I've spent the better part of 4 years learning music production and sound design, but have recently wanted to try other lanes as far as audio goes. I'm almost certain I could get the job done, just don't have the portfolio to prove I could. Any ideas to get practice in/a portfolio so I could start getting clients or small jobs? Sorry for the typo I accidentally hit post.

Hi Ethran!

Sound design is closely related to music production in many ways. So your skills as a composer and producer could very well carry over into sound design production. What I would do is:

• take gameplay videos and remove the sound then re-design new sound design for those sequences. LOTS of people do this and it's a sure fire way to showcase what you could do in a project.
• learn a middleware or game engine like Wwise, Fmod, Unity or Unreal Engine. Many of these come with sample projects and you can replace their sounds with your own. Plus you can then show some chops on implementing the sounds which is a HUGE factor in getting jobs.
• take on some hobby/student projects. I don't usually advocate working for free so perhaps there's a hobby or student project where you could work for cheap or some kind of exchange of services? This way you can get some actual credits on your resume and portfolio.

Best of luck!

Nate