Yesterday, my boyfriend Jon and I embarked on several hours of power washing. The stairs leading up to our front doorstep were turning green from mold and the walls surrounding them were no better. Jon's job was to man the power washer nozzle, while I was in charge of making sure the garden hose feeding it water didn't tangle or that the gutter didn't … [Read more...]
Understanding your Tools: A Peak Inside the Hardware at Studio Discrete
What does it mean to be a good Sound Designer? Does it mean being able to find interesting sounds and simply record them? Maybe. Sometimes if we come across these sounds in a fleeting moment, we are forced to record them with whatever means we have at the time. And hey, a poorly recorded sound is better than a not-recorded sound. But more often than … [Read more...]
Sunday Sound Thought #62 – GDC Wrap Up: What Was Your Takeaway?
In reflecting on GDC last week, I find several themes coming to mind. I can talk about attending Sightglass coffee at the crack of dawn, where I was able to appreciate the openness of the audio community and their willingness to share experiences, advice, or knowledge. Or, I can muse about the talks themselves, wrapping up in a conclusion-like statement an overview of the kind … [Read more...]
Sound for Radio: An Interview with Audio Designer and Creative Director Jeff Schmidt
When we talk about the audio industry and the areas in which its lives, we tend to think about it in two ways: linear and nonlinear format. And within these categories, the dominant players seem to be films, games, and television. But how is it that we’ve forgotten about radio? The oldest medium of them all, radio is more than just a linear or nonlinear format. … [Read more...]
Sunday Sound Thought 54 – The Proof of Concept
Last year, I was working on a project to redesign the audio experience of an existing IP that was trying to rebrand itself. At the time, if you had asked me if I thought it would be valuable to build a proof of concept for my ideas, I probably would have said "no." I thought I didn't need it, because I believed I knew what would work for the experience I was building and the … [Read more...]
Broken Age – An Interview with Camden Stoddard and the audio team at Double Fine
Broken Age launched Act I in January 2014. Funded through Kickstarter with it’s development the subject of an epic (and ongoing) documentary courtesy of 2 Player Productions, the game was noteworthy for a number of reasons. I personally really enjoyed the games sound and music so in August 2014 I caught up with Camden Stoddard, the lead sound designer on the game for a chat. I … [Read more...]