this one here.

So this one, I started to,
just kind of change up a bit.

So let's have a
listen to what I have here.

So, I'm pretty sure there's some other.

I feel like there's missing a sound, like,
right when it hits here.

Okay,
so this here is part of the fourth one.

So I'm going to actually move this up
into this fourth folder here.

There we go. Okay.

So that's the sound.

Let's have a listen to these layers here.

Again this is a design metal hit.

Again
these are just sorts that I took together.

Layered them up,
pitch them down differently.

And so they're just a bit basically
stacked different sort of impact sounds.

Sorry I sort I mean knives.

So I just recorded
a bunch of different knives at my house,

layer them, pitch them, and,
put it together.

Sounds like this.

So that's a cool sort sound.

Then here I did something different
instead of having a wash, I actually

or sorry, like a swing sound from like
swinging stuff in front of my microphone.

I actually used a wash.

So the reason I did that,
or at least my thought behind it

originally
when I was doing the redesign, is that

because now we're switching
to the main character attacking,

I want it to have a different feel
for the sound.

I wanted to have a sound
that was more aggressive, more powerful.

So that's why I'm using a wash.

It's a bit fuller
and a bit more, aggressive.

At least that was my idea behind it.

I'm not sure if it came across that way.

But yeah, that's how what I would do here.

So that's that right there.

And then the last here.

That's the last layer again.

Yeah.

That that kick that, that
just kind of fills out the low end.

If we look at processing for this one
here.

I have some track space here.

And it's probably being

I as I'm probably using this layer here
to cut through here

or actually maybe both of them to onto
here so that as soon as as the impact hits

it ducks this wash sound, because I just
don't need it at that point.

It's really the wash is really there

just to accentuate
like the going into the, the sort impact.

And then here.

Yeah. So I cut out a lot of the
lows. So if I take that out.

It's really low.

I really just needed that,
that top portion.

So all together now.

So that's impact number three.

That's from the main character.

And then let's go into impact number
four here.

Here we go.

All right.

So here again I use the same wash sound.

Because again like I said before

I want to make the character
have a different kind of power to it.

So same
processing is going on on this wash,

but here I use something a bit different,
which was I recorded, some metal.

I get knife sound, but this time I want
to use something that were ringing a lot.

And the reason for that is because

you have this final hit here
where it kind of gets deflected,

right?

And it kind of lasts a long time
before they keep attacking.

And also, just from the original, video,
I know you can't hear, but,

there was that that kind of like,
sort of ringing sound.

It was actually a lot more accentuated
that, this one, but that that's why

I wanted to kind of
imitate a similar effect here.

So let's have a listen to here.

So that is the sound, the sword sound.

And I have a few things going on here.

I, I'm not sure I'm using this

okay. Yeah.

So I am using this
I was using this to pan.

I mean I could have just used the pan.
I don't know why I use this.

Anyway, I use the plugin to pan
the sound to the right,

because the player moves to the right
after the effects.

Right.
So the sword is kind of on the right,

and I'm
pretty sure I'm doing the same thing.

No, I'm not doing the same thing
there. Yeah. So that's what this is doing.

Here I have a filter.

Just because I don't I guess I didn't
want the entirety of the sound.

So if you take it off.

No, it's still sound is about the same.

So it must have been
because I really wanted

to accentuate the frequency
that is ringing, which is right here.

So I found out where it was, put it.

I put the filter there
and kind of did a small peak.

It's really not very much,
but it helps to bring it out a little bit.

All right.

Next we have this one.

So again a lower frequency to

to match this higher frequency hit

together.

Good.

And then lastly here again another impact.

And you'll notice like every time I have
a different like low kick or low impact

sound, they're all a bit different right.

They're not sounding all the same
because they're

it just would
distract the player's attention

because it'd just be really obvious that
everything is starting to sound the same.

So they're all a little bit different.

They're all have
a different quality to them.

And yeah.

So now if I play all these
the same, sorry.

All these.

Well that's the sound.

So again you'll notice a similar thing.

You'll have a water swing.

Some metal hits usually have at least two.

One for high frequency, one for low.
Sometimes I'll have three.

And then I have some sort of kick
to to fill out that sub.

All right.

Let's go over some of the,
some of the Gwar sounds.

There was actually some more sword
sound, so.

But what I did for these,
they were actually already pre,

pre-made sounds.

So if we listen here.

So that's the sound that I predesigned
it's all baked into one.

So actually already
I just dropped it in here.

Same thing with this one here.

But again

it's all the same same kind of layers
that I used.

Just different. Different sounds.

Different, recordings that I did
and then put them in here and in terms of,

like editing or, processing,

I'm taking off a little bit of the low
end for these,

probably
because they're like way too busy.

I just didn't need it to be that much.

And same thing with this last one down
here,

right? That was the final one.

And this is kind of the final blow.

And then we have
all of these core elements.

And then so let's go over some of these.

So let's go over this one here.

So this one is just a sound that I made
with my mouth.

And yeah, it's just a, it's
just that kind of bring out some

I mean, maybe the characters like dying,
but also as I tried

to make it kind of sound like, gory
or like bloody or something like that.

Yeah.

So you kind of can't hear it,
but it's in there.

The other sound I have here is.

So that's,
that's the final swing afterwards.

So this is the final.

That's this the first of

that's the second one.

Again, everything is baked into these.

And then I have this one here.

So I guess this one
I wanted to have more of a swing sound.

So that's what that one is.

So this is a wash

that's helping to accentuate this.

So without it.

All right.

All right.

Let's actually go into some of these core
sounds here because there's quite a few.

So let's play it all together
and then I'll break it down.

