While set in the same fictional universe of Ridley Scott’s original offering, and sharing some of its key dramatic events, the director is clear in his intention that his latest film Prometheus is unrelated to the rest of the original franchise. There had been talk of a fifth Alien movie — with Scott reportedly committing to a sequel or prequel a decade ago — but it took 20th Century Fox to persuade the director to cast his unique vision of the origins and purpose of the Alien civilization, while also explaining the genesis of the enigmatic Space Jockey that forms a direct link to the original space explorers from 1979’s landmark motion picture. Sequel, prequel or neither, Prometheus is scheduled for release June 8 through 20th Century Fox.

In essence, the film (originally to be called Paradise) follows a team of scientists as they journey on the spaceship Prometheus to the distant planet of Erix to terraform the world. The crewmembers discover, however, that what they experience from the indigenous life forms is not just a threat to themselves, but to mankind. Prometheus takes advantage of new-generation sound technologies, while very much paying tribute to the original offering. As Michael Fassbender, who plays David, the artificial person in Prometheus, confirmed: “By the end of the third act, you start to realize there’s a DNA of the very first Alien, but none of the subsequent films,” with imagery inspired by its original conceptualist, H.R. Giger.

Working with elements coordinated by supervising sound editors Mark Stoeckinger and Victor Ennis from Soundelux, the intricate soundtrack was re-recorded at Fox’s John Ford Stage in West Los Angeles by Doug Hemphill (sound effects) and Ron Bartlett (dialogue and music). Creature sound design effects — of whichPrometheus features a wide range — were fashioned by Ann Scibelli, Alan Rankin and Harry Cohen. Other members of the sound crew included Foley mixers James Ashwill and Blake Collins; Foley editors Bob Beher, Bruce Tanis and Glenn T. Morgan; Sandy Buchanan handling the recording of computer voices; ADR engineer Derek Casari; ADR recordists Glen Gathard and James Hyde; ADR mixer Andy Stallabrass; dialogue editor Margit Pfeiffer; music editors Joseph Bonn and Del Spiva; and sound effects editor Tim Walston.

Continue reading at MPEG

[SFX Lab, the laboratory of sound effects, a place dedicated to experiment and explore sound libraries. The main goal is to hear what happens when sounds of a specific kind are combined, processed, and transformed in several ways.]

New chapter of the sfx lab, this time dedicated to explore high doses of resonance, with a quite special kind of sounds: bells and chimes.

These sounds are characterized because of their qualities regarding harmonics and detailed/subtle elements, so combining and processing them is always something interesting and very “musical”. I’m going to play with three different libraries, all of them full of elements that vary from the shortest and exotic, to pretty long recordings with beautiful/long resonant tails. The libraries used are the Bells and Animal Bells packages of Rabbit Ears Audio, plus the Chimes library Tim Prebble released at HISSandaROAR in the last year.

I’m going to do several quick experiments, trying to find different ways to process the recordings, and aiming to achieve different materials from the elements. There are so many things we can obtain from them, so as always we’re going to just experiment and listen. Remember this is not a tutorial or something to go into details regarding the tools. This series of articles are focused on listening to libraries and just playing with them.

We could use these elements to create a wide variety of sounds and layers which, alone or combined with other materials can generate sounds with a particular mood or emotional impact. Eerie atmospheres, nostalgic addons to the ambience, tension, mistery, wonderful drones! Resonant whooshes, magical powers and spells, extension elements for impacts, and lots of things more. They are also rich on tonalities, so the variations in resonance and dynamics can be very useful to give very musical touches to sounds and alter the timbre of designed sounds, in order to add more harmonics and details.

Bells

Let’s start with the big bells, from Rabbit Ears Audio’s sixth release, which includes bells fabricated in all kinds of material and recorded with several positions and performances. That approach creates a fascinating gallery of sounds, including recordings with heavy attack, along others which feature takes with long tails, perfect for stretching, freezing, shimmering, cloud making, and all kind of drone-atmosphere making techniques. Let’s explore that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the early days of the musique concrete and experimental/electroacoustic movements, there were two experiments that led pioneers to develop a new world of sounds, and more important, new ways to listen and transform sound materials. The first experiment, coined by Pierre Shaeffer and his research team at GRM was called “closed groove”, which was basically a way to loop sounds as much as you want, so it could be heard repeatedly over and over again. That repetition was connected to the reduced listening experience, where sound is valued as material, trying to avoid the real casualties of the recording and its meaning/context in the visual/contextual world.

As Michel Chion tells in the guide to sound objects, the second experiment was important to further developments regarding the form of the sound, specially the attack and its relation to the timbre of the sound materials. That one consisted on doing the closed groove technique with a fragment of a bell sound’s tail.”A sound like a flute” was the result.

