One of the problems with designing new and untried applications, is the sheer effort needed to produce a testable prototype. Many projects get bogged down with production problems and hardware/software issues before they can even be tested for their basic functionality. This creates delays and frustrations within the project structure as well as creating unnecessary pressures on the project structure itself. This is equally true for the two main types of prototype/application created in design research: 1. a potential new product 2. a viable test bed to test an hypothosis. This paper investigates approaches, both practical and philosophical, to design processes and construction techniques that endeavour to bypass the most common pitfalls and stumbling blocks to a working prototype. In the main, the paper focuses on designing with ’Audio’ as an effective tool for quick, effective and emotive prototyping. Practical examples, both successful and catastrophic, are used to illustrate these aspects. In specific we will be comparing two audio based games, Journey and Beowulf, looking at their respective weaknesses and strengths. These prototyping techniques are realised, in the main, through easily available tools and recording techniques, based on standard audio-visual techniques. This provides a neat fast-track to developing ideas into viable applications. However while we can utilize a vast array of existing technologies to enable fast proto-typing, the most crucial element in successfully creating testbeds and bringing them before a test group is the intellectual approach to experiment design. Understanding the fundamental processes and isolating the essential questions the application is intended to answer has a direct bearing on our ability to channel available creative and productive energies with the maximum focus. Audio provides us with emotive tools highly suited to performing these kinds of functions. The advantage of taking this approach is a quick, flexible and, not least, economic route to getting vital early answers to practical research problems in IT user-based projects.