Comments on: Your Questions to Aaron Marks

By: David

David — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:05:29 +0000

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

By: Matti

Matti — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:09:10 +0000

Correction: Meant the Røde NTG-2.

Other suggestions are also welcome.

By: Matti

Matti — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:00:26 +0000

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-

By: Rod Shields

Rod Shields — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:50:47 +0000

As close to the sound as possible just doesn’t make sense to me sometimes. What distances do you record sounds from?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:32:26 +0000

– 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?