Below is a video with some experiments inspired on that, using GRM Freeze to select specific fragments of a bell’s waveform, and then changing the pitch/repetitions to create variations of the drones and tones generated. Although it’s something you can do manually on an editor, the plugin offers more controls and does the looping/multiplication instantly. I also added a couple of plugins more (eq and doppler) to explore different variations. Let’s listen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although GRM Freeze is my favorite, there are also other alternatives and similar tools you may like to explore: Marc Lingk’s TimeFreezer, Michael Norris’ Spectral Freeze/Spectral Gate & Hold, ioplong’s flitchSplifter, and ndc’s Buffer Synth. Ableton Live users can find a freeze button on the default reverb, and also try M4L devices such as monolake’sGrain Freeze, beatwife’s creations, and ck’s m4l pack. Reaktor users checkout these ensembles: Twisted Tools effects (several of them come with freeze function) Fast FX (multi-fx, comes with the software), g-Transformer, Zero Kelvin,Travelizer FX, autoFreeze, and Freeeze. Even Reason users can have some fun with the hold option on the BV512 Vocoder. Anyway, sound freezing FTW!

Now let’s take another approach to the tails of the bells. This kind of material is pretty incredible for convolution process, so you can use the characteristics of the bell sounds and merge them with other sound. In this example I’m going to use the bells as Impulse Responses, inside Altiverb, which since its latest version allows to use WAVs as IRs in a very easy way. The plugin now allows to drag&drop any audio file directly and use it as an IR. Pure quick fun. Let’s take a look at that feature on this video and listen to different sounds being processed “inside” the bells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Animal Bells

The second bell release from Rabbit Ears Audio is quite unique and interesting, since the wide variety of sounds performed by these bells are really dynamic and diverse. Recordist Michael Raphael, who crafted this fantastic package, explains it in a great way: “The materials include brass, bronze, common metals, wood, animal horns, and even some gourds. So just imagine: ding, clank, ring, twack, rattle, clunk, click, and who doesn’t love gourds?”. All those variations were recorded in different perspectives (close, medium, distant) and include a wide variety of materials. Each bell features an specific type of sounds and includes different takes, with details, movements and lots of great noises you’d like to use on wood/metal articulations, foley tasks and any kind of heavy layering of elements in order to build big structures and rattling metallic sounds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I specially liked the textures you can obtain with these animal bells. It’s incredible to listen how the simplest variation can achieve lovely elements, textures, movements. When you process sounds which have been performed in such detailed way, processing gets more expressive and fun. Lots of surprises occur when you perform with those sounds in a sampler or something where you can manipulate the files with more expression. Let’s listen to quick experiments I did using Alchemy processing different sounds from the library:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chimes

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s play with HISSandaROAR’s Chimes, which includes sounds with a lot of subtle details and harmonics. Tim Prebble recorded the sounds inside an ADR booth, so you can hear pretty detailed recordings, with lots of variations and even more fun: sounds where recorded at 192k, saying you can go extreme with the processes and stretch them in fantastic ways. For that exploration, I wanted to use some delay/reverb effects in order to listen to what happens when you multiply those harmonics or just extend their tails with echos and feedback manipulation. For that, I’m going to use a pretty crazy delay (which also gets pretty unique chorus/flanging/reverb effects) called ValhallaüberMod, developed by one of my favorite plugin makers: Sean Costello, owner at ValhallaDSP. Besides this fantastic delay, he has also developed two amazing algorithmic reverbs I encourage you to try. They’re just fantastic.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Torture Chamber

So, it’s time to torture these sounds in random ways. There’s a new tool you probably already know about, called Iris, developed by the masterminds at iZotope. Although it really deserves a dedicated review (I’ll share my thoughts in another post), I’ve been working with it since its launch and I’m in love with it. It’s perfect for torturing these bells and chimes, since there’s a wide variety of things you can obtain with it. Iris uses spectral analysis/processing to visualize and transform sounds, offering a spectrogram view where time, amplitude and frequency are showed in the same canvas. That gives you the opportunity of isolating, extracting, filtering and combining sounds based on their harmonic content and spectrum.

As any tool you can have these days, it’s just a different way to transform sound. Nothing to compare with, just a different option. There’re several samplers making impressive things since several years ago, but one thing is sure: there’s no instrument like Iris. It’s fresh, fun, and has a pretty extensive path for experimentation. It’s a fantastic tool to extend/explore timbre and sonic morphologies. Although it comes with a pretty nice library and optional add-ons, the game, as always, is more awesome when you use your own sounds. Experimenting with the stuff you already have, or with libraries like those mentioned in this post, is wonderful. A gift for the ears! Let’s listen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Andrew Quinn, sound designer at Splash Damage, was kind enough to speak to Designing Sound about his work on the recently announced mobile strategy title RAD Soldiers on the new social label WarChest. The music for the game was produced by Marc Canham of Nimrod Productions.

DS: Can you tell us a little about how you got into game audio, and your audio career so far?

AQ: I always had an interest in sound and music. In my youth I played guitar in local bands, recorded music with friend’s bands and generally made a racket. This messing with sound and music led to me studying a BSc in Creative Music and Sound Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University. During the course I got a chance to delve into post-production and more importantly game audio in the third year and I really enjoyed it. I stayed on another year at Leeds to do an MSc in Sound and Music for Interactive Games under the expert tutelage of Richard Stevens and David Raybould.

