The final item pickup sound you hear in the end of the video was attempt #136! Give this a try yourself and don't give up after the first 135 tries ;) KILLER NEW SKELETON SOUND DESIGNER MERCH DESIGNED BY GRETCHEN KING!!!! marshall-mcgee-shop.fourthwall.com/
Hey Marshall, Bill Gaver wrote a paper on classifying sounds I think you'll be very much interested in. It's called "What in the world do we hear". Cheers.
@@Geert890 Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, I also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.
Yeah the rain on the paraglider sounds sooooo great. Loved also the sound of the long wood bridges cracking in the 4 little islands in East Akkala ♥_♥ Playing this game with a headset feels sooo great.
The time you obviously put into the small details- like rotoscoping Link running- isn't lost on your viewers. Your work is so informative and polished! Love it.
@@Idealist_Metaphor Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, and is made to maximize satisfaction. also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.
The footsteps sound in BotW is my favorite among all the games I've ever played. It's incredibly crisp and satisfying. TotK somehow takes the sound to an even higher level. I'm not sure what's different, but it sounds even better.
Animal crossing has done the matching sound effects to music for a while as well. When you interact with instruments they’ll play notes that emphasize whatever melodic mode is currently present in the music. It’s a small detail and the notes are otherwise random but those kinds of efforts really make Nintendo games so enjoyable to experience. Iirc, Mario galaxy was the first Nintendo game to start this with , for example, the coin pickup sound being shifted depending on the song key. It uses the recognizable fourth interval while not sounding exactly the same every time.
Mario Galaxy was also the first game I recognised this in, when you use the launch star to go to each planet, the sound effect is in the current chord of the background music. So awesome!
I thought it was doing that! I just thought it was coincidental, but it’s really cool. I have a synth in my room (because my animal crossing room is based off my room IRL) and I have K.K. Cruisin’. Just touching the synth to the best of the song is one of my favorite things to do.
I don't think I've seen anyone point this out yet, but the melody that is sped up for the "pick up" sound isn't just an interesting melody. It is a simplified version of the "puzzle solved" melody that plays when a layer of a puzzle is completed, and possibly similar to the "New Location" sound. It often plays in the shrines if you need an example!
@@zshaikh13 it’s very very subtle. I noticed something’s like walking (depending on what you have equipped and what your walking on) some of the sword whooshes are different and Ect. Just small stuff like that.
a lot of the zonai stuff also just sounds incredible. shrine redux’s, i think theyve started to randomize the shrine soundtracks so they dont get grating like the BOTW ones did
The sound design in Nintendo games like Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing or Mario Odyssey adds so much to the feel of the gameplay. Every little thing you do feels so much more physical and things just click on a totally natural level. Nintendo was a huge influence on my own sound design work and I always make sure everything sounds haptic and everything's in tune with the fundamental and the fifth, sometimes even diatonically. I've also learned to rely on music instrument samples a lot to create UI elements, notifications etc.
Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, and is made to maximize satisfaction. also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.😂😂
4:14 Finally! I've been internally screaming about this since 2017. The same technique is applied to the pitch of the glassy footsteps in challenge rooms.
Another good example of the sounds being pitched with the background music is Super Mario Maker! In the editor mode, placing any block/item/etc has a tonal sound that sings along with the soundtrack. It's a lot less subtle, but definitely really fun.
3:46 Zelda Spirit Tracks had this. When you drove the train in the over-world, the train’s noises would sync with the over-world track. It was very satisfying.
The sound design in these 2 games is a testament to good listening, imagination, story telling, communication, and teamwork. What a dream it would be to work in that context.
This was a super interesting video, and explains why the sounds of Zelda are so appealing. The breakdown of the item pickup sound was especially cool to hear.
As someone with perfect pitch it's always stood out to me how much more musical and fun and exciting Nintendo's and many retro games' sound effects are! Something that's becoming rarer as many studios strive to be more "realistic" over the years :(
If the choice is between remaining almost two decades behind on hardware and audio/graphical advancements or having the games sounds fit a key, I think I'll take not being stuck in the past.
