Back around the time I was first starting out, I remember opening up a demo of Cubase VST (on my trusty PowerMac 6400) and taking a look through the various menus. Everything seemed pretty standard, but something in particular caught my eye, a menu item labeled “Ears Only”. Curious, I clicked on it, only to have my monitor go completely blank. After a few seconds of panic … [Read more...]
Watson Wu on Listening
Let's start out with what to listen for in a recording location. Naturally, we're always going to be looking for a space that isn't going to introduce too many environmental and human generated artifacts into the recording, but the physical layout and acoustic properties of a location can contribute as much character to your recordings as microphone selection...sometimes even … [Read more...]
Designing GuitarMonics for Kontakt
Guest Contribution by Rodney Gates Greetings! Welcome, and thanks for checking out this (TL;DR) article on the creation of the virtual instrument sample library, GuitarMonics, designed for Native Instruments’ Kontakt software. It was a long road from concept to completion, and I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some of the processes and discoveries I learned along … [Read more...]
Vehicle Engine design – Project CARS, Forza Motorsport 5 and REV
With this article I really wanted to find out about the nuts and bots of vehicle engine sound design and implementation. So I contacted a few people and got some great responses and a fascinating insight into the process. My thanks to Stephen Baysted, Audio Director and Composer at Slightly Mad Studios, Greg Hill, Sound Designer at Soundwave Concepts, Adam Boyd, Sound Designer … [Read more...]
Film Sound Tips by Glenn Kiser, Director of the Dolby Institute
Indiewire has published a guest post by Dolby Institute's director Glenn Kiser in which he talks to filmmakers about the importance of sound design from the beginning of production. Making a movie is a never-ending series of compromises, and nothing is as good as the original concept you had in mind. But if you're really lucky, there's a moment of alchemy that can happen in … [Read more...]
Beards, Cats and Indie Game Audio – On Listening
The gents with impressive facial hair over at the Beards, Cats and Indie Game Audio Podcast have glommed onto this month's theme of "Listening". You can check out the full episode here. Thanks go out to Matthew Marteinsson (@mattesque) and Gordon McGladdery (@AShellInThePit) for contributing to this month's discussion! … [Read more...]
All Ears!
We have two words that are most commonly used to discuss how we interact with sound: hearing, and listening. Hearing is a passive act. Pressure waves move our eardrums, the motion is converted to an electrical signal, and our brain tells us that there is a sonic phenomenon in the space around us...perhaps it even provides us with identifying information. It's what comes … [Read more...]