After I graduated from the masters, I really struggled to find a job in the games industry. Luckily, the university was looking for a part-time lecturer on their audio course and they took me on. As it was only part-time it gave me a bit of time to work on my own projects and get a portfolio of work together. One project I got to work on was the Game Audio Tutorial book by the aforementioned Leeds-based lecturers Richard Stevens and David Raybould. I ended up creating the tutorial levels and sound library bundled with the book.

That summer I decided to attend the Develop audio track in Brighton to do a bit of networking and generally get my portfolio about. I must have done something right as a few weeks later I secured a couple of interviews and later a job offer.

I joined Splash Damage just before BRINK shipped and I’ve been there just over a year now.

DS: Is there an area of sound that you’re particularly drawn to?

AQ: My main focus is sound design and implementation, that’s what I do. I particularly enjoy creating creatures and weapons.

DS: How did you approach pre-production for a mobile title such as RAD Soldiers? How did this differ from your work on a console title?

AQ: Pre-production for this title was very short. The game had already been going a little while when I was brought on, there was quite a bit of concept art, some of the characters and environments were being worked on and some of the base gameplay was already in. After I joined the rest of the team and I spent some of time working on the overall direction of the sound design and music. I came up with some style examples for the music and did a few pre-sonics for some of the ambience and weapons. I also wrote a document with some initial ideas for cool little audio systems we could have if we had the time to implement them.

In general though it’s very similar or I should say my approach is very similar, but scaled down. For instance, rather than ten variations of a knife stab or punch, we’ll have two. Instead of having all the characters speak localised dialogue, we’ll have very general barks, grunts and vocalisations that could be interpreted in any language. We may not have the same amount of time or budget as a AAA game but I still approach every sound with the question “How do I make this as good as possible with the resources available?”

DS: How large an influence did the Strategy genre and multiplayer aspects of the game have on your decisions?

AQ: We took a bit of inspiration from some strategy games, the Command and Conquer series and Worms being two notable examples. This was more their tongue-in-cheek approach to rather than a particular style.

DS: How do you approach communication with the other disciplines on the team? How closely do you work with the other departments?

AQ: During development I was sat with the team working on a pair of headphones rather than hidden away in a studio, so communication was pretty easy and free flowing. The team has always been fairly small (at its largest 8-10 people), so there was never the issue of not knowing what other people were working on or doing. It created a nice dynamic where you could iterate relatively quickly on content and make the game better.

DS: What do you feel is the hardest part of creating sound for interactive media on devices such as smartphones or tablets? What were the main creative / technical challenges you faced in achieving your vision?

AQ: Delivering a compelling and interesting audio experience on a mobile device is quite a challenge, however there were a few things inherent in the game that helped. The asynchronous turn-based gameplay meant that the amount of sound playing at any one time was largely predictable. This enabled me to orchestrate events in a semi-linear fashion, so the overall design ended up being pretty clean. The mix never really gets too busy which can be a problem in strategy/multiplayer games and would be an absolute nightmare on a mobile device. Additionally, for the most part the game has a fixed perspective and player view, so we didn’t have to deal with shifting distances or multiple player perspectives on the same actions which would have complicated the mix and increased the amount of sound playing back. So in the end we managed to avoid quite a few headaches that can be inherent of strategy and multiplayer games.

One of the major issues we encountered was caused by the devices’ ability to only decode .wav or .mp3. Wav is obviously really nice, but for most instances, the size of the file is just too big for a mobile device. Most of the implementation work in Unity was done on a PC that compresses sounds in Ogg, which is lovely. The Ogg compression seemed to hold up pretty well, even at ridiculously low bit rates. However when the build gets deployed to a device, all the sound gets re-compressed into MP3, which created all sorts of interesting problems. Listening back to the sounds on the devices was night and day; there was aliasing, artefacts and all sorts of other compression nasties. The guns and ambiences were particularly affected by this. In the end, I had to spend a bit of time working out what sort of compression values didn’t degrade the quality on a sound by sound basis. In some cases the Mp3 compression bit rate had to be a great deal higher than the Ogg versions to get the same quality.

Strangely, the usual game audio memory limitations haven’t seemed to be as much of an issue as they usually are. The devices themselves have a decent amount of memory, and being sensible about the amount of sound used has meant we haven’t had to go through assets purging quality. Saying that, it’s not like we have skimped on the amount of sound – in fact, we managed to squeeze over 1000 sounds into the base game.

DS: What are the Splash Damage audio team preferred tools for working with? Do you have any software suites, plugins or apps that you use regularly?

AQ: We use Sound Forge/Protools and a combination of Waves, GRM Tools, McDSP and Sound Toys plugins for content creation. Implementation in RAD Soldiers was done within the Unity Engine with some extra custom in-house audio components. On our other projects we’re running an Unreal-Wwise combo.

DS: What do you feel is the most satisfying part of creating sound for games?

