Organizing source material, reconciling differences in different versions of script files, calculating the ideal initial delay for a reverb to match the tempo of a music queue, and staying on the same page with your team. Working in game audio involves a large amount of work that takes place outside of the DAW. As part of a software development team, we share many of our colleagues' responsibilities for doing our daily due diligence, keeping ourselves organized, and optimizing our workstations to be able to deliver our best work every day.
This guide features a selection of my favorite tools that help me get my work done fast, reliably, and on spec. Note that while many of these tools work on Mac, too, a number of them are only available on Windows.
Productivity Boosters
App by VoidTools
We all know that Windows' native search is pretty broken by now and wants nothing more than to take you to a website rather than showing you actual files on your computer. Enter Everything, the freeware file search that feels pretty much instant as long as you know part of the name of the file that you're looking for.
How it achieves this ludicrously fast performance is by indexing files on selected drives by name only and draws from this extremely light index file to produce your search results instead of perusing your file contents each time. It can run as an highly efficient background task, allowing it to quickly index any new files you might create and find them instantly immediately after. It's truly a godsend and you won't wanna miss it!
There are few things that I despise more than the recent wave of productivity and notetaking apps that are all tied to some sort of monthly subscription in order sync, or in some cases even create notes in the first place.
Obsidian is the antidote to this trend, primarily because the files it creates are dead simple .md text files. So, even if the app were to one day no longer be supported, it will be a piece of cake to "port" your notes to another one or even just manage them from your file explorer.
Besides using an entirely open file format, Obsidian is also highly customizable, has extremely fast note entry due to simple shorthand for creating headings (##), links ([[]]) and lists (-), the ability to arrange notes in mind maps and other graphical structures, and, most importantly support for community plug-ins that allow features like automatic syncing via Git, creating rich links with a simple keyboard shortcut, importing notes from apps like OneNote or Evernote, and even creating entire websites as if they were a collection of notes.
Furthermore, notes can be linked with hashtags, and the app's now famous open graph viewing mode can visualize connections within an ever-growing collection of notes.
Where it becomes a little tricky is syncing notes across devices if there is an iOS device in the mix. I personally sync my notes via GitHub and simply don't use it on my iPhone. To overcome this hurdle, Obsidian offers a simple paid subscription allowing you to sync regardless of platform. This is totally optional though and won't unlock any additional features. Everything comes packed into the free version. I can also confirm that its OneNote import feature worked flawlessly for me!
File Browser by Milos Paripovic
While the Windows File Explorer has come a long way, it still leaves a lot to be desired for anyone juggling tons of files - especially in software development. OneCommander is a feature-packed file browser that is highly customizable and offers a great deal of quality-of-life improvement over the default File Explorer.
One of my favorite features is the MacOS-like ability to assign color tags to files for easier revision tracking, bookmarking, and organizing. Additionally, the multi-column layout options with independent tabs and color-coded date tags let you get a bird's eye view of many folders and files at once.
OneCommander also comes bundled with QuickLook, allowing you to preview most common files by simply hitting the space bar, much like in MacOS.
My favorite feature by far, however, is the ability view different folders across multiple columns and save my favorite window layouts for later use. It's a dream to use and I wouldn't want to miss it!
Tools Suite by Microsoft
PowerToys is a suite of freeware tools that have been developed in house and available for all versions of Windows dating back to Windows 95. The goal has always been to provide a set of tools that would allow power users to get the most out of their Windows experience. With each new version, more tools (or toys) have been added to this package - some incredibly useful, some quite niche. You can download it for free via the Microsoft Store or GitHub and enable everything or just the features you'd like to use.
Here are some of my faves:
- PowerRename - Batch rename files, folders, subfolders, or everything at once.
- Peek - MacOS style quick preview for most file types. Allows you to preview files from File Explorer by pressing Ctrl + Space.
- Quick Acccent - An indispensable tool for bilingual folks like myself. Allows you to quickly bring up all possible umlauts and accents for any letter using a simple shortcut.
- Keyboard Manager - Lets you remap keys on your keyboard with shortcuts and macros. A great way to turn lesser used keys into handy DAW shortcuts!
- File Locksmith - Tells you which app(s) have been or are currently using any given file via a simple context menu button.