@@babyjiren9676 Where you put that effort is a choice. Nintendo put it into silly cutesy features because they have nowhere else to put the effort because they're so stuck in the past. Don't worry about it though, Steam Deck will sort it all out.
@@zombizombi You’ve got it all wrong. Minor details are EXACTLY what makes a game great. Take Red Dead Redemption 2 for example. That game is absolutely filled with small details and people have been analyzing and praising that part of the game since release. Wether it‘s the simulated muddy/snowy footprints, or the great volumetric cloud system, or the NPC‘s day to day schedules, RDR2 is a great game because it cares about even the smallest details. Breath of the wild is often credited with revolutionizing the Open-World genre, and Tears of the Kingdom will be even better BECAUSE Nintendo is using the same setting again. They‘ve had 6 whole years to fill every last bit of Hyrule with life, and details and new things to find, which will allow the game to be filled with life just as RDR2 is. So it’s not just Nintendo that cares so much about the little details, and whenever an Open-World game DOES care about said details, it’s praised for years to come.
@@zombizombi Besides; if Nintendo were constantly stuck in the past, they wouldn’t have made Breath of the Wild a vast departure from the rest of the series and just stuck to the old Zelda formula instead, don’t you think?
Great video as always. Maybe Nintendo is so tonal because that’s where they started most NES sfx were basically melodies played super fast. Now it’s identifiably Nintendo and I’m all here for it, it adds charm to their games. Also I’m currently remaking some sounds from animal crossing and it’s the same story in terms of tonality, the equip tool sound is just a super fast rising melody but always stays in key to the chord/music below it.
I made my entry test at my current company by doing a fully Tonal UI Sound Design, and they freackin' loved it. I always advocate for more Tonal Sound, especially if it's in a "controlled" environment (when you know which music is going to play when, etc...)
This is such a well made video! So cool watching you break down and put together a sound like this. It’s so amazing how much work goes into the most simple bits of sound design.
So excited to see more of your videos! I've always really enjoyed sound design in games, and I haven't found a higher quality channel dedicated to that topic than yours!
The idea of avoiding overuse of sounds is VERY important. I'm reminded of several AVGN episodes where he showed games from the early CD-ROM era that tended to absolutely grate on the nerves with overused voice samples. They got themselves a good hammer and just started whacking nails in everything.
One of my favorite sounds in TOTK is the footstep sound on top of a dragon's nose. You get this incredibly satisfying hollow sound every time you jump on it. I was jumping on the nose for a good minute just to hear the sound. I'm seriously blown away how they considered every tiny aspect even the sound of jumping on the dragon's nose.
So glad you picked up all of these detail! As an audio designer and music composer/producer for video games, I try to implement as much tonality as possible in my work, just like Nintendo! It's so fun and gratifying to see people dissect and comment our work.
I can clearly tell how much passion you have for your craft. It's nice to learn from someone who truly loves what they teach! sooooo happy you're back Marshall☺
As much as I hate the blood moon to appear that often (at least, IMHO), as much do I admire the theme as well. Sounds just WOW on my calibrated 7.2 setup.
I never thought much about sound design in games before this video came across my feed. You do a great job of bringing interest to the topic and showing why it's such an important part of game design. Great job!
Welcome back! I've been eagerly awaiting your return and your new videos are such a treat. It's great to see you creating content again and your hard work definitely shows in the quality of your videos. Thank you for putting in the effort to bring us such entertaining and informative content. Keep up the amazing work!
I'm blown away by the amount of effort you put into not only analysing the sounds in these games but also explaining to us how important tonality is. Truly an amazing video, thanks!
TOTK is the first game I've played where the sound effects and physics mix together so well and in such a way that I feel it bursting out the screen. Makes me jump
I've long noticed that Nintendo games had something special about their sound design, like everything was in the same key, but I didn't have the training or vocabulary to figure it out. Having a professional break it down like this is so cool! It's incredible to get a glimpse into how they achieve this effect. Thank you so much for making this video!