AQ: Sound for games poses a unique challenge that I really enjoy. Not only do you have to create the sound asset but you also have to make it work in an interactive environment. When you have hundreds of events, states, parameters, dsp’s and files being triggered dynamically, just getting a sound playing back in-game as intended is a big win.

DS: Do you have a favorite sound or audio system from any game?

AQ: I can’t really put any one down, but I can mention a couple that impressed me recently. Mass Effect 3 did a great job of selling the scale of the war happening around you in the ambient audio, and the big audio events featuring the reapers were really cool. Portal 2 just generally impressed me audio wise, the gels had some really cool little music systems attached to them and the processing on GlaDos’s and Cave’s voices were really great. Oh and Battlefield 3 in its entirety (damn you, DICE, I want my life back).

DS: What was your personal favourite sound or audio system from RAD Soldiers that we can look forward to?

AQ: I had a lot of fun with the weapon and ability audio, it’s mostly hyper-realistic, overdesigned stuff. They were really fun to create.

Another group of sounds I enjoyed creating was for the UAV character. He’s a plucky little robot that enjoys nothing more than a bit of casual leg humping. The sound of his voice was made using a recording of a screwdriver being fed into a little plastic desk fan and some processing with Sound Toy’s Crystallizer.

Under the hood, RAD Soldiers is pretty simple. There were a couple of little audio systems that I was pretty keen to get in from the start of the project. One of these was a simple ducking system to try and make the big events shine through. It’s essentially a very basic snapshot system that allows us to duck a group of sounds when another sound is playing. We can define the attack, duration, depth and release of the snapshot, and snapshots can layer on top of one another. It’s something that big, grown-up engines have been able to do for a while that I wanted to have.

Oh and seeing as the game is set in London, it would be a shame not to have a working Big Ben!

DS:What developments in game audio would you like to see in the future?

AQ:There is some interesting research going on into sound propagation, I’d like to see some systems that approach real acoustic modelling appearing. However with that, I’d still like to be able to tweak and tune how sound plays back within a space rather than having a one stop reality model.

DS: Thank you for your time, Andrew. We look forward to hearing the game in action!

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Rob Bridgett, audio director on Prototype 2 issues a rallying cry for the mixing of the audio discipline with the rest of the studio, and opening up the closed studio space to collaboration -- perhaps even suggesting a fundamental change in studio structure.]

Read more at Gamasutra

Featuring Rocksteady audio director Nick Arundel, and foley artist John Roesch and gun recording expert Bryan Watkins

Click here for the video

Designing Sound: So, you guys are working on Simon Killer…you’re wrapping it up today.

Antonio Campos: Yep.

Coll Anderson: Yeah. This is our last day.

DS: It’s going to print.

CA: Yeah. As soon as everyone leaves, I’ll probably re-bus…we have one line of dialog to see if we can get. It’s always a little game of inches at this point. All of the changes that we’re making are very, very, minor…just changes that sort of hyper focus the mood and flow. So, we have one line that we’re trying to get another inch or two out of, and then that’s it. Re-bus the console and hit record.

DS: So, how long have you been working on this film now, Antonio?

AC: We shot the film in the end of November/December in 2010, and then edited throughout the year. We submitted to Sundance in the fall and got in. So, we picture locked after about 11 months of editing. Coll and I started working in the…spring of that year?

CA: Yeah. You didn’t have an assembly when I started sending you stuff but scenes were starting to happen.

AC: Yes. Well, there are a lot of long takes in the film; a lot of scenes that are just one or two shots. So, we could go back and forth on full scenes.

DS: You were working on edits while Coll was doing sound?

AC: Yeah, we were only a few months into editing. There was a lot of back and forth. Coll designed a lot of the tones in the film. Coll started doing his thing, which I really like, taking a piece of dialog or word and creating a specific tone out of it. You don’t recognize the word, because it becomes a drone. I got a whole batch of those and started playing with them.

DS: That sounds kind of similar to some of the stuff you did on Martha. [ed. Martha Marcy May Marlene]

CA: Yeah, very much so. It was that stage in editorial, too early for music, but needing something emotional…some sort of connection to the actors that’s more than just talking.

DS: Something a little more abstract?

AC: Atmospheric.

CA: Atmospheric and…

AC: It’s felt, more than I think it’s heard. I think a lot of people don’t recognize the tones right away. They just sort of blend into the mix of the film.

DS: Could you…and obviously I won’t ask you to go into too much detail since the movie isn’t out yet…but could you give a little description of what the story is about?

AC: Simon just graduated college and has just gotten out of a relationship that he’s been in for five years. He goes to Paris to start this sort of Euro-backpack trip but ends up bumming around Paris too long and meets a prostitute and falls in love. That’s where this journey starts. Once they get together, that’s where the story really takes off. That’s all I can say without giving away too much of what the film is about.

DS: And how would you say the sound connects into the story, besides what we’ve already discussed?

