The Sound of Adventure: A Guide to Soundscaping
Eight a.m. on a New York City morning is an assault on my ears: the indecipherable drone of the MTA conductors, the screeching rails as the train crosses over the bridge, Drake crooning through speakers that one rider refuses to turn off. The only way I’m able to make it through my commute is to pop in my noise-cancelling headphones, press play on a new podcast, and get whisked away into a world far, far from the W train.
When Eric, Amanda, Michael and I started our fantasy storytelling podcast Join the Party, I knew I wanted to give our listeners that escape. It wasn’t enough to deliver on plot, character development, or goofs. I wanted our listeners to really feel the tension and immediate danger of an all-out battle, or the tranquillity of a late night rooftop stargazing session.
The trouble was, how do I make a world feel tangible solely through sound?
THE LITERAL AND THE FIGURATIVE
There are two schools of sound design: diegetic and non-diegetic. Are your sounds mostly in-world, where we hear everything you’re describing, or do we hear a soundtrack that your characters don’t? In audio jargon, your sound design can be diegetic — internal and descriptive — or non-diegetic — external and mood-enhancing.
Does the protagonist know that there’s a somber piano piece playing behind her depressing monologue? Is her friend in the other room literally playing the piano? Which is more effective? Make the wrong call and things can get cheesy fast.
Scripted podcasts can be divided by their leanings towards diegetic or non-diegetic sound design. Turn on an audio drama like Wolf 359 and you’ll hear diegetic choices: every door slam, every click of a gun, and every alarm siren. You’re in the spaceship right alongside the comms officer and captain, trying not to die at every malfunction. Hit play on the latest episode of a documentary-style podcast like Invisibilia and you’ll hear an intensely engaging narrative that’s heightened by its use of music and sound design. You might not hear every sound effect, but the non-diegetic design begs you to feel what the music suggests.
Join the Party offered me a unique challenge. We flip back and forth between in-world storytelling and out-of-world discussion, and, what’s more, the hosts play themselves out-of-game and play their character in-game. My goal was to create an immersive experience without melting into fondue. To achieve this, I used three main tools.
SPACE
The real world has directionality and depth, so why shouldn’t podcasts?
To create a sense of direction, I pan the sound, or skew it to the left or right. To create depth, I use convolution reverb, a plugin effect that artificially re-creates the sound and feel of being in a room (or a car, or a dungeon, or a twelfth century church — almost anywhere). It works by loading an impulse response into a reverb plugin (really great and free impulse responses can be found in the OpenAIR library) and dialing in the amount of reverb you want.
Impulse responses are how convolution reverb plugins work their magic. Quite literally, someone traveled to a space, like the Taj Mahal or their mother’s basement, set up some speakers and recording equipment, and recorded a loud click sound. The click is the impulse and the response is what’s recorded after — the reverb, the characteristics of the room itself. The plugin does some magic with the click sound file and turns it into a natural, real-feeling reverb that can be used to transport a voice anywhere you want. In comparison to artificial, code-generated reverbs (which have their place, too!), this create a tangible sense of realism. My go-to plugin for this effect is Audio Ease’s Altiverb, but Waves’ IR-L is a much cheaper and also solid alternative.
In the first scene of Join the Party, we meet our three heroes in a dark, dank prison. They’re in a cell in the corner of the room, and there’s a guard stationed near the center of the room, slightly off to the right. First, I “made” the room using convolution reverb. I chose an impulse response that recreated a big, concrete room with hard surfaces. Next, I panned the heroes’ voices off to the left (about 40% or so) and the guard’s voice off to the right (about 20%). I now had four characters that sounded like they were in a dungeon prison and some distance apart.
SOUND EFFECTS + ATMOSPHERE
For Join the Party, I made the decision that I would only use diegetic sound effects to emphasize a joke or a story beat. I wanted to avoid any sound effects that would distract from the narrative — in oral storytelling they’re unnecessary and, since this is a fantasy world, I’d rather let the listener decide what their vision of the world sounds like.
In the opening scene, I wanted to further reinforce the feel of being in a prison without adding the distraction of clanking chains or metal doors. I added in slow, dripping water and the small squeak of a mouse — two sounds that a listener might not expect. If a listener notices these little touches, fantastic. If not, she’ll still get the feel of a prison cell. These sound effects came from Adobe Audition’s free sound library, and I gave them the convolution reverb treatment, too.
MUSIC
Music can add emotional depth to any scene, but it can quickly turn from helpful to harmful if used improperly.
In this opening scene, the listener is dropped into a brand new world with characters she’s never met before and has no attachments to. How is she supposed to feel? Is it mysterious that they’re in a prison? Is it a fast-paced, dire situation? A music cue here could help inform the listener about what to expect.
But, sometimes, the best music is no music at all. In our scene, the heroes are confused about why they’re in prison, but they don’t seem to be in danger. Join the Party’s theme plays right before this scene, so I decided not to add any additional music. I wanted to give the listener the opportunity to try to solve the mystery of what’s happening alongside our heroes.
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These are subtle additions, but to me, they’re well worth the time and effort. I want our characters to live in reality. I want them to sound and feel as lively, complex, and weird as your friends and family do, quirks and all. And if I can achieve that, maybe you’ll come to love our characters as much as you do your friends and family. That’s when our podcast becomes more than a podcast for our listeners. That’s when it becomes an escape from a bad day or an annoying co-worker and an invitation into a world that feels like home.
To hear the scene referenced in this article, check out Join the Party’s first episode, “Wedding Party I.” If you’re new to Dungeons and Dragons, learn the rules while listening along with the episode titled, “BEGINNERS START HERE! Wedding Party I.”
– Brandon
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
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