- Windows Command Palette - Launch any Windows command or installed program from a spotlight-like search interface.
...and there are so many more. From resizing images right from the context menu to defining custom window positions in addition to Windows' native window snap features - there's a lot to love here!
Utility by Zenju
Few things are more important than regularly backing up your work. Whether it happens through force of nature, theft, or device failure, data loss is a reality and can have serious consequences for your work. Unlike MacOS, Windows doesn't offer an easy-to-use backup tool that can reliably create incremental backups of all your drives. While you can create your own Robocopy batch scripts to run daily or weekly, FreeFileSync makes the process a lot easier and offers a suite of features that puts you in control of how your data should be backed up.
By scheduling the backup tast via Task Scheduler, you can define how frequently your data should be synchronized on your backup drive, and FreeFileSync will automatically make sure that only new or modified files will be updated.
Another purpose this tool excels at is synchronizing folders or entire drives across computers, allowing you to, for example, maintain identical project folders on your desktop and laptop. I personally use it a lot on my laptop when I want to continue working on a project I last worked on on my desktop. By simply turning that sync action into a Batch file or shortcut, I can have the project folder synced in the background before and after working on it.
Tool by Cockos, Inc.
Despite its name, this tool has in fact nothing to do with creepy crawlies of the hair-dwelling variety. Instead, it's a super handy screen capture tool.
Moving images often convey processes, features, or other shareworthy software-related content more easily than screenshots. LICECap is screen capture tool that outputs GIF files with an incredibly simple workflow and comparatively small file sizes.
It's an incredibly handy app for creating how-to guides, quickly turning bugs into memes to share with your team, and to make promo posts more engaging. A lightweight no-brainer!
Tool by Nicke Manarin
If you need a more powerful tool for turning screen captures into gifs, videos into memes, or whatever other GIF needs you might have, the free Screen2Gif is incredible. It also has the ability to edit existing GIF files (like ones captured by LICECap) with a plethora of options helping you minimize file size by limiting color space, resizing, or utilizing an impressive array of compression algorithms.
This tool is indispensable when creating a knowledge base for your colleagues or customers or demonstrating processes to your team mates.
Sound Library Managers
As far as I'm aware, Soundly has been among the first apps to offer sound library management free of charge and provide the option for a paid cloud library that can cover the needs of any sound designer looking to get their start in the industry.
Thanks to it's amazing and ever-growing on-demand cloud library, Soundly has quickly become a hit with sound designers around the globe working on indie games, podcasts, and low to mid-budget movies. Can't find a sound in their cloud library? Suggest it and the team will actually try and source it for you!
Soundly focuses on offering all the necessary basics and doing them right. It's super responsive, offers many handy features like an easy-to-use metadata edit window, spectrogram view, graphic EQ, one-click mono downmixing, and even a remarkably capable convolution and reverb plug-in called Place It. Additionally, Soundly features a Voice Designer which can generate fairly realistic text-to-speech dialogue in multiple languages and with a huge selection of voices with adjustable intonation and emotion. Super handy for temp dialogue or for crafting bespoke walla on a tight deadline!
In "Dock Mode" soundly shrinks to a toolbar-like interface which takes up about 15% of your vertical screen space while retaining all of its searching and monitoring functionality. This works especially well if you're working on a single-screen setup but would like to still have your source material just one drag & drop away.
Its Spot-to-Timeline feature will automatically detect your active DAW, making spotting a breeze. Simply click the spotting button or hit the S key to immediately bring your desired file to your cursor position on the timeline.
The only caveat for me is that the free version only allows for up to 10,000 local audio files. At $14.99 ($7.99 for students) per month, the Pro version offers unlimited indexing of local files and access to the massive Soundly Pro Library, an ever growing catalogue of over 100,000 sounds largely exclusive to their platform. This library is an incredible bargain if you're just starting out as it covers nearly everything you will need to get started working on all kinds of sound design projects.
Not too long ago, audio processing powerhouse Sound Particles threw its hat into the Sound Library Manager game with Explorer. This library manager is feature rich and, most importantly, doesn't impose a limit on how many local files the free version can index.
