What is Soundweaver?
Soundweaver is a standalone software designed for quickly creating sound effects and variations. I like to think of it like a DAW for sound effects but with limited features focused on sound design.
What can Soundweaver do?
Keyword-based imports: Import your samples based on certain keywords that are or are not present in the file’s metadata. This is really useful if you’re looking for specific sounds within a large folder. Unfortunately, in my experience thus far, this function does not work properly, making it rather useless.
Line up file at hitpoint: Soundweaver automatically lines up your audio at their hit points making it super easy and quick to layer sounds together.
Randomize: There are many randomize buttons throughout the software (for example, on each track), but the big randomize button at the bottom of the interface is a key feature of the software. When pressed, the button will randomly select a file within the chosen folder for each track within the project. This is very powerful for creating new and never-thought-of sound effects.
Randomize Pitch: Randomize Pitch will change each of the tracks’ pitch in your project up or down the set % amount. This is really useful to create new variations or just to blend the layers together.
Randomize Position: This will randomize the position of the samples so that the hit points are slightly off of each other. This is crucial for designing punchy impacts and gunshots.
Shuffle Takes: Shuffle Takes allows you to shuffle through audio files that may have multiple takes or variations of a sound effect on that file. Setting up your project so that each layer has multiple takes is a very efficient way of creating new sounds and variations.
Folder Index: When importing sounds into your project, Soundweaver will index the folder where they are located so that you can quickly reference them for future projects.
Snapshots: This is a handy feature that allows you to save your favorite sound effects that you create and recall them at any time.
What is Soundweaver best at?
I find Soundweaver best at doing 2 tasks: quickly creating new sound effects out of your sound libraries and creating massive amounts of variations to your sound effects. These functions make it very beneficial for video game sound designers and sample library developers who always need many variations to their sound design.
Another powerful function of this software is the ability to craft sound effects based on groups. What this means is that you can import sounds within groups. You can think of these as folders. Each group can then serve a different function. For example, group 1 could be the charge up of a gunshot, while group 2 could be the explosion of the gunshot.
What kinds of sound effects can you create with Soundweaver?
There are probably limitless possibilities of sound effects you can create with Soundweaver, but instead of hiding behind a generic answer, here is a short list of a few I’ve had success with:
- Whooshes
- Magic & spells
- Guns and weapons
- Impacts
- Creatures and monsters
How to use Soundweaver?
When starting a new session, there are 2 ways to get audio files into the project. You can use the import window or simply drag and drop your audio files directly into the project.
Using the import window, you’ll be able to add as many groups as you like and point them to the folder of your choice on your computer. This is also the place where you can enter keywords or negative keywords.
Once all your groups are set up, simply hit randomize to start the session. As you work, continue to hit the randomize button until you find sounds you like and add them to your snapshot.
You can then export your snapshots with drag and drop and place them into your DAW of choice, or export them via the export window.
Pros
- Instantly lines up sound effects at their hit points
- A lot of randomization and variation options
- Quick and light to run as well as fast and easy to pick up and use
- Comprehensive export options along with a ‘Drag & Drop’ feature
Cons
- Price tag of $215 USD, which is quite high considering that LKC Variator for Reaper is FREE and has similar features
- Locators don’t save with the snapshots
- There is no reset button for the randomized pitch which makes it very tedious to go through and manually reset each individual track
- No global button to reset hitpoints back to their default position
- Cannot use the mouse’s middle-click to move window view left and right
- Cannot minimize groups into folders
Is it worth $215 USD?
If you are a video game sound designer or sound effect library creator, then yes, I believe it is worth it as creating lots of variations and randomization is usually a key part of your work. However, if you are a Reaper user, you’ll probably want to check out LKC variator as it seems to have just as many (if not more) of the same functions as Soundweaver while being equally flexible at creating sounds. Plus, it’s free!
Also, be aware that Soundweaver does not come with any sound effects.
I hope you are able to make a more informed decision regarding the potential purchase of Soundweaver.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
Thanks!
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