Lately I've been trying to create some basic video game audio using a number of trackers (Sunvox, Milkytracker, Buzz) and Audacity for processing but I've been running into more trouble than I anticipated.

What I'm going for are some basic sound effects like slashing a sword, firing an arrow, opening a door, picking up an item etc without any foley work. I've been having a lot of success using trackers for background music, menu noises etc but I'm having a lot of difficulty making action sound effects, has anyone else used a tracker for these?

For a simple attack sound I took the sword slash sound from A Link to the Past and took a look at it in Audacity. It essentially seems like a noise track sped up but I'm having trouble recreating something like it. When I try it mine basicly sounds like noise sped up no matter how I try and modulate it.

If anyone has any insights into how these kinds of sounds are made I would really appreciate it. I know making audio in the NES/SNES/Genesis days was an art in itself but for now I'm not worrying about authenticity, just how I might go about making these kind of sound effects with current (And preferably free) software

EDIT: I do understand that there are hundreds of these effects out there free, but I would still like to have a go at making my own

Try the thread that's pinned at the top of this forum called "creating sound FX" or something like that. It has descriptions of how to create alot of types of sounds. For example: I think the sword slashing sound is described as possibly being created by swinging a piece of bamboo past a mic. Not sure, but that's from recollection. The sticky should help though.

I have no experience with trackers though I could point you to some VSTs that might help:

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/ Under JB plugins section. In that (free) bundle you have TimeMachine and Ferox among other things. Both might get you some "old school" sound out of your samples (well, maybe a bit too much old school with TimeMachine, it has a Commodore64 preset ).

The rest is either record simple sounds, or get some free libraries (there are lots of those that have recordings of all sorts of sounds), layer them and experiment with them.

For a simple attack sound I took the sword slash sound from A Link to the Past and took a look at it in Audacity. It essentially seems like a noise track sped up but I'm having trouble recreating something like it. When I try it mine basicly sounds like noise sped up no matter how I try and modulate it.

Because it isn't a noise track sped up, it's simply high pitched noise (white noise, at that). Also remember the volume envelope, that adds a lot to the feeling.