Sound Particles' claim to fame is their flagship software of the same name that utilizes technology inspired by graphical particle systems to create sonic source material out of dozens, thousands, or even millions of individual samples without requiring much manual tweaking. Remember any recent movie with gratuitous gunfire or a swarm of creatures surrounding you sonically? If so, you have definitely heard Sound Particles in action.
But now, back to Explorer. It allows for quick searching for audio files, dragging & dropping straight to your DAW, and, of course, the ever-helpful "Spot to Timeline" feature that places the selected file (or section within) straight at your playhead. While Explorer doesn't automatically detect which DAW is running on your machine, if you tend to use the same one most of the time you only have to make your preferred DAW selection once.
A welcome addition is the built-in effects rack where you can create a processing chain consisting of various bundled plug-ins. These include EQ, clip gain, reverse, pitch shift, woosh, and more. Any effects applied automatically get rendered to a new file whenever you drag & drop or spot a file into your project. Combinations of plug-ins can also be saved as presets for easy recall. This feature is very reminiscent of SoundMiner's FX rack which is only available in the Plus ($399) or Pro ($899) versions. Killer added value!
Just like Soundly, Sound Particles offers the option to subscribe to the Sound Particles FX Cloud online library. If you struggle finding the right sound effects but don't have the means to invest in pricey libraries, this on-demand collection of over 100,000 sounds can be an excellent starting point. The content of this online library comes from renowned recordists and sound effects library vendors around the world.
Another handy feature in its metadata panel is that it keeps track of how many times you've used (drag & drop or spotted) a sound letting you keep an eye out for sounds you might be overusing. This can be used helpful in keeping things sounding fresh and original across your different projects.
The so called "brightness" column also gives you an idea of where the highest frequency with significant energy sits for each audio file, letting you spot at a glance whether a sound may or may not be suitable for your desired application. For example, if you're looking for dark and ominous drones, ones that feature high-pitched swirls or crystal-like sounds might not even be worth listening to. The brightness value would immediately let you know that this sound wouldn't be one you even need to review during your initial search.
Basehead is one of the early pioneers of sample library management alongside SoundMiner. It has enjoyed a great deal of loyalty and praise from its users and the completely overhauled free version has become a highly compelling competitor to the library managers mentioned above - in large part due to its impressive selection of bundled sound effects from partners like SFX Swap, Pole Position Products, and Pro Sound Effects (currently totaling at over 30,000 assets) which are not tied to any sort of subscription or purchase.
It features automatic spotting to timeline with the DAW that's currently running, indexing an unlimited number of audio assets, and basic destructive processing like re-pitching and fades.
Paid versions of Basehead can also access AI-generated text to speech features thanks to ElevenLabs integration.
From world class post-production houses to AAA game studios, SoundMiner is still as ubiquitous in the upper echelons of audio post as it has ever been - and for good reason. To this day, it still offers the most comprehensive metadata toolset starting with an incredible number of available fields from something as broad as FX Title and artwork to something as specific as microphone position and geographical coordinates of the recording location. It also has a powerful network feature set allowing studios to host a central sound library via SoundMiner Server and giving everyone on the team access to a unified main library.
Additional standout features are its comprehensive built-in FX rack and VST support for real-time processing (PLUS or higher) and the feature-packed Radium sampler (PRO) that allows the creation of multi-layered sound effects complete with variations and real-time parameter control before even exporting anything to your DAW.
Custom metadata workflows allow one-click access to otherwise repetitive tasks such as extracting categories from file names or auto-populating your designer name, URL, and library title when you're creating your own libraries.
Updates get pushed frequently and new features are implemented fairly regularly. By being active in forums such as the Field Recording Slack, developer Justin Drury is always eager to collect ideas and feedback from the audio post community and quickly turn them around into fixes and features. One such feature is the recently added Brightness column that shows the amount of ultrasonic content above 20 kHz in a file with a simple bar graph, tested and tweaked using recordings from the community.
So, while Soundminer is no doubt expensive, I believe sheer number of features, customizability, scalability, and frequent free updates make it well worth the price of admission if you're already doing paid work and have amassed a sizeable sound effects library of your own. Until then, the above-mentioned managers and their optional cloud libraries will give you a great head start!
