Sound Design Sound Design MCQ 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In game audio, what is an 'audio occlusion' system designed to simulate?
- The Doppler effect on moving game objects
- The muffling of sound when obstacles are between the listener and source (Correct answer)
- The reverberation of sounds inside enclosed game environments
- The spatialization of sounds across surround speakers
Correct answer: The muffling of sound when obstacles are between the listener and source
Audio occlusion simulates how solid objects block and muffle sound waves, so sounds heard through walls or behind obstacles sound appropriately dampened.
Question 2: What is 'spectral editing' in audio restoration?
- Adjusting EQ bands across the full frequency spectrum
- Visually identifying and removing unwanted sounds directly on a spectrogram display (Correct answer)
- Resampling audio to a different sample rate
- Applying multiband compression across spectral regions
Correct answer: Visually identifying and removing unwanted sounds directly on a spectrogram display
Spectral editing uses a spectrogram view to visually locate and surgically remove or attenuate specific unwanted sounds like clicks, hums, or noise bursts.
Question 3: Which of the following best describes 'parallel compression' (also called New York compression)?
- Compressing a signal with two compressors in series
- Blending a heavily compressed signal with the original dry signal (Correct answer)
- Applying different compression ratios to left and right channels
- Using a compressor's sidechain to duck music under dialogue
Correct answer: Blending a heavily compressed signal with the original dry signal
Parallel compression mixes a heavily compressed version of a signal with the unprocessed original, preserving natural transients while adding density and sustain.
Question 4: What property of sound does the Fletcher-Munson curve describe?
- The relationship between frequency and wavelength in air
- The variation in human hearing sensitivity across frequencies at different loudness levels (Correct answer)
- The decay rate of different frequencies in reverberant spaces
- The masking threshold between simultaneous tones
Correct answer: The variation in human hearing sensitivity across frequencies at different loudness levels
The Fletcher-Munson (equal loudness) curves show that human hearing sensitivity to different frequencies changes significantly depending on overall listening level.
Question 5: In Wwise or FMOD, what is a 'random container' used for?
- Store audio assets in a compressed random-access format
- Play a randomly selected sound from a group each time it is triggered (Correct answer)
- Apply random pitch modulation to a looping sound
- Randomize the playback order of a music playlist
Correct answer: Play a randomly selected sound from a group each time it is triggered
A random container (or random/shuffle container) picks a random audio asset from a defined pool on each trigger, adding variation to repeated sound events in games.
Question 6: What is 'sound layering' in sound design practice?
- Recording multiple microphone placements simultaneously
- Combining multiple audio recordings to create a richer, more complex composite sound (Correct answer)
- Applying multiple effects in series on a single audio track
- Duplicating a track and offsetting it slightly in time for chorus effects
Correct answer: Combining multiple audio recordings to create a richer, more complex composite sound
Sound layering stacks multiple individually recorded or synthesized sounds together to build a single complex designed sound with greater depth and texture.
Question 7: What is the role of a 'sidechain' in audio production?
- A secondary audio path that carries effects returns
- An external or internal signal used to trigger or control a processor such as a compressor (Correct answer)
- A parallel signal chain used for parallel processing
- A reference output sent to a secondary monitoring system
Correct answer: An external or internal signal used to trigger or control a processor such as a compressor
A sidechain feeds an external or internal signal into a processor's detector circuit, allowing that signal to control the processor's behavior rather than the audio being processed.
Sound Design Sound Design MCQ 4
In game audio, what is an 'audio occlusion' system designed to simulate?