Designing Sound

Art and technique of sound design

Your Questions to Chuck Russom

by

Now, you have the opportunity to do your own questions Chuck Russom. Please read the exclusive interview first. Maybe you can find your answer there.

There are several ways to make your questions:



The deadline for questions is April 28th and the answers will be published on the final post of the special. Chuck will choose and answer any questions that he want. Note that all questions will be considered, but not all will have to be answered.

Comments

  1. Miguel you might want to edit your post to “Chuck will answer..” instead of Erik ;)

    I would love to get an idea (or perhaps even a tutorial!) on after you’ve brought sounds into you DAW how you process them to meet a specific requirement for a game sound. I realise there is no general formula but some work flows would be great.

    Also, we are all not fortunate enough to record guns and explosions so a simple sound would with an idea of the kinds of things you manipulate in your DAW or other application.

  2. Hey Ryan, thanks for the heads up! I use the same format for each of these posts and forgot to change the name on it.

    And thanks again, for the suggestion. I’m sure Chuck’ll be thinking on it. There’re some gun articles coming. Stay tuned!

  4. Why hello Mr. Russom, and Miguel! Mr. Russom, you sir, you do a lot of field recording. I think the list of things you haven’t recorded is shorter than the list of things you have recored. So I ask you this which I have a problem with; Mic gain when recording. Judging gain is something I need to work on. I went out to record a train, waited in the frakking freezing cold for it to pass, which it eventually did. Whereupon, I get my recording, bolt inside, shed my parka and zero down all my gear at what was surely a record speed, put my SD card into my computer, ready for AWESOME train sounds, expecting an intense ‘BWOOM TICKA-TICKA-TICKA-TICKA’ as it booms past me. However, all my mic picked up was ‘Fwuh-ta-ta-tuh’. I thought I had adjusted my gain well, I clapped my hands, and adjusted the gain until until I wasn’t peaking. CLEARLY, this is no the way to go.

    So, to summarize my VERY LENGTHY question: Do you have tips for selecting the right gain levels for what you’re recording?

    Also: God of War II is a very loud game, in terms of music, and sound. Was there ever a conflict between the sound design team, and the music team over whose noise takes precedence, or gets cranked up more? Or in videogames, is the attitude toward balancing the mix between music and sound more laid back since the player can adjust those levels on their own?

  5. Hi Chuck!
    Can you tell us if you managed to bypass this MTX box, cause we’re a couple of guys who think that it’s still possible to do it (making a 7pin to 5pin to 2x 3pin XLR connectors)… Also, can you give us some of the most crazy “natural / unreal” sounds you ever recorded? Thx

  6. Also, how do you give metadata to your sounds? What’s your strategy in terms of how to name your sounds and describe them. Thx again!

  7. Hi Chuck!
    1) When recording sound fx, how often do you use several different mics to capture different perspectives. I understand that gun sessions is an obvious one as well as vehicle recording. But do you find yourself using multiple mics for perspective/different sonic qualities when recording other more common sounds?

    2) Regarding audio implementing, is it part of your job as a sound designer nowadays? If so, what engines are you usually working with (FMOD,WWISE,etc…)?

  8. Hey Chuck,

    Knowing that your audio will be downgraded somewhat for a videogame, do you ever compensate by adding more high end than you usually would in the mix so it pops through more after it gets converted down to whatever format? MP3.. 44K.. or whatever videogames are doing now-a-days?

  9. What software do you use aside from your DAW and sound forge? Do you ever get into Max/MSP, Reaktor, or any other programs? Thanks!!!

  11. Hey Chuck,

    I had a question regarding session file management. With games today having a lot of sounds that often need to be tweaked, do you put the individual layered sounds that comprise an explosion in one session file or have more of a macro file containing all of the explosions, shotgun blasts, etc? I’m wondering what file management practices you would recommend based on your own personal experiences.

    Thanks!

Copyright Info

All content on Designing Sound is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.