Nintendo has been speeding up melodies to make sound effects since Super Mario Bros on the NES actually. They have been using this technique forever, probably to mitigate the limitations of the old school hardware. Pretty impressive they still use it
I’m convinced that much of Nintendo’s wizardry can be chalked up to the fact that they don’t do layoffs. There are people on the TotK team that have been making Nintendo games for 40 years and they bring all those neat old hardware tricks with them - and pass it on to the younger generation. Also probably why TotK can have such a crazy physics system on a decade old SoC
gosh this was interesting!! im a songwriter predominantly but dabbled in trying to produce my own stuff and honestly this is really helpful to me as someone who can never get the percussion to gel with the bright tones and pitch of the rest of the track
I'm pretty sure sure that in super mario galaxy they did something similar where the sound effect harmonized with the music, I'm pretty sure it was the fling star sound effect when you're hovering inside it, but don't count me on it. Another not-as-prominent example is in portal 2 where when you're launched airborne by blue or orange gel, an arpeggio plays with the music, but this was only used a couple times
That powerline detail is insane! I know people have began to glorify game design details more and more in recent years (I see 50 TINY DETAILS type videos more than ever before) and it always felt like sound was sort of neglected. Great to see someone bringing it to the forefront, subscribed!
Thank you for this. One of the most underrated parts of these games is their sound design. Almost every action is satisfying in some way thanks to sound. From a parry, to a headshot, guardian lasers, autobuilding, champion/sage abilities, or just interacting with things.
I bet that if you had your hand on a pitch wheel and you slowly brought up your kick in pitch you would naturally land pretty close. It’s mostly a feel thing ime, it just starts to feel like the bass is kinda hugging it and it tucks in nicely.
Thank you so much for this video, I’ve taken an interest in sound designing and hope to make a career out of it one day, so videos like this truly make my day and inspire me to be creative, so once again thank you
Yeah for sure. The difference is subtle, but there is a difference. Honestly tuning kicks isn't always something that's nessesarily "required", but often times just boils down to personal preference. I personally found the in tune kick more pleasant to listen to.
i had only the audio for this vid playing and its crazy how when you played a bunch of examples of tonality in nintendo games, even games i hadnt played a lot i instantly recognised the game
This was a really informative and concise breakdown! Thanks so much for taking the time to make this video and to figure out how the pickup sound was made!
great video wish more games would include more notes in their sounds. would you go over death stranding's sounds? the ring tones of different characters are a detail i didnt even realize was there until a couple hours in and add a ton to the game imo
I was familiar with using musical intervals in UI sounds to convey information like using fifths and octaves for confirmation but never thought about using very fast melodies! I will definitely use this in my next UI sounds.
I think the pick up sound is just in the same exact scale as one of the exploration songs that plays sometimes (the bouncy one, I think it plays when horseriding). That scale is played throughout other songs as well.
A really good example of this is the engines in Ford vs Farrari the ending race. they tuned the engines or the soundtrack was tuned to match each other to make everything sound like it is one powerful machine.
I had been playing TOTK docked with normal speakers or just the sound of the Switch speakers, and yesterday I tried using my Sony MDR7506 headphones, and oooh boy, the change was so clear and smooth.
I used to be a soundie, and I started noticing tonality in Hollywood sound design a while ago, specially in Steven Spielberg directed movies and productions. I remember the train crash of Super 8 (Spielberg production) being abnormally tonal. Then in Transformers tonality went crazy. But overall, I remember liking tonal sound design, although I used another name. I called it 'tuned'. It was intuitively more prevalent in SciFi, but it started showing up everywhere. Then Nintendo went and put out Mario Galaxy, which was both scifi, a videogame and a revolution in Nintendo's sound design. SFX tuned in real time according to the music, or at least changed pitches that were always harmonic. I think Galaxy marks the point. As for the item pickup SFX in BOTW, I think you missed that the melody seems to be a quote from other parts of the soundtrack, whatever scale is using.
streamers on twitch and youtube could learn from this for their alerts! It's nice to hear a quick clean and crisp sound for follows/subs and save the big fun stuff for rare events.