Middleware Helpers
Tool by Chris Latham
We all love coming up with intricate audio systems that make a certain aspect of gameplay sound just right, with superb level of detail and incredible amounts of natural randomness. However, having to recreate these systems across switch groups / characters / gameplay areas is a lot less fun. Similarly, carrying over systems you came up with for one game into another becomes even more cumbersome.
Chris Latham built a tool that lets you import existing hierarchies from an active Wwise project and store them for later use. This ranges from single container structure to your entire Actor Mixer hierarchy. This way, you can easily create a library of go-to presets that will help you get your audio systems set up incredibly quickly.
Tool by Karol Andrzejewski
While the new Attenuation Scaling feature in Wwise 2024 has made it a lot easier to tweak attenuation curves on a case-by-case basis without creating an entirely new ShareSet each time, it can still be incredibly handy to make sweeping changes to a number of curves at ones without affecting their individual scaling.
Karol Andrzejewski built just such a tool that utilizes WAAPI and Python to give you full control over multiple attenuation curves at once with a lightweight helper tool.
Tool by Karol Andrzejewski
If you're anything like me, you might spend a considerable amount of time setting up your Wwise audio hierarchy, creating intricate nested random containers, multi-layered switch logic, and so forth... And then you remember you now have to create a gazillion and a half Wwise events to actually play these sounds.
Well, this tool by Karol lets you select a bunch of objects from your audio hierarchy, and create play events for all of them with a single click while the events conform to your preferred naming scheme.
While I wish there was a way to render events optional entirely, this takes a lot of the pain out of creating them!
Tool by Matthieu Bonneau
This entirely browser-based tool blew my mind a bit when I first found it. Simply launch it with Wwise running, connect to your project, and perform all kinds of tasks like bulk-renaming assets, importing tons of new assets with auto-created container hierarchies based on file naming scheme, or even map multi-sampler instruments within blend containers with a musical key range view - that latter one is straight up painful in Wwise otherwise.
So yea, if you're building a rhythm game or one where music consists of or contains real-time MIDI tracks triggering multi-sampled instruments within Wwise, this will help you speed up their creation drastically.
Other neat tricks include reviewing all your notes across the project, creating parents for events based on naming, and batch-editing attenuations.
Audio Helpers
Tool by Sonosaurus
There's no better way to test how well your sound design, mixes, or masters will fare on bass-challenged mobile device speakers by just playing them back on an actual device. The free, open-source tool Sonobus allows you to stream audio to any computer or mobile device on your network. Simply install the app on your source computer and whichever receiver devices you want to use (Win, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS). Once connected, you can freely stream your system output to the other device!
You can tweak streaming bandwidth, stream surround audio, and even mix audio from multiple sources on any receiving device, allowing you to host a "jam session" with several folks using a DAW on their computers.
Tool by Björn Bojahr
Sooner or later, having to do some audio related math is unavoidable. From trying to calculate the appropriate delay time to tempo-sync a hardware FX unit, to perform down-to-the-millisecond varispeed operations - we could all use a handy all-in-one tool that makes these tasks easier.
Luckily, audio tools veteran Björn Bojahr (formely :Wizoo:) has made just that. Enter WizCalc, a portable (non-installing) app for Windows and Mac that can help you convert beats to milliseconds, calculate the relationship between different tempos, display any frequency in relation to concert pitch, convert any time duration into number of frames, and more.
This lightweight app is truly a no-brainer and so benign that it'll run on anything from Windows 98 to recent MacOS releases.
Tool by Joseph Lyncheski
If you've spent any amount of time at all in the game audio realms of Bsky, LinkedIn, or other socials that shall remain unnamed, you'll likely have seen people sharing their sound designs or music cues alongside some pretty, colorful dancing audio meters. Well, here they are.
MiniMeters is a versatile and incredibly responsive set of systemwide audio meters that can measure anything coming out of your system or get their input from any plug-in insert slot within your DAW via the included host plug-in.
While not free, $10 is well worth it for their visual appeal, let alone the ability to keep tabs of the loudness and frequency content of just about anything coming out of your computer's audio outputs. However, keep in mind that its limited loudness measurement feature set means it can't serve as a replacement for a professional loudness metering plug-in.
