Now, you have the opportunity to do your own questions to Aaron Marks. Please read the exclusive interview first. Maybe you can find your answer there.
There are several ways to make your questions:
- Leave a comment on this post
- Use the contact form
- Write to designingsound [at] gmail [dot] com
The deadline for questions is October 24th and the answers will be published on the final post of the special. Aaron will choose and answer any questions that he want. Note that all questions will be considered, but not all will have to be answered.
– How often do you use your musical background in sound designing a film or video game? Do you pitch certain hard FX or drones to musical notes to strike emotional chords in audiences?
– How loud do you monitor when working 8 hour days (if you do that)?
– What are your staple pieces of equipment? Go-to EQ, mic, compressors? Does each different sound require a different piece of equipment?
– What determines if you are going to record an effect in stereo or mono or both?
As close to the sound as possible just doesn’t make sense to me sometimes. What distances do you record sounds from?
Plug-ins:
What essential “industry standard” plug-ins and manufacturers are there, which are widely used especially for sound design work? Just like there are those “standard” plug-ins in music production and digital audio engineering like Waves stuff, Massey plug-ins etc.
Gear:
The Neumann RSM191 seems very popular among the sound design professionals. Do you have any suggestions on reliable and good quality shotgun microphones currently on the market with maybe a more beginner-friendly price tag to start field recording with, like the Røde NT-2? I guess the AKG 414 still goes as the all-around condenser?
Cheers,
-Just starting in sound design-
Correction: Meant the Røde NTG-2.
Other suggestions are also welcome.
Matti — as a fellow sound design student, I was also looking around for a good field gear set to use in my own endeavors. I ended up finding an NTG-2, Rode Blimp, and a Zoom H4n over at sweetwater.com for ~800 shipped, which is pretty good considering the versatility of the kit. If you go this route, get yourself a Euro-male to US-female mic stand adapter, and a good 3′ XLR cable and you’ll have a fantastic field set.
Mr. Marks, I have a question for you as well. I’ve just finished reading your “Complete Guide to Game Audio” and noticed that you refer to a sound designer and a composer as a sort of one-trick pony. You give justification for this on numerous occasions as having the ability to “provide a one-stop shop” for designers. Do you foresee this being the way audio is done for another good long while, or do you foresee a specialization in the industry like that of film, in that separate organizations/people are contracted/hired for sfx and music separately?
I also have a question I’m not entirely sure has a good answer. Say I have a particular passion for a specific type of audio (namely vehicles). Would it be unwise to tailor my demo reel to focus on this passion? I realize doing so would narrow down my potential employers by doing this, but I’m trying to gauge if that’s truly a bad thing.
Finally, will you be at GDC this year? I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the money to go at this point in time.
Thank you,
-David