Sound Test
A video game sound effects reel: 50 sounds and scenes, from menu clicks and coins to a four-layer explosion, a storm and a boss fight, every one from a real synthesizer.
- Sounds
- 50 (47 sounds, 3 scenes)
- Tempo
- 60 BPM (a beat is a second)
- Length
- 3:02
- Tracks
- 56
- Loudness
- -15.7 LUFS
- True peak
- -1.5 dBTP
The prompt
/wavelength I'd like to create a demo track featuring quality sound effects for video games. Typically Claude generates basic sounds with a built in synth. Showing a wide range of sounds would be helpful to folks to showcase how Wavelength could greatly improve their video games.
The track
Sound Test is a sound effects reel for game developers. An agent that writes game audio with a basic oscillator gets beeps; the same agent driving Wavelength gets the sound design libraries of the synthesizers already on the machine. Every sound here is a preset from Surge XT, Serum 2, Altitude, SynthMaster One, DUNE 3, Zebra2, Vital, Relica 2 or BBC Symphony Orchestra, picked after rendering and measuring 103 candidates, then tuned, layered and placed with Wavelength’s effects and automation.
Each sound has its own labelled marker, so the player and the report name every one, and each track is gated to its sound so long tails never bleed into the next. The scenes show what one-shot libraries can’t: distance (a far explosion low-passed and wet, a near one dry and loud), movement (a helicopter and a jet crossing the stereo field, the jet with a Doppler pitch drop), and layering (the explosion is four synths, the final one five).
Download the song file to render it yourself, change a sound, or slice the markers into one-shots for your own game.
| Time | Section | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 0:02 | Menu & UI | Interface sounds tuned to a key: a kalimba cursor tick, a two-note bell confirm and its falling mirror for back, a double buzz for an error, a rolled bell chord for an achievement, and a whoosh into the first level. |
| 0:13 | Platformer | Relica 2 as an 8-bit sound chip: a jump as a 22 ms rising arpeggio, the two-note coin, a power-up run, a noise-channel stomp and a 1-up jingle, then Surge XT's Level Up and a bubbling FM warp. |
| 0:26 | Sci-Fi | Blasters panned left and right, a laser volley, a plasma cannon layered with a zap, droid chatter, a teleport, a weapon charge and an alarm. The explosion is four synths stacked: a boom, a low drone boom, a noise debris crash and an impact. Then a dogfight: lasers trading sides, a far explosion (low-passed and drowned in reverb) and a near one, the alarm underneath. |
| 0:58 | Fantasy | A sword clash with a metal ring, a spell that charges and releases as a fireball, a heal, a sparkle pickup, a magic harp, an item-get bell, and a quest-complete fanfare on BBC Symphony Orchestra trumpets, horns, trombones and a timpani roll. |
| 1:20 | Horror | A heartbeat that speeds up, whispers, a ghost, a slow swell of dread, and a jump scare: an orchestral stab over a sub boom. |
| 1:37 | World | Ambience: a campfire, birdsong, summer insects, cave drips echoing through a delay into a long reverb, wind, rain and thunder. Then the storm rolls in: birds and insects fade under rising wind, rain arrives, far thunder rumbles, and a close strike hits. |
| 2:18 | Machines & Vehicles | A helicopter crossing from left to right, brightening overhead; a jet fly-by with a Doppler pitch drop; a rocket launch; a robot transforming; a computer terminal; a factory floor; a power-down. |
| 2:48 | Boss Fight | Everything at once: red alert, a charge, lasers exchanged, a plasma shot, a charge-up, the five-layer final explosion, and the victory fanfare with bells. |
How an agent sees it
render --png draws it: sections and bars, the loudness contour, a spectrogram of the mix, and every track's notes over its level.Instruments and patches
Synthesizer presets
Each sound is a factory preset played at a chosen pitch and length; the reel gates, levels, pans and processes it.
| Plugin | Presets | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Surge XT | Kalimba Hang Drum, Bell Tap, Level Up, Plasma Gun, R2D2, Boom, Noise Crash 1, Sword Fight, Stream Sparkle, Kick Clean, Hearing Voices, Horror, Crackling, Bird Chirps, Summer Insects, Distant Droplet, Rainfall, Airplane Fly-By, Saturn V, Machine Room, Tape Stop | UI, platformer, explosions, horror, nature, vehicles |
| Serum 2 | FX - What goes up, FX - FM Bubble Sweep, FX - Laser Generator, FX - Rise Sweep - Digi, FX - Demon Woosh, HIT - Zombie Orch Stab, FX - Atmospheric Boom, FX - Wind Tunnel | Whooshes, lasers, charges, the fireball, the jump scare, wind |
| Altitude | FX Lasers!, FX Perimeter Compromised, FX Ghosts, FX Storm Strikes, FX Rotorblades, FX Enter the Code | Laser volley, alarm, ghost, thunder, helicopter, terminal |
| SynthMaster One | FX Beam me up KS, FX Impact Boom, FX Starfall, FX Replicant Bell ARK, FX Transformer | Teleport, impact layer, heal, item get, robot |
| DUNE 3 | Zap, Drone Boom, Magic Harp | Error buzz, plasma layer, explosion body, harp |
| Zebra2 | HS Titanium Hits | The sword's metal ring |
| Vital | Cinema Bells, FX_Red_Alert | Achievement bells, boss alarm |
| Relica 2 | Square, thin pulse and noise states | Jump, coin, power-up, stomp, 1-up |
| BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover | Trumpets a3, Horns a4, Tenor Trombones a3, Percussion (timpani) | Quest complete and victory fanfares |
Mix and master
- Tempo 60, so beats are seconds: one marker per sound, and every track's fader is gated to its sounds' windows (a 20 ms fade in, 250 ms out), so tails and self-playing patches never leak. Reverb sends are post-fader and ring out naturally.
- Levels set per sound, not per track (several tracks play in more than one sound): each window measured against a loudness target, UI around -21 LUFS, weapons -15, explosions -11, ambience -20.
- Three reverbs: a small room for UI and weapons, a hall for explosions, magic and the orchestra, and a cave (ping-pong delay into a 5.5 s reverb) for the drips.
- Movement by automation: pan, a low-pass that opens as the helicopter and jet pass overhead, and pitch bend from +1 to -1.4 semitones for the jet's Doppler.
- Master: a 25 Hz high-pass and a true-peak limiter at -1.5 dB.
Download the song
The whole song in one file: the job Wavelength renders, the script that wrote it, its notes, every revision and the review comments, in the open song format. Render it, change it, or ask your agent to make it its own:
wavelength render sound-test.wavelength
wavelength unpack sound-test.wavelengthTracks whose plugins you don't have play built-in stand-ins, so it renders on any computer; with the same plugins it sounds as you hear it here.
Download sound-test.wavelength 7.7 MB · Licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: share and remix it, credit the song.