VCD 310 | Course Introduction and Application Information - Department of Visual Communication Design

Course Name

Sound Design

Code	Semester	Theory (hour/week)	Application/Lab (hour/week)	Local Credits	ECTS
VCD 310	Fall/Spring	2	2	3	4

Prerequisites	None
Course Language	English
Course Type	Elective
Course Level	First Cycle
Mode of Delivery	face to face
Teaching Methods and Techniques of the Course	Critical feedback Application: Experiment / Laboratory / Workshop Lecture / Presentation
National Occupation Classification	-
Course Coordinator	-
Course Lecturer(s)	Öğr.Gör.Dr. İLYAS ERDEM TONGUÇ
Assistant(s)	-

Course Objectives	The aim of this course is for students to be able to independently design, execute, and deliver the soundtrack for their own visual work. The course also aims to develop a critical listening habit that allows students to discriminate the quality of sound material.
Learning Outcomes	The students who succeeded in this course; Define the layers of the soundtrack (dialogue, effects, ambience, music) and explain their function in meaning-making. Know the technical criteria for clean sound recording and obtain usable recordings in the field with available equipment. Clean, edit, and apply problem-solving processes to sound recordings in a digital environment. Select material appropriate to their project by comparing recorded, commercial-library, and generative-AI sources, while observing license terms. Evaluate the quality of sound material against technical criteria and distinguish convincing sound from artificial-sounding sound. Design a non-existent sound through layering and justify the processes applied. Synchronize sound with moving image and observe synchronization tolerances. Balance a multi-layered soundtrack in terms of frequency, dynamics, and panorama, meeting the loudness standards of distribution platforms.
Course Description	This course equips Visual Communication Design students with the ability to build the soundtrack of their own visual work from start to finish. Over the semester, each student works on a moving-image piece of their own choosing: gathering, producing, and processing sound, matching it to the image, balancing its layers, and preparing it for delivery. The course focuses on how a designer working on multimedia projects can overcome specific sound problems such as failing to get a clean recording, choosing sound that does not match the image, letting layers bleed into one another, and delivering work in the wrong format. Each session has three parts: blind listening (discussion based on comparative sound examples), lecture and demonstration (the week's technical topic), and studio time (in which students work on their own term project and receive individual feedback). As the term project, each student designs a soundtrack for a 45-60 second piece of their own moving image work (animation, stop-motion, game trailer, short film, motion graphics).
Related Sustainable Development Goals

Course Category	Core Courses
	Major Area Courses
	Supportive Courses	X
	Media and Management Skills Courses
	Transferable Skill Courses

Week	Subjects	Related Preparation
1	Introduction to sound design: stages of sound post-production (dialogue editing, ADR, foley, sound design, music placement, re-recording mix); the four layers of the soundtrack (dialogue, effects, ambience, music) and their function in meaning-making. In-class exercise: comparative screening of the same footage with three different soundtracks. The term project is introduced.	Review of the course syllabus and submission calendar.
2	Clean sound: noise floor and signal-to-noise ratio, clipping, room tone, handling noise, the signal chain and gain staging, dBFS/headroom, sample rate and bit depth (the rationale for 48 kHz/24-bit). In-class exercise: class listening session and peer critique of student recordings.	Week 1 assignment: three thirty-second ambience recordings from three different locations.
3	Microphone recording: hands-on demonstration of polar patterns, microphone distance/angle, lavalier microphone placement, shotgun microphone positioning. In-class exercise: recording the same sentence with different microphones, distances and angles for comparison. Assignment/Deliverable 1: clean dialogue recording with matching room tone.	Week 2 assignment: short research report on microphone types.
4	Dialogue editing: the distinction between a DAW and an NLE, cutting/fades/crossfades, de-clicking, the limits of noise-reduction tools, problem-solving EQ. In-class exercise: class listening and joint diagnosis of flaws in the Deliverable 1 recordings.	Deliverable 1: clean dialogue recording with matching room tone.
5	Producing your own sound (field recording and foley): field recording preparation, prop foley (footsteps, cloth, doors, liquids), building a sense of perspective and distance, note-taking and file-naming discipline during recording. In-class exercise: an on-campus field recording tour. The term project footage is finalized.	The edited version of Deliverable 1 (raw and edited versions submitted together).
6	Sound sources and library management: the three sources (own recordings, commercial/open libraries, generative AI), library curation, license types (Creative Commons, Freesound terms, commercial library agreements), the appropriate use of generative AI tools, ethical use and source attribution. In-class exercise: meeting the same scene need from all three sources and comparing results. Deliverable 2 (project sound library) is assigned.	The finalized footage for the term project and the raw sound material collected so far.
7	Aural diagnosis (the anatomy of convincing versus artificial-sounding audio): velocity layering, round robin, articulation, release and decay tails, early reflections, static versus evolving sound, traces of reality, and the mixing constraints imposed by pre-processed library files. In-class exercise: applying a six-question diagnostic checklist to each student's sound library.	The project sound library, currently being assembled for Deliverable 2.
8	MIDTERM EXAM WEEK - NO CLASS SESSION	-
9	Deliverable 2 (project sound library) is collected online, and on the same day the midterm project brief is distributed in writing together with a recorded demonstration (video) of the layering technique.	Deliverable 2: the completed project sound library (at least 20 files, subfolder structure, 48 kHz/24-bit WAV, license documentation). Due week 10.
10	Bending sound and synchronization: pitch and duration processing and the dependency between them, reversal/filtering/de-identification, building a non-existent object through layering (attack, body, weight, tail), hit points, anticipation, perceptual sync tolerance, differences in sync across shot types (live action/animation/stop motion), frame-rate conversion. This is the term's first face-to-face session following the material distributed online in Week 8 (November 13): the first hour is devoted to questions on the layering demonstration and the midterm project brief, after which sound material is placed onto the term project footage for the first time. Note: since Week 8 was a no-class week, content carried over from that week is also covered in this session; a student who has not watched the demonstration beforehand cannot follow the first hour.	Prior viewing of the midterm project brief and the layering-technique demonstration (video) distributed online in Week 9 (November 20).
11	Mixing: separation, balance and loudness. Frequency separation, ducking and priority decisions, use of panning and the stereo field, mono compatibility checks, dynamic range management, automation, monitoring environments and reference listening, LUFS measurement and platform differences (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, festival delivery), true peak and phone-speaker checks. In-class exercise: building a layered rough mix and measuring it against reference material. The midterm project is submitted and played back for the class.	Midterm project (Designed Sound Object): mixdown, stems, session screenshot, and layer log.
12	Music selection and placement: the distinction between diegetic and non-diegetic music, moments where music should not enter and the function of silence, the relationship between tempo and editing rhythm, licensed music, royalty-free libraries and AI-generated music, techniques for shortening and restructuring music. In-class exercise: screening the same scene with different music choices and analyzing the resulting shift in meaning.	The layered rough mix of the term project.
13	Delivery and export: file formats (WAV, AIFF, MP3) and their appropriate uses, differences between stereo and multi-channel delivery, stem delivery and its rationale, re-importing into Premiere, After Effects and Unity, loop versus one-shot logic for games, file-naming discipline in the delivery package, presenting sound work in a portfolio. In-class exercise: building the delivery package together in class. The lecture portion runs about twenty minutes; the rest of the session is a mixing clinic in which students work on their own material with individual feedback.	The music chosen for the project and a short piece of writing justifying that choice.
14	Workshop and peer review: rehearsal screenings of the projects, structured peer review, class-wide troubleshooting of common problems and knowledge-sharing among students, a return to question six of the required reading (Randy Thom). No new content is presented; the session is adapted to the class's actual progress.	The finished delivery package (a presentable draft).
15	Final screening and evaluation: screening of the completed projects, presentation and evaluation for each project, overall review of the semester. No new content is presented.	Revisions made based on the feedback received.
16	An end-term reviewing and assessment of the course.

