Why one sound designer isn't afraid of AI SFX, and why another is — Sunday Loop #018
Why Sunday Loop exists
The week moves fast. Between work, sessions, and everything else, the good reads get lost in the noise.
Every Sunday evening I share a few links — things I found worth reading during the week. Logic Pro, sound design, sampling, the occasional curveball. No algorithms, no filler. Just a few things I’d genuinely recommend to a friend.
Grab a coffee. It won’t take long.
— Ewald
This Week
1. Why This Sound Designer Isn’t Afraid Of Generative AI SFX
Category: Sound Design
René Coronado, lead sound designer at Dallas Audio Post, runs one baseline prompt through every new tool: “a big metal shield ringing out as it deflects a great axe”. For ElevenLabs, Adobe Firefly, Ace Studio and Artlist his verdict is that the result “has sucked across all of these tools since inception”, although he expects that to change. He still isn’t worried, because he sees sound design as curation. AI output becomes one more source next to his library, plugin presets and granular and Doppler tools, and every layer gets timed, panned, cleaned in RX and distorted until it cuts through the music. “You can’t shortcut taste.”
2. Our Sound Design Skills Are Safe From AI. Our Industry May Not Be
Category: Sound Design
Charles Maynes, a Hollywood sound designer with more than 200 film and TV credits, answers Coronado’s piece. He agrees that metaphorical thinking and happy accidents are out of reach for a technology he calls “fundamentally regressive”. The risk he sees is in the budgets, where producers pick cheap and fast over good and low-budget work moves to cheaper countries. He also points out that AI assistance is rented, not owned, and asks for legislation that denies copyright to prompt-generated output.
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