2026-11-04 –, Italien
Your game features a devastating, hyper-realistic flamethrower, but your audio budget only covers a glass of tap water. Is that enough? Absolutely.
In this 50-minute crash course, we will strip away the mystery of professional sound design and explore the bizarre reality of Foley. You will learn the core theoretical principles of how audio functions in games, the accessible tools required to capture it, and the precise processing tricks used to completely transform mundane household sounds. We will walk through a concrete case study where we turn a basic water tap recording into a roaring weapon of mass destruction - giving you the exact knowledge needed to record and design your own custom sound effects without the massive studio overhead.
Sound design is fundamentally the art of illusion. This session is designed for solo developers and indie teams who want to stop relying on repetitive asset flips and start taking matters into their own hands… or ears.
We will focus on practical takeaways, essential tools, and processing techniques that developers can immediately apply to their situation.
What we will cover in this session:
• The function of Sound: Understanding exactly why we use sound in games (from providing crucial player feedback to guiding attention and simulating a believable reality).
• The setup: A practical look at the essential software (like Reaper or Cubase) and hardware needed to start recording, including understanding microphone polar patterns, managing levels to avoid clipping, and the golden rule of leaving 12dB of headroom.
• The tools: The core of the talk. We will break down the four pillars of sound manipulation:
o Equalization (EQ): Removing problematic frequencies and sculpting the sound.
o Compression: Taming dynamic range to make sounds punchy and energetic.
o Reverb: Simulating physical spaces and creating surreal magic effects.
o Pitching/Stretching: Altering the perceived physical size of an object simply by changing its pitch.
• Case Study - The Water Tap Flamethrower: A step-by-step breakdown demonstrating how layering and processing techniques can transform the sound of rushing water from a kitchen sink into an aggressive, dynamic flamethrower effect.
Target Audience: Indie developers, programmers, and generalists looking to build foundational sound design skills and elevate their game’s audio quality on a budget.
Chris Kohler is a game composer and audio designer based in Munich. His first commercial soundtrack was for Mindlock: The Apartment, which went on to receive several awards in different categories and was featured by creators including Gronkh, who described its soundtrack simply as “Geile Mukke” (“Awesome music”). Since then, Chris has contributed music and sound design to a variety of projects, including ASHGARD: Infinity Mask and Atomic Age.
His work across more than 30 released projects focuses on combining handmade sounds with interactive approaches to storytelling. Alongside his work in games, Chris contributes to film and game music productions as an orchestrator and has worked with live orchestras to bring scores from the studio to the stage.
Chris also lectures in game audio at the Technical University of Munich, where he introduces developers to the creative and practical role of sound within the broader game design process.