How I Design Awesome Gun Sounds | My Sound Design Process

Had some people ask how I design gunshots so I thought I'd throw together a little video on my process. Hope you find it helpful!

00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Prep & Resources
03:05 - Gunshot Breakdown
07:38 - Foley Breakdown
09:46 - Closing Thoughts

- Mark Kilborn & Pro Sound Effects:

- Mark Winter has de-activated his twitter so the thread is unfortunately unavailable.

- Aftertouch Audio:

- Marshall McGee:

- My Apex White Noise Redesign:

- My Stuff:

[greenguydubstep]

time to make tearout dubstep with this

[SpetzyMations]

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

[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).

[soundrogue]

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.

[goodusername]

I'm using this video a LOT, here's the timestamps of the Gunshot Breakdown

3:05 - Start
3:12 - Explaining the layers

3:55 - Transient
4:48 - Kick (What is he using for this? I'm using a kick drum)
5:13 - Mech
6:20 - Tail

[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.

[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.

[chrisnka]

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

[tsunamix]

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

[sainterasmus]

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 :)

[hermando]

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

[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]

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.

[bluposnr]

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!

[sankarkdk]

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

[KabioSound]

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

[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 Youtuber talking about gun sounds for videos.

[I-AM-LXL-]

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

[NeverQNF]

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

[lucafardelli]

Very helpful Matt, keep the great work! 🙌