AC: Theres’ a few things going on. One is that there’s a lot of long takes in the film, some of them wide, and the sound will allow us to push the audience’s eye one way or another. It’s amazing when you’re working in a very minimal soundscape how much you can get out of the details…how effective the details can be. Even the clinking of a glass contributes to setting the mood in a scene. The other thing going on is that we do go from very quiet to very loud in this film. One of the devices, or motifs, in the film is that we hear what he’s listening to on his iPod. He’s listening to a lot of indie-pop sounding music, electronic music, and we really played with how long we’re in silence to go to this loud explosion of music…and back to silence. [To Coll] What else would you say?

CA: I was thinking a little bit less about music and more about sound. In the case of Simon, and the film, there’s a sort of establishing geography that functions with the protagonist. How he feels grounded or doesn’t in places. We use sound as a tool to establish this vibe with him. In places where we want to settle him down, it’s really easy to create a location, a space… that’s very understandable to us audibly. It helps us create a link between the watcher or the viewer and Simon… Then, as his character evolves, we can subtly manipulate not just the backgrounds, but EFX, music even perceived spaces, so that we take him from being a grounded individual, to one who is less so, and thus mess with that subconscious attachment between the audience and Simon. He becomes no longer that grounded of a character. Our connection to him is now unsettled, because of how disconnected he becomes to the geography around him. And because it is so subtle, the audience still stays un-comfortably attached to him and they don’t know why. It’s really fun to create a space where we like him, because we understand the spaces that he’s in and then mess with that connection.

AC: Yes.

CA: We hear things we recognize; it’s a very comfortable environment to us. We shift it up a little bit…dynamic cuts in music, faster cuts so that the shifts are very obvious, traveling through the city…and as he becomes disconnected with the world, we shift the connection point in what we hear. We subtly manipulate those things that are so normal to us, those teacups and other small literal effects, become less and less literal as he becomes…I don’t want to say unhinged…but as our understanding of him changes. So, you don’t really notice that something is happening, but it is. It all happens between the use of backgrounds and designed sounds, and then using specifics to take your eye around the frame and look at what’s going on. As he changes, so does our world. That subtlety is something we can do with sound, it’s sublime.

AC: There’s also this other shift that happens in the film. In the beginning when you sense he’s still very much a tourist in the city, the sense of the city outside…even when he’s inside…you sense the weight of being in a foreign place. That gradually fades away, and it becomes so much more about him and whoever else is in the scene with him.

CA: Much more internal.

AC: It gets MUCH more internal. Another important character detail in the film, that is part of the sound design…he’s interested in peripheral vision. That’s what he studied; the eye and the brain. Visually, we played with that idea, and in terms of sound we play with that idea. There’s so much that’s happening in the periphery of the frame, that we’re not seeing, and the sound is doing all of that work. I really like when there’s off-screen action, because it inherently creates a sense of tension. The audience is now being given a certain amount of information that they can’t see, and their brains are working to put it together. There’s always something that could happen. There’s always a sense of tension in the film…that’s outside the frame.

DS: This is nice, because I just did a pair of articles on Designing Sound about deprivation and barriers, and leaving perceptual elements out in order to let people develop their own impression of the story. So this is going to tie in nicely with that. [laughs]

CA: The third eye is what makes…and when I say the third eye, I mean the implication that there is a necessary element “to” the film but that exists outside it… being the audience. The film itself, the characters and their interaction, is only one reality. The audience interaction with that is what completes this sort of film; how we as viewers project story… and Anotonio’s done a really great job in expanding that. What we see, and what happens outside of the frame, involves the audience filling in their own information; their own internal desire to complete story. It makes our involvement, with Simon in particular, unbelievably deep. It’s really fun. I don’t know how else to put it, other than the third eye involvement with the characters and what makes the film work so subconsciously.

DS: So, having myself only seen a handful of snippets of scenes a few moments ago, my familiarity with the film is poor at best. Were there any points where you were finding some good synergy between the visuals and the audio.

AC and CA: [Both laugh]

CA: Oh yeah! There’s a whole…

AC: I’m trying to think of just one.

CA: The flickers.

AC: Yeah, when we started…

CA: The Eiffel Tower, Paris…the whole scene.

AC: Right. That’s a good example. There’s this “light show,” we call it “light show,” that we did with flickering lights. The screen just becomes covered in this color scheme of red and blue…red will be, sort of like an orb, and the blue will be sort of flickering, and that will dissolve into an image of the city. Going in and out of those things…once we started taking those tones [ed. mentioned earlier in the interview] and making them really specific to just those sequences…all of a sudden, it gives immediate life to the thing. We had found the sound of something that had no sound. That’s exciting. When we shot the lights, it was shooting christmas lights with no lens on the camera. It was just the sensor responding to light in the room. It was all MOS. There was nothing to ground that in. The tones became the sound of those lights. And the way that they interact with the city, and the way those things bring us into his head, and out of his head, is part of the story. The tones and drones, in some way, could be considered a voice over.

CA: Yeah, they kind of are.

AC: For something going on in his head…

CA: There’s a visual that is just…it’s like the inside of Simon’s head. The sound occupies such a similar space that they just amplify each other. The connection of the two is unbelievably symbiotic. It’s kind of crazy. [laughs]

DS: I don’t want to eat up too much of your time with other questions, but if there’s anything you would like for people to have in mind when they go in to see this film…and this question goes to both of you…what would you like people to take away or go in prepared for?