Interesting to see Nintendo is still doing this even today. Some sound effects in Super Mario Bros 1 on NES did this exact same thing, I think it was the super mushroom powerup noise being a sped up version of the end of level fanfare.
The final item pickup sound you hear in the end of the video was attempt #136! Give this a try yourself and don't give up after the first 135 tries ;)
KILLER NEW SKELETON SOUND DESIGNER MERCH DESIGNED BY GRETCHEN KING!!!! marshall-mcgee-shop.fourthwall.com/
Hey Marshall, Bill Gaver wrote a paper on classifying sounds I think you'll be very much interested in. It's called "What in the world do we hear". Cheers.
@@Geert890 Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, I also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.
i think it would be more interesting if you included that! id like to hear the different iterations before you get to the final
@@mingyuhuang8944 bot
@@mingyuhuang8944 bot
When I heard the sound of rain hitting the paraglider, I was seriously mesmerized.
It was the sound of the chain rattling and the hook grinding against the rail in the Shrine where you get Ultrahand for me, seriously so good.
YES! Me too I was like wtf is that? I love the sound of rain hitting an umbrella and it was so perfect
Yeah the rain on the paraglider sounds sooooo great. Loved also the sound of the long wood bridges cracking in the 4 little islands in East Akkala ♥_♥ Playing this game with a headset feels sooo great.
Ur glazing tears of the kingdom got old so fast
@@zlvno jump
The time you obviously put into the small details- like rotoscoping Link running- isn't lost on your viewers. Your work is so informative and polished! Love it.
Such good flow
One of the nicest comments i ever saw. I am a video editor 😂
When did he do that?
@@pixel9753 0:19
@@FakieStreams thanks.
I'm gobsmacked by that item pickup bit. Great work
Absolutely incredible how this sound works. You can pick up 1000 items in a row and still get a shot of dopamine every time
@@Idealist_Metaphor That's because of your hording addiction, the sound of an item pick up triggers it Pavlov style!
@@Idealist_Metaphor Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, and is made to maximize satisfaction.
also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.
@@j4ck3t True lol
collecting go brr
you ever ate a gobstopper lollï?
The footsteps sound in BotW is my favorite among all the games I've ever played. It's incredibly crisp and satisfying. TotK somehow takes the sound to an even higher level. I'm not sure what's different, but it sounds even better.
Yup, in Nintendo TOTK Q&A, developer mentioned TOTK sound have been improved
They have the best UI sounds in the world, just navigating the switch menue is super satisfying
it's actually on another level. I'm actually thinking of using one of those sounds as a notificatios tone, still haven't decided which one tho hahaha.
My god I love the sound effect of clicking on the controller setting button, as well as the setting button, on the switch home screen.
@Apetecan7
hello my fellow minish cap enjoyer :>
I know you’re talking about Zelda but, did you ever play around with 3DS UI?
Bro the wii and 3ds is better
Animal crossing has done the matching sound effects to music for a while as well. When you interact with instruments they’ll play notes that emphasize whatever melodic mode is currently present in the music. It’s a small detail and the notes are otherwise random but those kinds of efforts really make Nintendo games so enjoyable to experience.
Iirc, Mario galaxy was the first Nintendo game to start this with , for example, the coin pickup sound being shifted depending on the song key. It uses the recognizable fourth interval while not sounding exactly the same every time.
Mario Galaxy was also the first game I recognised this in, when you use the launch star to go to each planet, the sound effect is in the current chord of the background music. So awesome!
I thought it was doing that! I just thought it was coincidental, but it’s really cool. I have a synth in my room (because my animal crossing room is based off my room IRL) and I have K.K. Cruisin’. Just touching the synth to the best of the song is one of my favorite things to do.
its a very nintendo thing. im quite sure botw and probably totk too, have accent notes that melodically complement the music when you hit an enemy
2:55 “Corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and and this picture.”