All right.

So let's go with this one here.

So a lot of these
I didn't actually design them.

So I'm just going to play them
and show you what they are.

But these are all from, library I think
I think they're from different libraries.

But. Yeah. So this is the first one here.

So this is like the initial, like slash,

the first, like wound.

To mark that, he's going
to, you know, kill the player.

So you have this deep sound here.

You have some more blood dripping.

So this is for like after the,
the the wound sound.

Yeah.

This one here.

Right.

That's the main body of the sound.

Like,
if I take this off, you'll probably like,

you'll probably tell, like, it's
very basic.

Yeah, but it sounds very bare.

So this is like the main sound of the,
the blood.

I kind of just drop this in here as is,

I think this is from sound morph.

Yeah.

Let's go into this one here

again.

This is an impact sound
just to mark the hit

kind of matches with that.

Right.

Just very impact.

Right.

And then finally when the body falls
I have another one here, which is this.

So that's that's the final file
actually this lesser from the bottom.

So here we have.

So there's two parts to this
like this fall.

There's that when the player falls on it
on the knees and then on the ground.

So I wanted them to to sound different

and to have different weights to them

obviously
because they're not going to be the same.

So when he falls on his knees,
I need it to be a bit lighter.

And then finally when he falls here

on the ground, it's
going to be the heaviest fall.

So here is the knee fall.

And you can see there's two parts to it
the knees.

And then when he falls on the ground
and you can hear both and on here

I just put on some

you just to cut out some of the lows
because it's a little basic but that's it.

And then after that
if we have this one here.

So this
one is to bring out some of the bass.

So let's let's actually take this off
for now

because I'm just going
to focus on this one.

And then we'll bring it back in.

And then this is the final body.

And this is actually just some

gore like a gore sound effect
some gore juices and stuff.

And yeah.

So I just cut out some of the lows here,
some of the highs

to make it fit within the scene.

So didn't sound so close to the player,
so bright.

So if I take this off

right,
it sounds kind of really in-your-face.

I love it too much.
So that's why I did that.

Here I added some,

some other effects. Let's have a look.

So what I did is I just pushed it down
a little bit here.

You can see 2.3 and that's it.

So that's what this is doing here.

Yeah. It's cutting out some of the lows,
some of the highs.

So it's not so bright, not so dark.

And then,

pushing it down a little bit.

Then, with this one.

I just felt like it was missing
a little bit of bass.

It's very subtle,
but I added this in to fill in that.

That sub.

So that's what that is doing there.

Again, you can see here I'm cutting out
pretty much everything with.

So if I, if I put this to,

if I solo it by itself

with it off

with on. Right.

So this is just like a kick sound.

I just wanted the support.
So that's what I did with the filter

and that's pretty much it.

So these three together.

There you go.

So now if you play all of these sounds
let's do everything together.

And then I'll go over this
final element here.

Yeah.

So the final sound here
that kind of brings

everything together is this one here.

And this is the sound of, of that
like the death

trick or what
I'm calling the death strike.

Basically, when he hits the player
and the player basically is going to die.

Right.

You have this subbass
kind of ringing sound.

And the way I created this,
I'll actually show you over here.

I, created this, this long file.

I'll show you here.

So this is how I created.
So I opened up, like, face by here.

I just put a sine wave on, sine wave on.

I put on space, Valhalla space modulator.

And you can see I'm using, a modulation
parameter.

Then I'm modulating all these parameters
with, like, random amounts.

So now when I'm playing,
I also have portal on here.

I picked a preset.

That's the sound I'm getting
so I can play like across my keyboard.

I probably played really low

and then I printed it out.

And that's what you can see here.
I printed it out.

All right.

So once it was printed out,

then what I could do is bring it back
into, Reaper and interface point again.

And this time I used, a sampler.

So I brought it in, use the sampler.

And now what I can do is
I can kind of search through the file here

and then play across my keyboard
to get some cool sounds,

and that's how I found it.

So if I look here and play
some sounds for.

Right.

So I'm playing with all my keyboard
right now so I can get these.

So some of them are way too tonal,
way too high.

But some of them sound really good.

I'm kind of I'm using Uber loud here

just to make it a bit louder.

But that's how I did it.

So I exported a few of these,
and one of them

I brought back to my session here
and it was this one.

So you can see there's there's
no processing or anything.

I'm just putting in
a, a fade in and fade out and that's it.

And that's how I created so

yeah.

So now once I had this in place,

the last thing that was really obviously
missing was some of the voices,

which is just like it's just me

doing some really bad voice acting, Yeah.

Right.

Stuff like that and then some footsteps
and these.

I really didn't spend much time on them.

I didn't really want to focus
too much on the footsteps.

I just put some here because it was really
obvious during this quiet area, but,

these are basically like milk bags
that I was crunching around the microphone

that I had on my computer
from one of my other libraries.

And, yeah. So there's no processing.

I just, I really dropped
it really quickly.

I could have spent a lot more in better
time on these, but

let's have a listen.

That's it.

So, super simple and, Yeah.

So let's have a listen over here
for the full redesign.

Now that we have,
we've gone through all the layers.

All right, so that is everything.

I hope you found
this video useful and valuable.

If you have any questions,
please feel free to leave them down below,

and I'll do my best to answer them.

And just a reminder to grab that.

The guide five Learning Techniques Guide.

And also if you're interested to see more,
sword sound design.

I did make a video, a while back
on, How to Create Your own custom sword

sounds and source means.

So I'll put that in the cards above here
if you're interested in seeing that.

All right. So that's it for now.
Thanks so much for watching.

I'll see you in the next video. Bye.