I’m going to start writing about the process of sound design from my demo reel. First up is the Oblivion gate from the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

In TES: IV, Oblivion Gates are mysterious portals to a hellish plane of existence. For the base of the sound, I wanted to combine elements of fire (various library sources ranging from campfires to forest infernos), earth (low rumbling earthquake), and electricity (arc welder) in a way that would sell the visuals.

Separate elemental sounds:

Combined together with some effects:

In addition to the basic Oblivion Gate loop I created, there are some erratic fire plumes around the edges of the gate that I made by using a doppler shifter plugin. When you get closer to the gate’s mouth, I wanted the feeling that the hot winds of hell were blowing in your face, so I added a blustery, whistling gale element. With all these in place, it was nearly there, but I felt it needed something more strange and harder to place, which came later when I was recording vocals for one of the creatures. I took a clip of myself speaking fake Latin, reversed, reverbed, and timestretched it until it turned into a long, eerie moan and used it as another layer, for when the player is looking directly at the mouth of the gate.

Fire plumes, wind and eerie soundscape elements:

All together now: