Is it possible to associate audio clips with objects (or empties)...my thought is to have the audio follow the objects onscreen (or off screen)...I'm not really even sure if you can do 3d sound outside of the game engine (I saw a link for that somewhere)...I'm just thinking that it would speed up audio production if audio clips could be linked and then keyframed from within blender...

On the other side of things, I wonder how hard it would be to create "procedural" sound effects (ie. hollow metal object crashing into solid metal object, or softbody jello splooshing onto wood table)....anyone know of any research in that area?

blender doesn't have any audio features other than adding audio strips in the sequencer [intended to help in synching to audio, notably lip synching]

so, no, unless you're speaking of the game engine [doesn't seem like it] there is no way to attach audio to objects and have it played in 3d



I don't look for a lot of research on audio synthesis, but I bet it exists [though in less abundance than stuff related to graphics]

a program I've recently read about to synthesize/modify audio is called Cameleon 5000...
http://www.camelaudio.com/cameleon5000.php

I have absolutely no experience in the realm of [creating] digital audio, so you'll want advice from more informed people [though for $199 it seems cheaper than most applications I've seen to modify audio, but its purpose is different as well]