Programming Sound with Pure Data

A Sample-Based Effect: Swords

Let’s say we’re designing the sound for a new native mobile game for iOS and Android, Swordhaver II: The Search for More Things to Hit with a Sword. It’s a game with sword fights, and we want the sounds the weapons make to be realistic. We want to have sounds for lots of different situations where swords are clanging together, or off of armor or shields, not just one or two samples we play over and over. Having some variation will help the game’s sense of realism and immersion, but we don’t want to pack the game full of sound files and have to ship a huge game and manage a bunch of assets. Although it’s not necessarily the only way to proceed, we’ll use a sample-based approach.

For this patch, we’ll focus on one ...