Sound Redesign
What is it?
A sound redesign is when a video clip is used and given entirely new audio. This can be great practice, as well as a way to explore how sounds affect the feel and tone of a work.
Education / Why do it?
In the sound design course I lecture, the final assignment is a full sound redesign for short film. This engages all skillsets involved in sound design to make a strong finished project.
The process of redesigning for a finished and pre-existing video allows comparison and improvements to be made, as well as to problem-solve and dissect the sound creation process.
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Sound Redesigns work best when as much of the sound as possible is created "from-scratch". Reliance on sound libraries reduces the benefit sound redesigns can bring. I recommend recording, synthesising, and processing all sounds yourself, without reliance on sound libraries. This may mean it doesn't sound as good as what could be achieved with the use of professional sound libraries — but it is better to learn! The redesign isn't being used in the game/film anyway, so isn't it better for it to sound a little worse, but to be much more valuable to your skillset?
Examples:
Armored Core VI
This redesign was an exploration in how to make the sounds of large vehicles, robots, and explosions without access to large machinery, vehicles, or explosives to record. This required creative solutions to create these sounds convincingly and stylistic, whilst only using sound sources that could reasonably be found.
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Redesigns like this are good at demonstrating to students that even without vast amounts of resources, you can still make powerful and impactful sounds with what you already have.
Remnant II
This redesign features examples of many elements covered in my sound design classes I teach. There is a combination of synthesised and recorded elements used to create stylised sounds that still appear tangible.
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Many recordings of vegetables were used to create the gore, including the infamous celery cracking sounds often used for breaking bones.
Baldur's Gate 3
Fictional creature sound design is interesting as there is no "correct" way for them to sound, which leaves a lot of room for the sound to be creative and add extra depth to the visuals.
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In this redesign, the Nautiloid sound is mainly based on a synth sound which I created to imitate thunder. However, I have changed this sound to turn it from thunder to nautiloid, mostly by changing envelope shapes and automation. Importantly, it still retains enough of the thunderous quality to portray the idea that the Nautiloid is storming the city.
Final Fantasy XVI
This redesign was an exploration into how changing sounds can change the feeling of a game. How will players respond and interact with game mechanics if the sounds are different? In this redesign, I changed the balance of how powerful and intense different sounds were to see how this affected my perception of the action.
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Two identically functioning abilities or weapons can be perceived as differing in strength based off the sound.​
Fun fact: this was seen in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, where the MP40 and Thompson weapons both had the exact same stats and game mechanics, but players overall felt that the Thompson was more powerful due to the sound having more bassy weight and force. To fix the perceived difference in effectiveness between the guns, the developers simply changed the sounds.
That's all for now!