How to Approach Sound Design on Different Devices

With a new marketing platform seemingly popping up every few months, marketers and agencies across the board are scrambling to understand, create and execute campaigns within these platforms and channels. Campaigns go through the typical production process: brief, strategy, creative execution, production, editing, and so on.

But there is one piece of that process that is often left until the end yet it's becoming increasingly important as these platforms evolve - and that's sound. What most people don’t know is how integral sound design and mixing are to creating a mood and telling a story, both in film and advertising. Designing and mixing is more than just inputting sound effects or volume, it’s about how the dialogue, music and creative work together.

This is especially important to consider when consumers are viewing ads across many screens and platforms, prompting content creators to think differently about how they’re producing content for each. Some of the most basic differences between these platforms is volume. But what other considerations should marketers, agencies and fellow sound designers make when mixing for various platforms beyond volume?

For broadcast ads, designers create sound at a volume level dictated by the government. Typically, we adhere to the standard surround sound, while other mediums remain at stereo level - which is louder and means that it can be mixed at a higher volume. However, on mobile or desktop devices, there's more freedom to experiment in sound design although some technical barriers - like small speakers or low volume - do exisi and may result in a mediocre sound. The location of the speakers also impacts on the quality of the sound. So, when creating sound on a mobile or desktop ad, you should design for the primary driver of the story instead. For instance, if we’re creating a music track, we need to figure out how it will be played out on various speakers. Brands need to pay attention to the dynamics and loudness of a track and consider how it will belong to the chosen platform of distribution. You should also do various tests – like uploading it yourself and playing it through that medium although you can never know how people will be listening at the other end. As platforms evolve and emerge, sound technology develops at a similar pace with sound designers figuring out how to create the best mixes. For now, crafting a sensible mix that is likely to translate across as many platforms as possible is the best that you can hope for.

Virtual reality is another obstacle that sound designers have to work around. As the technology is still in its early days and brands are just starting to dabble in it, we’re all learning from each other. So far, in 360 videos we know that audiences are still viewing the panoramic picture in front of them; we don’t want the viewer to be looking around all the time as it’s distracting and can cause a sick sensation. To keep the audience focused, experiment with 120 degrees footage and of course, you can pepper in certain elements around them. The most important thing at this stage is having a clear story and narrative in VR technology.

While the medium is important, so too is the location in which the sound designer works. We design our mixing rooms like living rooms - so they're similar to where many people view traditional ads and help us to provide the best sound quality for this environment.

But the best tip is to always mix audio to the highest standard permitted by the platform. It will allow you to finely tune, adjust and make changes to elements of a mix that would not be noticed on lower-grade systems. That said, if you know your target device will access the content on mobile, you’ll always want to keep that in mind for the balance of your mix. Small devices, especially mobile phones, are designed to give weight to the voice. You may decide to compensate for that within the mix without compromising playback on better playback systems.