By now I think we can all agree that taking care of the audio assets of your game is an important element for your production. It helps enhance the overall experience and delivers a higher sense of immersion. For example, good music can help make your game more memorable, more fun, and can even make it stand out from other games.
However, it’s not always easy or obvious where to find the right audio assets for a game or even to decide which approach to take. This article aims to help you find the best options to source audio assets for a project.
- “1. Hiring Pros to get things done”
Hiring professionals that will not only spend time on the audio assets of your game but also do it with expertise they have studied to get is the best solution for sourcing music and sound fx. Though hiring a professional is not always an option for everybody, I truly believe that this is the best option any developer has.
Having someone there that will be responsible for the audio part of a project gives your game the opportunity to stand out. The professionalism shines through, and the payback is having a game that will be unique.
If you are looking for publishers and sponsors to be on your team, having a professional as the audio manager and provider makes it easier to show your investors that they are dealing with an experienced team.
- *2. Stock Music Libraries ** “Stock Sound Fx”
“Royalty free music”, “Stock Music” “Assets Libraries” “Audio Assets Packs” are all terms for pre-made audio assets.
These libraries span from top triple AAA audio productions to amateur level stuff. So make sure you know the quality provenance of the library you are sourcing from.
Since pricing can be a decisive factor, bear in mind: The downsides of stock audio assets is that they aren’t customised to your game and, therefore, likely won’t be a perfect fit. Also, it can be difficult to create consistency across a complete audio direction.
Furthermore, it can be quite time consuming to go through many tracks to narrow them down and find something suitable for your particular needs.
If you want to know more about it I have wrote an article regarding the PROs and CONs of using royalty free game audio assets (click to read it).
- Asking friends or a student
This is quite an obvious option, but let’s think about it for a bit. If you look for them, you’re sure to find students or amateur sound designers who’ll be excited to learn from what you’re developing. When you rely on someone to help you for free, it’s difficult to hold them accountable and make sure they deliver just what you need, just when you need it.
This can be perfectly fine if you’re trying things out for fun, but if you’re serious about getting your game out there, you might want dedicated people on your team.
Lack of technical abilities is also a common situation among amateurs. You will need to be patient and willing to invest time to guide them. You may have to spend a lot of time going back and forth until each track starts to sound like something you would like to use.
- Making it yourself
If you have all the required skills to create great music for your game, then I would definitely consider this as an option. Having the full creative control of your audio assets is awesome. You can decide what you want, when you want it, and when it’s good enough for your game.
The downside, however, is how much time you’ll have to dedicate solely to this endeavour. Other aspects of the game, and even of your life, will take a backseat to this task. Time management, that’s what we’re talking about here. Prioritizing and thinking carefully about how you want to spend your most precious asset. Making music can be incredibly fun if that’s your thing, but it’s very time consuming. So think carefully about what’s right for you.
Well, I hope this article was helpful to you. I’m glad you read it. Make sure to tell me more about your project visiting the section “Tell us More” of the website. I wanna hear about you and your visions for the game!
See ya!