CA: For me, sound in the film was a way to create a connection to a character that we were very comfortable with. So, we became attached to him…became a fan. We liked him. Once we cemented that sort of sympathetic relationship with the character… we shift who and what he is and the relationship the audience has with him. This calls into question our own feelings about him and more so, ourselves. “How could we like this guy?!” That’s what makes the film work for me, and that’s what makes the sound work. We are completely sympathetic to Simon. Then, all of a sudden, we realize how ugly we are in that connection. That’s what makes the character so deep.

AC: I like when people go into a film with an open mind. The thing to be prepared for is a very dark journey in a character that’s conflicted, and to accept your own conflicted feelings about the character for what they are. Don’t feel like you need to feel one way or another about him as a person. I think sometimes people want to feel one way about a character, and if they can’t accept that a character is conflicted or confused or unhinged…it won’t work. I like it anytime that people go into a movie with an open mind and take the journey that they’re going on for what it is; as opposed to expecting some sort of definitive answer. Even with Martha [ed. Martha Marcy May Marlene], we leave a lot of things up in the air. That’s the point. It’s not by accident. Everything that we do is very thought out. If a character is behaving in a way that makes you think, “I don’t like him,” at this point, and then behaving in a way where you go, “Oh, he’s kind of charming,” that’s what we set out to do.
 

The  release date for Simon Killer is not yet set, though it is expected that it will be in theaters later this year. A special thank you to Antonio and Coll for taking time out of their mix schedule to sit down with me.

…and now, as promised, a little bit of hilarity… The interview went very smoothly, and we were having a lot of fun…even with one small interruption.

When Dogs Attack! ………interviews:

Michael Bross is an award winning composer, sound designer and audio director who has worked on such popular video game franchises as Oddworld, Ratchet and Clank and WWE Wrestling, and he is currently working on free-to-play FPS MMO  ‘Firefall‘. Through my own work on Oddworld HD remakes, I has the chance to chat with Michael, who was kind enough to answer a few questions for Designing Sound

Designing Sound: Can you tell us a little about how you got into game audio, and your audio career so far? Can you tell us a little about what you are currently working on?

Michael Bross: I was first hired by a small game company called Paragon Software as a composer in the early 1990′s. I ended up doing sound design for them, too, and learned that part of my work on the job. I’ve been working on a couple projects this year which includes an Insomniac project. That’s all composing work. I’m also doing a bit of audio directing a project for Rumble Entertainment called King’s Road. Plus, I continue to write music for Firefall.

DS:  Is there an area of sound/audio development that you’re particularly drawn to?

MB: I go through phases. At times, I’m drawn more to sound design while others I’m drawn to music.

DS:  As an experienced Audio Director, how do you approach pre-production for a project? (defining aesthetic, creating a palette, communicating vision)?

MB: I spend a lot of time understanding what the game is about. I also talk with the key people on the team and we bounce around ideas about what kind of audio experience that we’d like to create. From there, I begin to gather a lot of reference material from games, film, TV, music along with any other sound sources that are inspiring and related to what we’re doing. I, or my audio team, may do some sound or music prototyping at this stage. There are also a lot of technical aspects to plan for a game, too, so I’m laying groundwork on that.

DS:  What are the main creative / technical challenges you faced in achieving your vision? Do you find the same challenges occurring on different projects?

MB: The main challenge is creating a production pipeline that allows creative people to focus on being creative and less on dealing with technical process.

DS:  How do you approach communication with the other disciplines on the team? How do you keep audio in peoples minds?

MB: By understanding who they are and how they contribute to the development process. How to keep audio in people’s minds? It’s a proactive effort for sure, but understand that great teams know that audio is important.

DS: What do you consider to be the hardest part of creating audio for interactive media?

MB: Production crunches, especially at the end of projects. It’s the time period where there are too many things to do and not enough time. At the same time, it’s also an exciting time. Adrenaline runs high.

DS:  You have worked on a wide variety of genres within games, from platformers Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, to upcoming MMO first person shooter Firefall, through to sports / fighting with WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011. Are there any unique challenges each of these genres poses?

Each has had its own unique challenges. With the Ratchet and Clank project, my focus was less on technical aspects and more on the creative, so really with that, my challenge was to pay respect to the soundtrack work on past titles while also trying to give it a refresh. With the WWE title, my role was to help them transition to new audio technology and pipeline, so it was more about making that happen and less about new content.

DS: You have previously been involved in creating music for films such as ‘Black Dahlia’ and ‘Ripper’. Is there a big difference in how you approach composing for games versus music for linear media?

MB: Actually, those projects were video game projects, too, but they were FMV-based games. The industry went through a period where it experimented with using live-action elements within a 3D world during the 90′s. We don’t really see that kind of game anymore.

DS:  What do you feel is the most satisfying part of creating sound for games?

MB: Working with talented people and being in the trenches with them and aspiring to make something astounding.