I don't think I've seen anyone point this out yet, but the melody that is sped up for the "pick up" sound isn't just an interesting melody. It is a simplified version of the "puzzle solved" melody that plays when a layer of a puzzle is completed, and possibly similar to the "New Location" sound. It often plays in the shrines if you need an example!
I love that they redid most of the sound design in TOTK. Those super small details add up to helping TotK feel like a new game and not just a BOTW mod
The sound design is my favorite part of the game so far... It feels a lot deeper and the soundtrack feels more like Zeldas past.
A lot of the sound design sounds exactly the same to me compared to Breath of the Wild... which already sounded fantastic. Which parts were redone?
@@zshaikh13 it’s very very subtle. I noticed something’s like walking (depending on what you have equipped and what your walking on) some of the sword whooshes are different and Ect. Just small stuff like that.
ah, so i wasn't crazy. good to know lol
a lot of the zonai stuff also just sounds incredible. shrine redux’s, i think theyve started to randomize the shrine soundtracks so they dont get grating like the BOTW ones did
The sound design in Nintendo games like Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing or Mario Odyssey adds so much to the feel of the gameplay. Every little thing you do feels so much more physical and things just click on a totally natural level. Nintendo was a huge influence on my own sound design work and I always make sure everything sounds haptic and everything's in tune with the fundamental and the fifth, sometimes even diatonically. I've also learned to rely on music instrument samples a lot to create UI elements, notifications etc.
Bro this game's sound design and music design is scientifically engineered to the highest quality and small detailed thought, and is made to maximize satisfaction.
also love the water droplet sounds after you drop from a great height. This game shouldn't be real.😂😂
4:14 Finally! I've been internally screaming about this since 2017. The same technique is applied to the pitch of the glassy footsteps in challenge rooms.
@7:54 Not an NPC convo where u can reply "DOESN'T RING A BELL" during this tonal sfx vid hahahah brilliant
This is definitely why musician can make really great sound designers for sound effects!
Another good example of the sounds being pitched with the background music is Super Mario Maker! In the editor mode, placing any block/item/etc has a tonal sound that sings along with the soundtrack. It's a lot less subtle, but definitely really fun.
i love that so much ngl
_Semi-solid platfoooorm~_
3:46 Zelda Spirit Tracks had this. When you drove the train in the over-world, the train’s noises would sync with the over-world track. It was very satisfying.
I think that’s part of what made running the train so fun
The sound design in these 2 games is a testament to good listening, imagination, story telling, communication, and teamwork. What a dream it would be to work in that context.
I’m not involved in any way shape or (wave)form in anything audio, but makes me appreciate those who do so much more after watching this!
I just feel bad for the intern who had to program in the powerline arpeggios for every chord change in every single song in Mario Odyssey.
As someone who programs MIDI all the time it's really not too time-consuming!
7:25 amazing!
This was an awesome video to watch!!!!
This was a super interesting video, and explains why the sounds of Zelda are so appealing. The breakdown of the item pickup sound was especially cool to hear.
As someone with perfect pitch it's always stood out to me how much more musical and fun and exciting Nintendo's and many retro games' sound effects are! Something that's becoming rarer as many studios strive to be more "realistic" over the years :(
If the choice is between remaining almost two decades behind on hardware and audio/graphical advancements or having the games sounds fit a key, I think I'll take not being stuck in the past.
@@zombizombi Actually that's not the choice at all. The choice is between putting effort into developing a game or being a bland, boring pos.
@@babyjiren9676 Where you put that effort is a choice. Nintendo put it into silly cutesy features because they have nowhere else to put the effort because they're so stuck in the past. Don't worry about it though, Steam Deck will sort it all out.
@@zombizombi You’ve got it all wrong. Minor details are EXACTLY what makes a game great.
Take Red Dead Redemption 2 for example. That game is absolutely filled with small details and people have been analyzing and praising that part of the game since release. Wether it‘s the simulated muddy/snowy footprints, or the great volumetric cloud system, or the NPC‘s day to day schedules, RDR2 is a great game because it cares about even the smallest details.
