Turning raw audio into a structured system
I started recording sound effects for my brother’s indie game with a partial plan:
make noises → make them sound good → deliver a successful product
I had the basic idea in place. I needed sound effects, and I knew I could build a library with my own equipment. I anticipated that there would be unknowns, of course, but I was also not starting from whole cloth. I had experience with audio software, but sound effects were new.
At first it was just experimentation. I built a small tabletop isolation booth out of a cardboard box and lined it with the foam acoustic paneling that had come delivered inside of it. I set up a condenser mic by wiring it through a back corner of the box and started recording. Empty bottles, plastic tubes, tapping surfaces, sliding objects, even mouth sounds. Anything that could produce something interesting or usable.
Some of it worked. Some didn’t. Some worked in ways I didn’t expect. I also underestimated how quickly it would become difficult to manage at the pace I was recording.
After a few sessions, I had dozens of files. Sideclick_v.1, Sideclick_v.2, Crush_static_attack_v.1, Crush_static_attack_v.2. Some were trimmed, some weren’t. Some were usable, some weren’t, and it wasn’t always obvious which was which. Finding a specific sound started taking longer than recording it.
At that point, the problem wasn’t sound design anymore. It was organization.
From Recording to Editing
The work quickly split between Audacity and a simple tracking sheet in Google Sheets.
Raw recordings needed a lot of cleanup. I was trimming silence at the beginning and end, cutting out handling noise, and normalizing levels so sounds weren’t all over the place in volume. Some clips needed light compression to bring out quieter details. Others needed to be reduced because they spiked too hard.
I also had to start thinking about how these sounds would actually behave in-game.
Very long clips weren’t useful for most interactions. Short, responsive sounds worked better, especially for UI or repeated actions. That meant cutting clips down to tight lengths, often under a second for simple effects, and only letting longer sounds exist where they made sense.
File type mattered too. WAV files kept the quality intact and were better for editing and integration, while compressed formats like MP3 introduced artifacts that didn’t always hold up well in a game environment. That wasn’t something I thought about at the start, but it became important quickly.
Volume needed consistency as well. If one sound was significantly louder than another, it broke the experience. So instead of just making things “sound good,” I had to start thinking in terms of relative levels, keeping peaks controlled and outputs consistent across the library.
At this point, I wasn’t just editing audio. I was trying to make the files usable.
The Problem Becomes Visible
Even with cleaner files, some issues were still there.
I was using naming conventions, but they didn’t tell you much as an outside user. Or an inside user, for that matter. No clear grouping beyond naming. No way to tell, at a glance, what something was or where it belonged in terms of its use or purpose. Some files had been manipulated enough that slap-hit_v.2 and slap-hit_v.8 sounded completely different. Without the descriptive name, it would be impossible to tell that these sounds came from the same source.
The bigger issue was differentiation. My naming system was based on versions of a single source sound, but those versions could drift far enough apart that the names alone could stop being useful.
That’s when more extensive structure started to show up, not because I planned it, but because I needed it.
Building a Structure into the Work
The first organizational state was naming.
Instead of arbitrary file names, I started using simple patterns. The description of sound first, then its iteration. I needed to describe the sound first, not its potential use. Usage could be categorized later, but the sound itself was the stable reference point. Something like Laser_celery_v.4 or Zhuzh_v.7. Nothing complex, just enough to make the file understandable without opening it.
Sounds were labeled in a separate column by how they were created (Foley, vocalization, vocal effect, etc.). This made it easier to browse and also forced me to think about how each sound would actually be used. For instance, different character wordless vocalizations could potentially come from different sound sources. If I didn’t know where something belonged, I marked it in a separate column for potential use so I knew it wasn’t clearly defined yet.
From there, I started defining what “done” meant.
A usable sound needed to be trimmed, cleaned, and consistent in volume. It needed to be the right length for its purpose. It needed to be in the right format. Anything that didn’t meet those criteria wasn’t ready, even if it sounded good.
I also included details about the sound in terms of length, as well as a short description such as “cartoonish” or “haunting”. These descriptors were tracked in their own column, alongside another column noting how each variation changed from the previous one. For example, Wowow_v.1 contained four long pulses in mid-range, while Wowow_v.2 increased speed but still contained all four pulses, which were now shorter and higher pitched.
That led naturally into a simple process:
record → edit → trim → normalize → name → categorize → store → export
Nothing formal, but repeatable, with each entry including a file name, category, and notes on its usage. It became both a label and a reference point. If something needed to be updated or replaced, I knew where it lived and how it was being used.
Turning it into a System
Once the system existed, the process gained momentum and clarity. Organization frees up creativity. Systems make it easier to see both what you have and what’s missing. Using accurate naming and descriptions as you go, as part of your process, rather than after the fact, allows you more freedom to create and explore because everything else is already in place.
A shared folder structure made sense, with categories reflected in directories. Files lived where you expected them to be. Naming made them readable. The structure made them findable. Nothing complex. At that point, it stopped feeling like a collection of files and started operating like a system.
Not all of this was completely planned up front. It took a few iterations to understand what was needed. I didn’t start with requirements or a structure. I started by recording sounds and figuring things out as I went. The structure appeared because the work demanded it. Naming, categorization, and documentation weren’t separate steps. They were responses to problems that showed up along the way.
And once they were in place, the work changed. Finding sounds became faster. Using them became easier. Adding new ones didn’t create more chaos. The system held together.
What started as a creative exercise turned into something more structured than I expected. Not because I set out to design a system, but because I needed the work to be usable. The moment the number of files grew past what I could keep track of mentally, writing and structure became necessary.
A lot of work doesn’t begin with clear requirements or defined systems. It begins in a loose, experimental state, and structure comes later, usually in response to scale or confusion.
In this case, it came from trying to make a growing set of sound files something that could actually be used. And once it did, the work became easier.
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