I am a programmer, and pretty good at photoshop. But like many I talk to, sound in games is a real struggle. So I would be interested to know what others do to get sound effects and music for their games? Do you use the free websites, do you buy your effects from sites like soundrangers or soundsnaps, or do you make your own (if so what do you use)?
I've found some stuff on freesound.org that's fairly good, but has usually required some editing (which I may do in Adobe Soundbooth or whatever...even the free Aaudacity program can do the basic stuff). I think I found a handful of sounds on Soundsnap that I payed for. Beyond that, I did record some of my own, but I have an H4N Zoom and a Rode shotgun microphone because I'm a freelance video production guy, so it made it easier for me to go that route.
I must admit, this is the area which I wish was easier. I've been using Pond5 to source sound effects and music. You can use download comps until you're satisfied enough to buy them for the final release. www.freesfx.co.uk is also good for common SFX. It's best to learn how they do sound effects for TV, films and radio. For example they may smash a melon to create a SFX of a gruesome murder. It's thinking what sound effect may make a good substitute. An example is that I needed a remote control car SFX. In the end I used a electric shaver SFX and speeded it up. Perfect. However I've learnt that decent retro SFX are harder to find on Pond5. A lot of them seem to be what a non game player thinks retro SFX are or their hazy memory of them. I might consider finding a retro sound generator software and creating those kind of SFX myself.
Virtual/hardware sound modules For some abstract sounds, I use a couple of sound modules and MIDI keyboard (e.g. many of the effects in Lettermeister are played with sounds from a Roland XV-5050). Even if you're not a musician, it might be worth considering getting a bit of cheap music-making gear and having a plonk around: some software synths/modules aren't terribly expensive, and you may well find fairly cheap hardware modules second hand on e-Bay (and for the purposes of controlling a synth to make sound effects, any cheapo 1 or 2 octave MIDI controller keyboard will do).
