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Using CXFR you can quickly and easily create sound effects (SFX) and tweak them to your exact specifications.
Reference
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[MUSIC].
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I'm sure you've heard the term sound effects, or S effects, before.
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Sound effects are all the little noises you hear while playing a game.
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When you jump, grab coins, push buttons, or shoot a weapon.
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The bleeps, bloops, and kabooms are all sound effects.
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Now why would all these little noises
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going off in the background be so important?
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At their core, good sound effects let the player know that something is working.
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Whether it's collecting coins [SOUND], jumping around on the
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screen [SOUND], or setting off a giant explosion [SOUND].
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Basic sound are vital to a satisfying gaming experience.
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Sound effects are also important for adding personality to your
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game and are key to building a memorable and exciting playthrough.
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Maybe you'd like a realistic tone for your racing game [NOISE].
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Or if you're in the mood for something a little more retro [SOUND].
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The right noises and sounds will help you to
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create the exact mood you are trying to convey.
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It could be tempting to do a quick online
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search for free sound effects that plug-in to your game.
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And that's okay, but make sure you're getting them from a trusted network.
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The last thing you wanna do is use something in
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your game that isn't royalty free without knowing in advance.
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Yet another great reason to create your own sounds.
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For space cats old school arcade game play,
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we're going to create some retro sound effects, similar
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to the ones you might remember from consoles
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like the Nintendo entertainment system or NES for short.
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Lucky for us there's a great free application, called CFXR, that I
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like to use to create eight and 16 bit sounds on the fly.
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You've probably heard the term eight bit, thrown around a
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lot these days, especially with the resurgence of retro games.
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Sometimes called chip tunes, eight bit sounds are synthesized noises, produced
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using the sound chips of old computers and video game consoles.
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CFXR is a Mac port of the popular SFXR for Windows.
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It's a free app that emulates these vintage
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sounds and lets you customize them to your liking.
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Let's open CFXR.
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The great thing about this app is how accessible it is.
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Even if you've never tried your hand at sound design,
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you can jump right in, and start making some great content.
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CFXR lets you tweak sounds to your exact specifications.
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Let's try randomly generating sound effects using the buttons on the left.
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Here you can select different types of sounds, like coins
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[SOUND], laser shots [SOUND], explosions [SOUND], power ups
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[SOUND], hit and hurt sounds [SOUND], and jumping noises [SOUND].
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With just a few clicks, it's possible to land on the perfect sound effect.
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If you'd like to modify them further, you
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can transform the sounds using the sliders here.
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Let's take a look at the topmost sections.
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Here, we have the option to alter the timing, punch, and decay of our sound.
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By dragging the attack time slider to the right, you'll
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notice that the sound is stretched out and peaks later.
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[SOUND]
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[BLANK_AUDIO].
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[SOUND].
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Increasing the sustain time will lengthen the sound in general.
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
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[SOUND].
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Sustain punch will change where and how intensely the
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sound peaks, relative to the attack and sustain time.
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[SOUND].
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And finally, decay time will affect how the
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sound fades out and where it will cut off.
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By dragging the slider all the way to
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the right, you can really extend the sound effect.
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[SOUND].
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You can make some pretty big adjustments
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to the sounds just using these four sliders.
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But don't be afraid to try a little bit of everything.
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Now you may not be familiar with terms like vibrato,
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Phaser Sweep, or High Pass Filter Cut Off, but don't worry.
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After adjusting one of the sliders, you can click the Play
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button to hear the effect your changes have made on the sound.
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You can also a shortcut, Cmd+1, to play the sound at any time.
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[SOUND]
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
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[SOUND].
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At the top of the app, we're able to
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select the waveform to modify the sound at it's core.
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The waveform is the shape of the sound.
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I like to think of them as different instruments.
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There are four different waveforms to
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choose from, square, sawtooth, sign and noise.
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Let's select Play On Change so we don't have
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to keep clicking the play button over and over again.
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Now listen to the differences of each waveform on the single powerups sound.
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[SOUND].
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You'll notice that the noise wave is much different than the other three.
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Noise is best suited for making harsh
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effects, as the sound produced is very degraded.
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This is perfect for explosions.
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Now we'll begin generating these sounds using the buttons on the sidebar.
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Since we're using randomly generated sounds, your
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work may sound a little different than mine.
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First let's find a shooting sound.
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[SOUND].
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This sounds good for our laser, however, it may be a bit too long.
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We can adjust the sustained time to make it a little quicker.
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[SOUND].
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Since we'll be firing rapidly, it's important
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to make sure our shooting sound isn't overwhelming.
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Annoying sound effects are a sure fire way
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of getting users to switch their phone to vibrate.
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Now that we have our first sound effect, let's mark it for later.
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By clicking and dragging here you can set a star rating
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for the sounds to keep track of the ones you like.
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Let's highlight the sound effects we want to export
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so they'll be easy to find when we're done.
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Now for an explosion.
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[SOUND].
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This one's perfect, it's simple and can work for blowing up
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the ships in mid air and when they crash into the moon.
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Don't forget to highlight it.
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It's a good idea to distinguish the damages
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being taken when the dog hits the surface.
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So let's add a hit hurt sound in there as well.
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[SOUND].
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This might not sound like much but little details go a long way.
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I'm going to extend the decay time so the sound is more recognizable.
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[SOUND].
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Let's highlight this sound now.
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Lastly, let's create a select sound for the title screen and game over screen.
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[SOUND].
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I wanna switch the waveform to sine to create a softer sound.
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Let's increase the sustain time of it.
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And I like my menu effects to have a bit of vibrato.
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So let's adjust that now.
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[SOUND].
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Try bringing the start frequency down.
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This will lower the pitch or tone of the sound.
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[SOUND].
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Now highlight it in the favorites area.
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The last thing we need to do is export the files.
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Scroll down and select our first laser
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shoot sound [SOUND], then select the export button.
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Let's name this file Laser and save it in a convenient location.
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Now click export wave and our file is ready to go.
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Follow these steps to export the remaining sound effects in our list.
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Okay, we're all done.
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Now that we've got our sound effects ready to
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go, let's make some music to go along with them.
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