Breath of the wild is often credited with revolutionizing the Open-World genre, and Tears of the Kingdom will be even better BECAUSE Nintendo is using the same setting again. They‘ve had 6 whole years to fill every last bit of Hyrule with life, and details and new things to find, which will allow the game to be filled with life just as RDR2 is.
So it’s not just Nintendo that cares so much about the little details, and whenever an Open-World game DOES care about said details, it’s praised for years to come.
@@zombizombi Besides; if Nintendo were constantly stuck in the past, they wouldn’t have made Breath of the Wild a vast departure from the rest of the series and just stuck to the old Zelda formula instead, don’t you think?
Great video as always. Maybe Nintendo is so tonal because that’s where they started most NES sfx were basically melodies played super fast. Now it’s identifiably Nintendo and I’m all here for it, it adds charm to their games.
Also I’m currently remaking some sounds from animal crossing and it’s the same story in terms of tonality, the equip tool sound is just a super fast rising melody but always stays in key to the chord/music below it.
I'M SO HAPPY THAT YOU'RE BACK!!!
I made my entry test at my current company by doing a fully Tonal UI Sound Design, and they freackin' loved it.
I always advocate for more Tonal Sound, especially if it's in a "controlled" environment (when you know which music is going to play when, etc...)
I would love to hear more about that design!
This is such a well made video! So cool watching you break down and put together a sound like this. It’s so amazing how much work goes into the most simple bits of sound design.
So excited to see more of your videos! I've always really enjoyed sound design in games, and I haven't found a higher quality channel dedicated to that topic than yours!
The idea of avoiding overuse of sounds is VERY important. I'm reminded of several AVGN episodes where he showed games from the early CD-ROM era that tended to absolutely grate on the nerves with overused voice samples. They got themselves a good hammer and just started whacking nails in everything.
Amazing video, glad to see you're back.
Thanks for coming back! I really enjoyed your videos!
Same, been waiting too long
All this effort with every single sound in the game, and then master cycle zero goes brrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR
First thing I do when I see a Marshall McGee video, I like it then watch it
Great to have you back Marshall
Wow. I’m speechless. I subbed. Thx for such incredible incite.
So glad you are back!
It's crazy how the item pick up sound from breath of the wild has the same melody as tears of the Kingdom's main theme!
Wow, it does sound the same or similar at least! (Deleted my last comment because he already said in the video both games have the same pickup sound)
It could be a sound Easter Egg because it sounds very much like the beginning to Zelda music theme, but I can't say which one
thats so cool
It sounds to me like the 1 up sound from mario a bit
5:49 OMG totk theme was in BOTW since the beginning
One of my favorite sounds in TOTK is the footstep sound on top of a dragon's nose. You get this incredibly satisfying hollow sound every time you jump on it. I was jumping on the nose for a good minute just to hear the sound. I'm seriously blown away how they considered every tiny aspect even the sound of jumping on the dragon's nose.
you can land on the dragon?
So glad you picked up all of these detail! As an audio designer and music composer/producer for video games, I try to implement as much tonality as possible in my work, just like Nintendo! It's so fun and gratifying to see people dissect and comment our work.
I can clearly tell how much passion you have for your craft. It's nice to learn from someone who truly loves what they teach! sooooo happy you're back Marshall☺
my favorite melody from totk is the blood moon theme, every time i hear it i get the chills
The new one is simple yet badass!
As much as I hate the blood moon to appear that often (at least, IMHO), as much do I admire the theme as well. Sounds just WOW on my calibrated 7.2 setup.
The sound before Zelda speaks makes me think of Attack on Titan
I never thought much about sound design in games before this video came across my feed. You do a great job of bringing interest to the topic and showing why it's such an important part of game design. Great job!
Really cool video! I never knew how interesting game sound design is as I’ve only ever made music but it seems more similar than I thought
I‘m so glad You’re back!
Welcome back! I've been eagerly awaiting your return and your new videos are such a treat. It's great to see you creating content again and your hard work definitely shows in the quality of your videos. Thank you for putting in the effort to bring us such entertaining and informative content. Keep up the amazing work!