Course Notes/Textbooks

The course is not tied to a single textbook; chapters from the core sources listed below, together with online and multimedia materials, are used.

Suggested Readings/Materials

Sonnenschein, David. Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema. Michael Wiese Productions.
Viers, Ric. The Location Sound Bible: How to Record Professional Dialog for Film and TV. Michael Wiese Productions.
Senior, Mike. Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. Focal Press.
Thom, Randy. "Designing a Movie for Sound." Available via filmsound.org (required short reading; distributed with a reading guide in Week 1).
A fully annotated list of supplementary books, peer-reviewed journals, technical standards, and online resources - including Turkish-language sources and researchers working in this field in Turkey - is distributed separately.

Semester Activities	Number	Weigthing
Participation	1	5
Laboratory / Application
Field Work
Quizzes / Studio Critiques	-	-
Portfolio
Homework / Assignments	3	45
Presentation / Jury
Project	1	50
Seminar / Workshop
Oral Exams
Midterm
Final Exam
Total

Weighting of Semester Activities on the Final Grade	3	50
Weighting of End-of-Semester Activities on the Final Grade	1	50
Total

Semester Activities	Number	Duration (Hours)	Workload
Theoretical Course Hours (Including exam week: 16 x total hours)	16	2	32
Laboratory / Application Hours	16	2	32
Study Hours Out of Class	-	-	0
Field Work			0
Quizzes / Studio Critiques	-	-	0
Portfolio			0
Homework / Assignments	3	8	24
Presentation / Jury			0
Project	1	32	32
Seminar / Workshop			0
Oral Exam			0
Midterms			0
Final Exam		-	0
		Total	120

#	Program Competencies/Outcomes	* Contribution Level
#	Program Competencies/Outcomes	1	2	3	4	5
1	To be able to apply the fundamental principles of design in creating visual narratives and messages, using physical and digital media,	-	-	-	-	-
2	To attain complex problem-solving skills, using various design methods,	-	-	-	-	-
3	To have a clear understanding of creative/art direction,	-	-	-	-	-
4	To be able to use the advanced theoretical and applied knowledge attained in the areas of Visual Communication Design,	-	-	-	X	-
5	To act with social and ethical awareness and to take responsibility, both individually and collectively, for developing aesthetic and effective design solutions,	X	-	-	-	-
6	To be able to investigate, interpret and evaluate the developments on Visual Communication Design in the world and in Turkey,	-	-	-	-	-
7	To have an advanced level of knowledge and experience in producing/editing still and moving images,	-	-	-	-	-
8	To attain proficiency in using related software, media, and communication technologies,	-	-	-	X	-
9	To gain reflexive and critical thinking abilities,	X	-	-	-	-
10	To undertake self-directed and continuous education in the discipline, to develop a lifelong learning attitude,	-	-	-	-	-
11	To be able to collect data in the areas of Visual Communication Design and communicate with colleagues in a foreign language ("European Language Portfolio Global Scale", Level B1),	-	-	-	-	-
12	To be able to speak a second foreign at a medium level of fluency efficiently,	-	-	-	-	-
13	To be able to relate the knowledge accumulated throughout human history to their field of expertise.	-	-	-	-	-