Editorial Overview
This book follows a pedagogical journey from foundational understanding through practical craft, strategic thinking, and professional practice. The structure is designed to serve multiple audiences: college students learning the discipline, private students seeking focused instruction, consulting clients understanding the field, potential employers evaluating expertise, and enthusiasts developing their practice.
(Introductory material, not Chapter 1)
- Who you are and why you're qualified to guide this journey
- What sound design is (and isn't)
- Who this book is for
- How to use this book (including the relationship to the workbook)
- A note on the philosophical approach and why it matters
- Defining the field
- The relationship between sound, meaning, and emotion
- Examples across different media
- What makes "good" sound design
- Evolution of the craft
- Key figures and innovations
- How technology shaped what's possible
- Where we are now and where we're headed
- The mechanics of hearing (physical)
- Psychoacoustics - how we perceive what we hear
- Critical listening as a skill
- Why this matters for design choices
- Following the path from air to ear
- Capturing: microphones and transducers
- Processing: from analog to digital and back
- Playback: speakers and listening environments
- Software ecosystems (DAWs, plugins, etc.)
- Sidebar: You don't need expensive gear to start
NEW CHAPTER - Bridge from theory to practice
- Setting up your workspace
- Recording your first sounds
- Basic editing and processing
- Creating a simple sound design (footsteps, door open/close, etc.)
- What you learned by doing it
- Multiple tutorial sidebars throughout
- Recording in the field vs. studio
- Synthesis basics (additive, subtractive, FM)
- Sampling and manipulation
- Layering and combining sources
- Processing and effects chains
- When to create vs. when to source
- First pass: getting something down
- Iteration: refinement and revision
- Working with feedback (from yourself and others)
- Knowing when you're done (or when to walk away)
- Managing multiple versions and staying organized
- Making things that don't exist sound real
- Creating variety without repetition
- Balancing clarity with complexity
- Working within technical constraints
- When the sound is "right" but doesn't feel right
- Recording for the library vs. recording for the project
- Organization and metadata strategies
- Commercial vs. self-recorded content
- Legal and ethical considerations
- Making your library work for you
- What does sound mean in your project?
- Realism vs. hyperrealism vs. abstraction
- The sound designer as storyteller
- When silence is the best design choice
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Who are you designing for?
- How will they experience it?
- Technical and creative constraints as creative partners
- How sound design relates to music and dialogue
- Frequency masking and spatial considerations
- Creating a cohesive sonic world
- When to lead, when to support, when to step back
- Collaboration with directors, designers, engineers
- Interactive vs. linear media considerations
- The user/viewer/player experience
- Design, narrative, and engineering as conversation partners
- Stereo thinking
- Surround and immersive formats
- Binaural and 3D audio
- Choosing the right approach for your project
- The difference between fixed and dynamic soundscapes
- Implementation considerations
- Designing systems vs. designing moments
- Working with game engines and middleware (if relevant)
- The realities of working in the field
- Balancing creative vision with client needs
- When to compromise and when to advocate
- Different working environments and expectations
- Team-based vs. solo work
- Resources, constraints, and creative freedom
- Building a personal brand vs. being a reliable collaborator
- The myth of the lone genius
- How the best sound designers actually work
- Making the transition (or not)
- Sustainable practices for the long term
- Protecting your hearing and your mental health
- When sound design serves your life vs. when life serves sound design
- Where the field has been and where it's going
- Emerging technologies and opportunities
- Building your own path
- Resources for continued learning
Conclusion
- What you've learned (hopefully)
- Where to go from here
- Final thoughts on sound, silence, and everything between
What This Structure Accomplishes
Early hands-on work: Chapter 5 gets readers making sounds before diving deep into philosophy. They'll appreciate Chapters 10-13 much more after they've tried and struggled a bit.
Clear separation of practice and theory: Part Two is hands-on craft. Part Three is strategic thinking. But they inform each other because Part Three refers back to experiences from Part Two.
Philosophy with context: The philosophical content now lands after readers have wrestled with practical problems. When discussing intent and audience in Chapter 11, they'll have tried to design sounds without considering these things and will see why it matters.
Flexibility: A reader can skip Part One if they already understand the basics, jump straight into Part Two to start working, then circle back to Parts One and Three for deeper understanding.
Signal flow content: The Tools of the Trade material (Chapter 4) stays in Part One as foundation, but is immediately followed by practical application in Chapter 5.
Comparative framework preserved: The "vis a vis" comparison chapters are grouped in Parts Three and Four where they make strategic sense - after readers have enough experience to appreciate the distinctions being drawn.