Creating Cartoon Sound Effects with Ultimate Bundle 

We had a little re-design fun ourselves, designing sound effects for a childrens cartoon animation. B.O.T & The Beasties using the plugins and sound effects libraries from Ultimate Bundle. Watch the video below then see some tips to consider when creating sound effects for cartoons:

Top Tips for Creating Sound Effects for Cartoons

Read the tips below on how to design sound effects for animation and try them in your own work!

1. Watch the footage multiple times before starting

We can often be so excited to get stuck into the creation process that very little observation is done, causing issues later. Get familiar with the footage before you start designing.

2. Make notes

Notate any gestures, speed, direction, and movement and any emotional reactions. You will use these as cues to add sound effects to.

3. Focus on emotion

Sound Design legend Walter Murch suggests that emotion is 51% of the entire story, so make sure you consider that in your sound designs.

Walter Murch, Rule of Six
(image source)

Animations and cartoons exaggerate emotions and expressions, as we do not read emotions as easily on non-human faces. Make sure you reflect this in your sounds to make the audience’s experience more engaging.

4. Think creatively before you open your DAW

Will you be designing sounds just for footsteps and arm movements or are there more subtle movements happening like nose twitches, eyebrow raises & shifty eyes?

Establish what you are trying to portray sound to before you even open your DAW to start creating.

5. Perform the sounds with your mouth

It makes a difference! Record this into your DAW and add Reformer Pro to start generating ideas. You may sound a little silly, but it makes a difference!

6. Consider your sound choices

The notes you made earlier will help here. Sound choice is subjective, so you can be as wild or as realistic as you like. these will then help you to figure out how your sounds will come across.

Applying these tips to our cartoon re-design

In our video, we combined playful and realistic assets. our notes on the animation were:

  • Neutral, soft colours
  • Textured, fabric/papery style
  • Neutral, un-exaggerated motion
  • Slower pace
  • Funny narrative with some clumsiness and humour

Using these notes, we chose soft impacts and motions that brought character to the animation, without over saturating it with sounds.

The resulting design was carefully considered to match the style of the animation, with enough sounds to propel the narrative forwards and to match the style of the cartoon.

We Hope you Enjoyed this Tutorial! Until Next Time…

Thats all folks looney tunes

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