Tool by Jürgen Moßgraber
If you're hopping between DAWs, hardware grooveboxes, and synth workstations, you may need to convert some of your libraries into different formats at times. Turning a Soundfont into an MPC keygroup program or Reason NN-XT sampler patch into one for Ableton Sampler. All this can be achieved for free using the ingenious ConvertWithMoss.
This straightforward tool is completely free and open source and allows you to convert between all these formats (as of May 2025):
- 1010music blackbox, tangerine, bitbox (preset.xml)
- Ableton Sampler (*.adv, *.adg)
- Akai MPC Keygroups (*.xpm)
- CWITEC TX16Wx (*.txprog)
- DecentSampler (*.dspreset, *.dslibrary)
- Expert Sleepers disting EX (*.dexpreset)
- Korg KMP/KSF (*.KMP)
- Korg wavestate/modwave (*.korgmultisample)
- Logic EXS24 (*.exs)
- Multisample Format - Bitwig Studio, Presonus Studio One (*.multisample)
- Native Instruments Kontakt 1-7 (*.nki) - destination only Kontakt 1
- Propellerhead Reason NN-XT (*.sxt)
- Sample Files: AIFF, FLAC, OGG, NCW, WAV files
- SFZ (*.sfz)
- SoundFont 2 (*.sf2)
- TAL Sampler (*.talsmpl)
- Waldorf Quantum MkI, MkII / Iridium / Iridium Core
- Yamaha YSFC format (read/write: Montage, MODX/MODX+, read (waveforms only): Motif XS, Motif XF, MOXF, Montage M).
Note that this tool cannot be used to convert commercial, encrypted Kontakt libraries into other formats.
Tool by Björn Bojahr
When sampling any tonal instrument to create a sample library in Kontakt, Logic Pro Sampler, or any other sample player one thing is unavoidable with instruments that can sustain a note: Setting loop points so that your notes will sustain seamlessly.
While there are plenty of autosamplers around that will attempt to find the ideal loop point for each sample automatically after capturing a note, in my experience none of them would ever get it quite right, even with simple waveforms.
Additionally, the controls for setting loop points in most sample players are terribly imprecise or, even worse, won't snap to zero crossings automatically. Enter Endless WAV, another tool by Björn Bojahr that does one thing and does it incredibly well: Letting you set loop points in WAV files.
While it'll still involve manual labor, Endless WAV has tools for attempting automatic loop point placement, zero crossing snap, fade-in and out points, and lets you parse through an entire folder of audio files with your arrow keys while you're at it. The process of setting loop points is non-destructive as they exist purely within your file's metadata, and only fades are ever baked into the audio portion.
Note: This tool works exceptionally well with tonal material but isn't suitable for noise-based content like ambient loops. Those are still best created manually. Also note that it may or may not work with certain sample rates above 48 kHz.
Tool by Björn Bojahr
While it might be a niche case, I wanted to include this tool because it's incredibly straightforward! When digging up older sample libraries or auto-sampling an instrument, using this tool is the quickest way to turn them into a playable SFZ instrument compatible with Plogue Sforzando, UVI Falcon, Aria, and many others.
Tool by Chicken Systems
Translator 7 has got to be one of the best kept secrets among sample library creators. It's an insanely capable tool that can create and convert just about any sample library format imaginable. Don't believe me? Check out this list from May 2025!!!
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From https://www.chickensys.com/products2/translator/formats.html - retrieved May 31st, 2025.
Converting sound libraries into a format compatible with your favorite tracker, converting SoundFonts for use on your MPC of choice, or wanting to play a modern sampler instrument on your favorite vintage hardware... Translator basically do it all. Note that it cannot, however, convert commercial, encrypted Kontakt libraries.
Personally, I use translator to convert sample libraries I have created to different common DAW sampler formats like Reason NN-XT, SFZ, MPC KeyGroups, Kontakt, Logic Pro Sampler, and others.
The software also features a handy AutoSampler which you can use to easily automate multi-sampling any MIDI-enabled instrument. Handy program switching even makes it possible to sample every single patch on a hardware synth completely automatically as the software will automatically advance to the next program when the selected note range has been fully sampled at all specified velocities and round robins. Quite the powerful tool!