I'm blown away by the amount of effort you put into not only analysing the sounds in these games but also explaining to us how important tonality is. Truly an amazing video, thanks!
TOTK is the first game I've played where the sound effects and physics mix together so well and in such a way that I feel it bursting out the screen. Makes me jump
Great Vid Marshall!
7:42 WTF! Fairies can spawn from cutting grass?!
love this video, and would be awesome if you did more of these on tears of the kingdom!
I've long noticed that Nintendo games had something special about their sound design, like everything was in the same key, but I didn't have the training or vocabulary to figure it out. Having a professional break it down like this is so cool! It's incredible to get a glimpse into how they achieve this effect. Thank you so much for making this video!
In Skyward Sword, the harp can be played anywhere and ALWAYS matches the chords of the background music!
Great great great video. I understand the desire for the ambitiousness of the southpark video, but to me, this is top notch Marshall McGee.
Nintendo has been speeding up melodies to make sound effects since Super Mario Bros on the NES actually. They have been using this technique forever, probably to mitigate the limitations of the old school hardware. Pretty impressive they still use it
I’m convinced that much of Nintendo’s wizardry can be chalked up to the fact that they don’t do layoffs. There are people on the TotK team that have been making Nintendo games for 40 years and they bring all those neat old hardware tricks with them - and pass it on to the younger generation. Also probably why TotK can have such a crazy physics system on a decade old SoC
gosh this was interesting!! im a songwriter predominantly but dabbled in trying to produce my own stuff and honestly this is really helpful to me as someone who can never get the percussion to gel with the bright tones and pitch of the rest of the track
I'm pretty sure sure that in super mario galaxy they did something similar where the sound effect harmonized with the music, I'm pretty sure it was the fling star sound effect when you're hovering inside it, but don't count me on it.
Another not-as-prominent example is in portal 2 where when you're launched airborne by blue or orange gel, an arpeggio plays with the music, but this was only used a couple times
so happy I found your channel. I just re did the sound design to a BotW scene and am gonna binge your vids ❤
That powerline detail is insane! I know people have began to glorify game design details more and more in recent years (I see 50 TINY DETAILS type videos more than ever before) and it always felt like sound was sort of neglected. Great to see someone bringing it to the forefront, subscribed!
as a music artist this is so helpful in the long run thank you
thatgamecompany’s “journey” is also one of the best examples of tonal fx
Thank you for this. One of the most underrated parts of these games is their sound design. Almost every action is satisfying in some way thanks to sound. From a parry, to a headshot, guardian lasers, autobuilding, champion/sage abilities, or just interacting with things.
2:57 😂wow I'm tone deaf! Couldn't hear the difference at all haha
I actually recently got into sound design and started posting stuff on yt and a viewer recommended your channel. Now I'm addicted to it lol
2:56 I replayed this part 5 times, i can't, for the life of me, hear a difference :( gud vid tho!
For anyone interested: OUT OF TUNE kick is hitting a D# at 78 Hz, IN TUNE kick is hitting in the key of the song, 44Hz F natural :)
This is why I feel like I'm just not built for the music industry
I bet that if you had your hand on a pitch wheel and you slowly brought up your kick in pitch you would naturally land pretty close. It’s mostly a feel thing ime, it just starts to feel like the bass is kinda hugging it and it tucks in nicely.
Thank you so much for this video, I’ve taken an interest in sound designing and hope to make a career out of it one day, so videos like this truly make my day and inspire me to be creative, so once again thank you
tbh the only difference to me between the two kick drum tuning examples is that the in-tune one sounds quieter and the out-of-tune one sounds louder.
And that’s why we don’t work in the audio world lol
Yeah for sure. The difference is subtle, but there is a difference. Honestly tuning kicks isn't always something that's nessesarily "required", but often times just boils down to personal preference. I personally found the in tune kick more pleasant to listen to.
