Pepper.SFX

Features

Editor tools

Unity windows to build sounds, hear them outside Play mode, see every voice while the game runs, and find setup mistakes before they ship.

Audio problems are hard to find by ear: a sound that never plays, a layer that should be silent, a voice that went quiet for no clear reason. Pepper.SFX comes with editor windows for building sounds, hearing them while you edit, seeing what plays while the game runs, and checking the project for mistakes.

How it works

Building sounds

  • Sound Builder (Simple) creates a bus, a container and an event in one step, with the references filled in. Its five modes are Complete Setup, Container Only, Event Only, Bus Only and Batch Import (one sound per clip), for all five container types.
  • Sound Builder (Advanced) (full version only) has the same modes but shows every setting of the event, container and bus, with tooltips, before anything is written. It is brand new.
  • Audio Explorer shows your events, containers and buses as three tabs over one searchable tree, with the selected asset’s Inspector and a preview beside it.
  • Import Manager applies import settings to clips in batches by category (UI, SFX, Music, Ambience, Dialogue). Folder Rules give clips first imported into a folder that folder’s settings, so engine loops arrive mono and Decompress On Load. Existing clips keep theirs until you press Apply to Existing Clips.

Hearing and tuning

  • Audition plays a container or an event outside Play mode. Every parameter the sound reads gets a slider in its own unit, passed through its Smoothing as in the game, and every switch gets a dropdown. Add Sweep moves a parameter across a range (Once, Repeat or Back And Forth), several at once. The Layers table shows each voice’s level, pitch, low-pass and whether it is real or virtual. Inspector changes are heard straight away.
  • Live View shows, in Play mode, every Audio Emitter: its values as written and as heard after smoothing, its switches, and each sound on it, with a row per voice for level, pitch and Blend region. A virtual voice says why: over the cap, silent layer, past Max Distance, held by code, bus or emitter paused, or stopping. Record captures what the game wrote to one emitter during a drive, and the Audition replays it, so you can tune a mix against a real lap.

Checking and debugging

  • Container Validator checks every container and event: empty or null entries, zero weights, gaps in a Regions Blend, layers pitched too far, stereo clips on 3D layers, a Play action with no Target Bus, a looping event that isn’t Persistent. Fix and Auto-Fix All can be undone.
  • Voice Pool Debug lists real and virtual voices in Play mode, with a “Why virtual” column and a stop button per voice. It compares the pool’s objects with its size; a number that keeps rising means voices are leaking.
  • Mixer (full version only) shows strips for buses, containers and events, each with a fader, mute, solo, peak meter and a small spectrum. Bus fader, mute and solo changes can be undone and are saved with the project, in Play mode too.
  • Audio Profiler (full version only) shows every voice with its priority, level and distance, every bus with fader, mute, solo, meter and ducking, and real voices against Max Real Voices.
  • EQ Spectrum Visualizer (full version only) draws the spectrum of up to two sources at once: a clip, event, container, bus or Audio Mixer Group. Only clips play outside Play mode.
  • Loading Validator (full version only) finds Addressables setups that would fail silently: an address with no backend or not registered, an entry with both a clip and an address, or addressable content in a scene with no AddressableAudioRuntime.

Where to find them

Every window is under Window > Audio System:

  • Sound Builder (Simple), also at Assets > Create > Audio System > Sound Builder (Simple)
  • Sound Builder (Advanced), full version
  • Audio Explorer
  • Import Manager
  • Audition
  • Live View
  • Container Validator
  • Voice Pool Debug
  • Mixer, full version
  • Audio Profiler, full version
  • EQ Spectrum Visualizer, full version
  • Loading Validator, full version

Folder Rules live on an Audio Import Settings asset: Create > Audio System > Import Settings.

Setting it up

  1. Add an Audio Manager to your first scene.
  2. Open Sound Builder (Simple), drop in your clips, choose Complete Setup and create the sound.
  3. Select the new container or event and open Audition to tune it.
  4. Run Container Validator before you build.
  5. Press Play and open Live View or Voice Pool Debug to see what is playing and why.

Good to know

  • Outside Play mode the Audition plays 3D sounds as 2D, at full level, and a Sequence plays only its first clip. It runs on its own hidden Audio Manager and adds nothing to your scene.
  • Sound Builder (Simple) always warns that events must be in a Resources folder. Ignore it if you use an Audio Event Registry. Its preview button may do nothing.
  • The Audio Profiler’s “Est. CPU” is estimated from the voice count, and “Managed heap” is your whole game’s memory. Use Unity’s Profiler for real figures.
  • More windows cover engines (Loop Analysis, and in the full version Engine Builder and Engine Grains: see Vehicle engines), mixer setup (Occlusion Layout, Reverb Send Buses) and, in the full version, Addressable Audio Authoring and Network Audio Debug.

Learn more