Allow me to share a story with you: It was the weekend before the holiday break. Our horror film shoot had been going on for a few days, and as was typical of December at the base of Cape Cod, the weather was frigid and rapidly getting worse. With reports of an approaching winter storm, we frantically worked in the freezing cold to finish our exterior shots as quickly as … [Read more...]
Review: Game Audio Culture by Rob Bridgett
Review by Karen Collins “Game Audio Culture” isn’t a book, so much as a manifesto. Dragging sound design (perhaps somewhat reluctantly) from out of the darkened underground studios and out into the open, Bridgett proposes that it’s time that sound designers started to be more collaborative with the rest of the game team. Bridgett boldly states that we’re in a “post-sound … [Read more...]
Interview with Raymond Usher
Guest Contribution by Neil Cullen Raymond Usher started work in the games industry in 1992 as a sound designer at DMA Design, working on a number of titles, most notably the original Grand Theft Auto games. He became the company's senior audio programmer and through the release of GTA III, was part of the metamorphosis into Rockstar North. Raymond stayed at Rockstar until … [Read more...]
Spectral Analysis: Interview with Saki Kaskamanidis
Many thanks to Brad Dyck for contributing this interview. You can follow Brad on Twitter @Brad_Dyck BD: How did you get involved in game audio? SK: It all started back in 1995. I was in a band and our keyboard/synth player, Jeff Van Dyck, was working for EA. He was working on the soundtrack for NHL 96 and needed a guitarist to lay down all the riffs, so he hired me. … [Read more...]
Interview: Rob Bridgett and Game Audio Culture
Rob Bridgett is no stranger to us here at Designing Sound. Constantly writing and engaging in community discussion; Rob has put out a new book called "Game Audio Culture". Here are some questions Damian Kastbauer and I put together for Rob. Can you tell the few Designing Sound readers who don't know who you are a bit about your background in sound design, game … [Read more...]
Alternative Reality Sound: Acoustic Remodeling of a City
Guest contribution by Tom deMajo A special thanks to co-founder Tom deMajo of the game studio Quartic Llama. Tom is an artist and sound designer who currently resides in Dundee. Earlier this year, Quartic Llama was approached by the National Theatre of Scotland to make a game as part of a city-wide trans-media project called other, supporting the theatrical debut of “Let … [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...]