How to create laser gun sound effect layers
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In sci-fi video games, synthetic sounds for futuristic weapons such as laser guns are an important part of the auditory experience of the game. These laser guns are really fun sounds to create since they’re not based on real-life experience. When creating these sounds, the only limit here is your imagination!
What sound source recordings do you need?
You can use pretty much any synth to get to our desired sound. At a minimum, you just need a synth that produces a sine wave and you’ll be ready to go.
NOTE that in the video, I used Omnisphere. As of writing this, Spectrasonic’s EULA does not allow people to create and sell sound effects using Omnisphere.
Designing our synth patch
For these gun layers, I like to start with a wavetable that is a bit distorted and screechy. I then either modulate or midi cc assign various parameters to the faders on my midi keyboard. This way I can modulate parameters as I record the sound in my DAW.
Here are a few parameters to consider modulating: frame, pitch, harmonic, unison, and detune.
Another trick I use is to insert a multi effect plugin to create even more distorted and atonal sounds. I like to use Amalgame by Inear Display as my plugin of choice because I can easily randomize all the effects and quickly create new sounds with the click of a single button.
Now that we are set up, hit record and print out the audio into your DAW as you modulate the parameters in real-time. Let it run for 30 seconds to a minute.
What software do you need to design the laser gun layers?
For the actual designing of the gun layers, we’ll use a sampler. I like to use the native Cubase sampler or Phase Plant sampler, but any sampler should do as long as it has a pitch envelope you can edit.
How do you design the sci-fi gun layers?
Begin by loading your printed out sound source into your sampler and go into the pitch envelope.
You’ll want to begin by designing the transient (the impact or hit at the start of the gun shot) first. To do that, add a few points on the graph (6) and lower every second one to the bottom. Do this all within the first 0.10 seconds since this is where the transient lives. Finally, create another point but this time place it anywhere from 0.5 to 3 seconds. Place this point at the bottom again to create a downward ramp that lasts 0.5 to 3 seconds. This drop at the end of our pitch envelope is what creates the laser gun sound. Now we are ready to play and hear the result.
What’s great about using a long sound file within a sampler like this is that now you can move around the sample start time to get different results.
If you don’t like your gun shot layer, return to the pitch envelope and tweak it some more. You can always add more points to change the transient or change the ramp to lengthen or shorten the gun shot.
Make your own laser gun sound effect layers
Creating laser gun sound effect layers can be a lot of fun because you can play around with almost any sound and get creative. What I like to do is build up a folder of layers so that I can combine them to make even more new gun sounds. Personally, I like to throw all my layers into S-Layer by Twisted Tools to create sci-fi gunshot sound effects.
You can watch the full video of how I made this sound effect on my YouTube channel.
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