Despite the website making it seem like the product is just expensive abandonware, Translator is very much still being updated regularly with new formats and stability improvements. Besides software, Chicken Systems also offers adapters and daughterboards allowing you to use modern storage media with vintage floppy disk or SCSI-based samplers.
Tool by Jürgen Moßgraber
The new open-source DAWProject format promises to provide a standardized project file package that could theoretically be supported by just about any DAW while maintaining non-destructive editing, MIDI tracks, and settings within basic compressor, EQ, gate, and limiter plug-ins. So far, Cubase, PreSonus Studio One, and Bitwig Studio support the format with more DAWs, hopefully, on the horizon.
Luckily for us REAPER users, the ever-innovative Moss has struck again, and created a freeware tool that can convert DAWProject files to REAPER projects and vice-versa, allowing you to easily transfer simple projects back and forth!
Tool by Suite Spot Studios
Imagine this: You're a REAPER user who, like many of us, doesn't also want to pay for Pro Tools when you only end up opening it a handful of times per year. A problem that might arise for us however is whenever we're faced with deliverables from external dialog, music, or ADR recording sessions - usually delivered as Pro Tools sessions or AAF/OMF packages.
REAPER, of course, doesn't support any of these formats. Luckily, AATranslator does and can convert them to a plethora of different DAW project formats as well as feature the ability to convert REAPER projects into AAF/OMF for delivery to other audio professionals.
At around $249 for the version with AAF/OMF support it's quite the pricey tool but I'd argue that one-time purchase still beats shelling out for Pro Tools year after year. Additionally, this tool has been around for over a decade and many companies rely on it to convert high priority deliverables from world-class studios around the world, allowing them to keep all audio work contained in the DAW they've standardized on.
Compatible software applications include:
- Adobe Audition & Premiere
- Audacity
- Cool Edit Pro (LOL)
- SAW Studio
- Apple Final Cut
- Harrison MixBus
- Ableton Live 8 & later
- Sony/Magix Vegas
- Magix Samplitude
- and many more.
Tools for the Grunt Work
Working in game audio ultimately means working in software development. As such, a bulk if not the majority of our work often happens outside of the DAW. These tools will help you deliver your best work each and every day while making sure you and your team remain on the same page.
Note: More tools are coming soon!
No matter how diligent everyone on your team is working, it's unavoidable that at some point, multiple people will be working on the same file and will need to reconcile their differences before checking in their respective contributions. Given the variety of different tools and workflows that may be involved, this is not an instance where we can just hit "merge" and be done. It's important we do our due diligence to not step all over someone else's work or break the game's nightly build by deleting what just seemed like a comment (this may or may not have happened to me once).
The process of comparing different versions of a file within an editor interface that highlights said differences is called a diff. Within the tool, we can then decide which changes to keep from our own version, where to integrate ones made in another user's version, or where to revert to the contents of the original file. This act is called merging.
A custom diff and merge tool can be specified within most versioning clients' preferences, and given tools like this one, is definitely worth it.
WinMerge is probably the most widespread open-source file comparison app. It's incredibly easy to navigate, features a visually clear interface for highlighting differences and facilitating the act of reconciling them.
Whether you just want to work on the couch sometimes, but all your projects live on your main desktop, or you're trying to improve your or your team's remote work experience, Parsec should be at the top of your list. Originally designed for gamers to remotely connect to their rigs at home while maintaining stable frame rates and low latency, Parsec naturally has been a great fit for people who need a responsive remote desktop environment to work in Maya, DAWs, game engines, or just about anything else that has your scrolling, zooming, and moving around a lot.
It's already used by AAA game studios as well as gamers around the world and its free tier meant for personal use offers high quality streaming for a single monitor at up to 1080p60. Paid subscriptions ($8.99 and up) support three monitors at up to 4K60, 4:4:4 color coding, and add support for drawing tablets among other features.
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Further Reading & Tips
Join us for the Game Audio Boston x Audiokinetic Hang on May 9th!
Elevate Your Audio Production with REAPER – Now Available!
Game Audio Explained | An ASFX Guide
We’re Writing a Book!
The Wonderful World of SFX Crowdsourcing
The Best Free REAPER Tools for Game Audio
