By Karen Collins Adapted from a forthcoming article in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal An often overlooked aspect of sound design is the use of sound to create a sense of identification for the audience. Just as with using point-of-view with camera angles, sound can be used to create an auditory position for the listener/audience, putting … [Read more...]
Interview: Dren McDonald and Skulls of the Shogun
Here is my interview with the wonderfully talented Dren McDonald in which I ask him a few questions about his work on the fantastic indie strategy game: Skulls of the Shogun which is now available on Steam. And we also talk a bit about the Game Audio Network Guild and Kickstarter. -Tell us a little bit about your sound design background and how you got … [Read more...]
The Sounds Of Microsphere
Guest Contribution by Ivo Ivanov - Lead Sound Designer & Project Manager Noise, the final frontier. How can we explore such a vast and largely uncharted realm? More importantly, how do we approach recording this unusual sonic landscape and compile the results into a sound library specifically intended for the science fiction genre? How do we find the emotional … [Read more...]
Acoustic Dirt
Guest Contribution by Rob Bridgett who is (probably) the most Easterly Audio Director in North America. 47º 34' N, 52º 41' W. Since June, 2000 he has worked as a video game developer. DESIRABLE NOISE There are a lot of problems in the modern world with noise, and it is interesting the effect that the aesthetic of noise has had on media such as film, game, radio … [Read more...]
Opinion: Raising Visibility Of Audio With Playstation 4
As we come out of coverage of E3 and eagerly anticipate the release of next-gen consoles later this year; there has been a good deal of discussion about the social networking, graphical and visual capabilities of these new boxes. The two things that have excited me the most about the Playstation 4 specifically aren't it's custom processing unit, background downloading, or … [Read more...]
Finding Your Way With High Dynamic Range Audio In Wwise
Guest Contribution by: Louis-Xavier Buffoni – Software engineer at Audiokinetic HDR in a Nutshell HDR (“High Dynamic Range”) audio is a technique which draws its inspiration from the local adaptation method used in HDR imaging, which “attempts to maintain local contrast, while decreasing global contrast.” [1] In audio, this local/global dichotomy applies to time, and contrast … [Read more...]
Review: iZotope Insight
Thoughts by Ian Palmer: Anyone who knows me will know that 4 years on I am still madly in love with iZotope's RX noise reduction package. So it is rather exciting to see what else this company can do. I had high hopes for this meter after hearing about its launch. If only I could do this review in three words, as in "It's bloody good"! Just to note, that I am reviewing … [Read more...]