DS:  What are your preferred tools for working with? Do you have any software suites, plugins or apps that you use regularly?

MB: I use Pro Tools for sound design and Logic Pro for both music and sound design. I use an array of different plugins, but in general my favorite effects are those that manipulate pitch. Lately, I’ve been playing around with Izotope’s Iris plugin. It’s one of the more creative plugins I’ve come across lately. It’s like playing with crayons. I love it.

DS: On your last project, is there anything you would approach differently?

MB: On my last big project, I wished I would have had more time to go back and revise some of my mixes.

DS: What developments in game audio would you like to see in the future?
Closing the gap between content tools and implementation tools.

DS: Thank you for your time Michael

Frank Bry has released a new library called The Devil Dog.

Introducing Dixie, a very special English Bull Terrier with an amazing vocal ability that is unlike anything I have every heard. She is special because she is deaf and cannot hear what comes out of her mouth. She is loved and cared for by some friends here in town and they graciously allowed me to come to their home and record her. The Devil Dog HD Pro SFX Library contains over 800 individual Zombie-like sound effects recorded at 24-Bit 192kHz presented on 60 tracks.

Dixie makes the best noises when she is asleep dreaming or very tired and does not want to be bothered. She was very excited when I arrived so they tried to calm her down a little bit to see if she would make some of the amazing “alien” noises they say she makes. The sounds she made when I was in the room were great but after a while I went outside for 5 minutes and left the gear with them and they were able to get her to make some really cool noises. I was able to leave the recording gear overnight and got some really amazing close up sleeping sounds.

I used a Sennheiser MKH-416 and a MKH-8040 with the filter module set on a small stand. This combination is very good for this type of animal recording as the hyped-up top end of the MKH-416 works perfect for the normal pitched intense growls and barks while the MKH-8040 sounds amazing when pitched way down with a nice smooth top end and a monstrous low end. There are multiple distances for variety and dozens of variations on most tracks. Dixie can make sounds ranging from soft and subtle to over the top loud and vicious. She can purr like a kitten and snarl like an attack dog. I have never heard any animal make these kinds of noises especially a dog. Dixie got to know me after a few days and maybe next time I see here she will let me record her in her dream state.

The Devil Dog is available now at The Recordist. 60 files (over 800 sounds), 744.9MB, $50 us.

A collection of blog posts, and a special edition of the Game Audio Podcast, have been coordinated by Damian Kastbauer and David Nichols on the dense subject of racing game audio. The remarkably in-depth studies (which feature video examples) rip apart audio techniques for the racing genre, investigating subjects such as tire squeals, surface types, camera perspectives, and of course, the sounds of the engines themselves.

From the Lost Chocolate Blog;

These informal game sound studies aim to expose the technical side of game audio by making an assessment of current generation titles. The assessment is then used as a way to better understand the differences in approach, aesthetics, and progression of techniques across a small sample. By turning the focus onto emerging details that arise during the course of the study we are able to identify area’s of significance and interest that help communicate the current state of the art. These finding are then represented in a content-rich report that includes: videos, article links, and specialized interviews. The goal is to help raise awareness for the technical side of sound design and help in the understanding of what is often not very well represented in current literature.

Check out the study in all it’s glory at the following links:

Vroom Vroom – A Study of Sound in Racing Games ( Introductory article in Game Developer Magazine )

TrackTime Audio blog – Racing Game Sound Study

Lost Chocolate Blog – Racing Game Sound Study

Game Audio Podcast – Racing Game Sound Study (with guests Mike Caviezel, Mike de Belle and Tim Bartlett)

Hart FX has released Hart a Gator, a new library of alligator sound effects, cut from 10 hours of material recorded at 192kHz.

Alligators are quiet, stealthy creatures that roam the swamps and marshes of Florida like big, scaly, green ninjas. You see one silently skimming along, then all of a sudden it disappears! They hardly make any sound either – except for this one time of year… mating season.

During mating season, gators all of a sudden decide to emerge from their quiet ninja state and let the world know how much of a sexy beast they are – or at least they try to let the female gators know about it.

A gator bellow is when a gator fills it’s lungs with air, then lifts it’s tail and head up into the air, and then forces the air out in a way that causes the entire gator to vibrate violently. This creates this really awesome little dancing of water off the gator’s back, and creates a crazy growl that can be quite frightening. It definitely gave me a new respect for these oversized lizards…

This was not an easy library to record! The gator bellowing is infrequent, and it is often difficult to get close enough to get a clean recording. To add to that – if you approach too quickly and startle the gator, he will stop bellowing.

Hart a Gator is available for download at $95. More info: HartFX

Below is a q&a with Colin Hart, who shares some details about the process behind the library.

Can you tell us about the process of conceiving and planning this library?

I don’t really remember how the original idea came up (it was over a year ago…) but somehow we got the idea that it would be awesome to go out and record gator sounds. There is a gator “park” nearby where I live called “Gatorland”. They have upwards of 2000 gators and crocs there – I figured it would be a good place to start. So I called them up and got in touch with a guy that ended up touring us around to get gator sounds. The first time we went was in June – we were able to get some cool hisses and jaw snaps, which are territorial and warning sounds. Our contact told us that if we wanted some great sounds, it would be best to come back during mating season, when the gators bellow (as a mating call).

