Eduardo Ortiz Frau is a freelance game audio designer based in Austin, TX. He has worked in audio and music production for over ten years and has been working in sound design for games since 2011. He's worked on titles like The Stanley Parable, Apotheon, and Neverending Nightmares. Eduardo Oritz Frau was kind enough to answer some of our questions about his work including … [Read more...]
What is Sound “Research”?
This is a guest contribution by Karen Collins. Karen is the Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, Canada, and the director of Beep: A Documentary History of Game Sound. She’s been researching game audio for the past fifteen years, and in the process, published four books and nearly 100 research papers on sound. As Albert … [Read more...]
News – Film Sound Guru Randy Thom’s New Blog
There's no doubt the sound design community is one blessed with some fantastic artists who are surprisingly willing to share their experiences and insights. This fact was confirmed recently with Randy Thom's announcement of a new blog discussing film sound. The blog, found here, already features three brief but insightful posts from Thom, and will no doubt be a source of … [Read more...]
Macros for Audio Production – Automating Your Workflow
This article was born out of an idea for a GDC audio talk proposal. Another one of my proposals was selected so I thought I’d turn the core idea of this one into a DS post in case it’s of use to the community. Do you use macros in your music/sound production? If the answer is yes, then this article isn’t for you. Given January's theme is all about time management, I feel … [Read more...]
News: How to Create Horror Sound Effects
In an appropriately seasonal blog post over at A Sound Effect, Asbjoern speaks to Saro Sahihi of SoundBits, a boutique SFX library and sound design company. Saro, who has released some excellent gore SFX libraries, goes in-depth on how to achieve some truly squishy, wrenching, and disgusting gore sounds for all your horror needs. He even touches on some other horror mainstays, … [Read more...]
Lessons of a Reckless Freelancer, or How I Learned to Love the Paperwork
When I first started up as a freelance sound designer and re-recording mixer, I had never been responsible for running a business. Working for myself seemed to be the ultimate job; I could set my hours, pick my projects, and do things how I wanted to do them. Beyond this freedom, what else was there? As it turns out, I completely glossed over that whole “how to run my own … [Read more...]
The Mindset of Business
Guest Contribution by April Tucker Early in my career, I watched a couple studios crumble first hand. One was a music studio that went bankrupt because the owner made some poor choices. The other was a post studio that laid off most of the staff in one day; "Black Wednesday," we called it. I had mixed feelings knowing I’d own a business someday. Learning business skills didn’t … [Read more...]