@@crouchjump5787 one of the many reasons for me.. lol
I learned basically everything I know about sound design from you so I am very glad you are back to making videos!
i had only the audio for this vid playing and its crazy how when you played a bunch of examples of tonality in nintendo games, even games i hadnt played a lot i instantly recognised the game
This was a really informative and concise breakdown! Thanks so much for taking the time to make this video and to figure out how the pickup sound was made!
great video wish more games would include more notes in their sounds. would you go over death stranding's sounds? the ring tones of different characters are a detail i didnt even realize was there until a couple hours in and add a ton to the game imo
I think we can agree the horn when you dive into the depths is one of the best sounds in gaming history.
I was familiar with using musical intervals in UI sounds to convey information like using fifths and octaves for confirmation but never thought about using very fast melodies! I will definitely use this in my next UI sounds.
God damn that example song you used for the tuned kick drum was so great
Not to mention it sounds great in Surround, not just stereo! The directionality is awesome.
Wind waker's music had timed hits to make the music crescendo every time you hit and enemy, and it was one of the most satisfying things ever
bang on with the audio stuff. well explained as well, i love this kinda content. the kick pitch had me rolling, ah memories
Someone PLEASE, PLEASE share the new Shrine victory woodblock sound (the one repeated 3 times). I need it BADLY in my life.
this is such a great analysis video. I love that you've explored and demonstrated sound design, rather than many who look just at music.
Marshall is back!🎉
Welcome back! Have been waiting for your new video for a long time and finally!
we missed you!!
I think the pick up sound is just in the same exact scale as one of the exploration songs that plays sometimes (the bouncy one, I think it plays when horseriding). That scale is played throughout other songs as well.
Indeed
i love the footstep sounds so much, it makes exploring oddly better
Really fascinating video, Tears of the Kingdom / Nintendo really is amazing. I loved seeing you explain all the behind the scenes stuff.
Often wanted to know how those short positive or negative melodic SFXs are made and now I got it. Thank you very much!
A really good example of this is the engines in Ford vs Farrari the ending race. they tuned the engines or the soundtrack was tuned to match each other to make everything sound like it is one powerful machine.
I had been playing TOTK docked with normal speakers or just the sound of the Switch speakers, and yesterday I tried using my Sony MDR7506 headphones, and oooh boy, the change was so clear and smooth.
so kool
quality research / work
Cool vid and very accurate sound recreation !
The stone sound when you're scrolling the map on BOTW and TOTK scratches a very special part of my brain. Specially when i'm using headphones.
I used to be a soundie, and I started noticing tonality in Hollywood sound design a while ago, specially in Steven Spielberg directed movies and productions. I remember the train crash of Super 8 (Spielberg production) being abnormally tonal. Then in Transformers tonality went crazy. But overall, I remember liking tonal sound design, although I used another name. I called it 'tuned'. It was intuitively more prevalent in SciFi, but it started showing up everywhere. Then Nintendo went and put out Mario Galaxy, which was both scifi, a videogame and a revolution in Nintendo's sound design. SFX tuned in real time according to the music, or at least changed pitches that were always harmonic. I think Galaxy marks the point. As for the item pickup SFX in BOTW, I think you missed that the melody seems to be a quote from other parts of the soundtrack, whatever scale is using.
If you've not played Portal 2, I think you'll really enjoy the dynamic soundtrack. In many places it actively reacts to the actions of the player.
Super professional and informative! Thank you for making it man :)
streamers on twitch and youtube could learn from this for their alerts! It's nice to hear a quick clean and crisp sound for follows/subs and save the big fun stuff for rare events.
6:24 this also seems to align very well with the typical legend of zelda "overworld" theme :)
The crazy thing is I was just talking about this cuz I’ve been playing on my big screen tv with a sound bar, and I can hear EVERYTHING
Purah’s voice legit gives me a weird sexual feeling and I’m not trying to be weird
Interesting to see Nintendo is still doing this even today. Some sound effects in Super Mario Bros 1 on NES did this exact same thing, I think it was the super mushroom powerup noise being a sped up version of the end of level fanfare.
When you mentioned music producing and electronic music, i subbed. Nice video
Am I crazy or are the item pickup sound notes the same notes used on the shrines theme in TOTK?