So come this year, around March, I called up Gatorland again and asked to come back in for a day of recording. I had no idea what to expect, so I just brought a bunch of gear and planned to stay a few hours. What I was able to get that day absolutely amazed me – these sounds were incredible! I had to get more. I was at the park for about 3 or 4 hours that day and only ended up with about 5 or 6 usable sounds, so I scheduled time to come back. I ended up going down there about 7 or 8 times total to get the sounds that I needed to build this library.

How were the recording locations and the specific situations with the animals? Did you have any preference regarding their movements and vocalizations?

The location made things a bit difficult. Because there are so many gators around, there are a lot of birds around. These birds don’t belong to the park – they are wild – but they come to the park because the gators add protection for nesting. No way a raccoon or bobcat is going to try to make it past all those gators to get to a bird’s nest. These birds were so pesky and loud! It made getting a clean sound very difficult. I basically had to be on top of a gator to get a decent sound.

The weird thing about recording the bellows was that the gators decide to bellow all at once. You’ll be sitting there with nothing to do for anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours, then one will start bellowing. Within a minute or two, all of the others start bellowing – one after another – as if they’re talking back and forth. Essentially, they are, telling the others how much more of a stud they are… In the main area, the bellowing probably only lasts 10 minutes, if you’re lucky.

So you stand around for up to 2 hours, waiting for the bellows, and all of a sudden it starts and you only have a few minutes to record. So you have to be ready. I would hang around taking pictures or something – maybe recording some ambiences – but my recorder was on and ready to go. I had to stay alert – as soon as you hear that first bellow, it’s off to the races! Then it was just a matter of figuring out which gator was about to bellow and get to them in time.

That was another thing – you could tell when a gator was about to bellow. They lift their head and tail up in the air and hold it there for a few seconds before they start. So when I saw one that was in a good recording location make that pose, I got over there as soon as possible – it is a very large area though, so sometimes that can be difficult – you always had to keep moving to try to anticipate what was going to happen next. The trick is that you can’t approach the gator too fast from the front – you will startle them and they’ll stop. Gators see movement and colors very well. David found that out the hard way when he wore bright colors one day and all of the gators were stopping once he approached them. Didn’t do that again!

How was your setup and methods for getting those sounds?

I had a recorder (generally a 702T) and a shotgun mic (a Sanken CS-3e or a Neumann KMR81i, depending on how I felt that day). I had the rig strapped to me and in standby for the whole time I was there, so that I could press record and go at a moment’s notice. Some days I brought little handheld recorders and my Joby tripod to mount them to the railing. I would just set them there, hit record, and leave them there for an hour or so. Those gave me my best ambiences, especially because the birds were slightly more active when nobody was near them.

The first two times I kept my headphones on, because I was concerned with the sound quality. Once I figured out how to best capture the sounds, I kept my phones around my neck, because I wasn’t able to locate where a sounds were coming from with them on, so my reaction time was slow – I was missing recording opportunities. David talks about this in one of his posts from a while ago on DS. I kept them nearby so I could reference if I needed to, but keeping them on my head wasn’t working so well. I experimented with using open back phones so I could hear through them, but they were still messing with my perception of direction.

I know one of the alligators ate a blimp that was covering the mic… How shocking was that? Do you have any sound of that moment?

That was a bit shocking – somewhat of an adrenaline moment… Both Johnny and I were recording when that happened, so we do have recordings of that – both from “First Mic” and “Third Mic” perspectives.

I have to say, I was kind of asking for it to happen because I was trying to provoke the gator into making hissing sounds by bopping it on the head with my boom pole – something that I picked up from the trainers. What I didn’t pick up from the trainers was that they were doing it with a stick, not a boom pole with $2000 on the end of it… Not my brightest moment, but it lead to some fun stories. The gator grabbed the “Dead Wombat” off of my blimp, along with one of the end caps. He also put enough weight on the pole to snap it in the center. Luckily I was able to wrestle it back from him (I did not actually wrestle him – just yanked on the boom pole a lot…), so I didn’t lose the mic or the blimp frame. K-Tek and Rode were both very nice and amused enough at my stories that they sent me replacement parts for free. Two awesome companies when it comes to customer service!

If I think about it enough, I can still feel the jarring sensation in my hands from when the gator bit the blimp – those things are strong!

Recordings of that moment:

You must be very busy recently, since there hasn’t been so much activity on Hart FX. I wonder if this library is the beginning of a new wave of releases or something. Any plans for what’s coming next?

I have been very busy! I’ve been doing a lot of SFX Editing on a handful of feature pictures over the past year, which has taken up a lot of my time. Also, a lot of custom sound effects libraries for specific projects. That has prevented me from having the time to release all that much on HartFX in the past year, but I am working on some stuff. I have 3 or 4 libraries that are all half done. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them released in the next few months :-)