I attended Audio Boot Camp today at GDC. Scott Selfon from Microsoft kicked off with a comprehensive “Introduction to Audio for Games” that included some insightful historical components.
Jay Weinland gave a great presentation showing off Bungie’s internal audio tools. They were fantastically impressive albeit, shown in the context of creating audio for Halo… Jay also referenced some cool benefits they got by licensing some plugins from Waves to use in-engine for mixing the game. In particular, setting up Waves plugin presets in Pro Tools and having them translate perfectly in the game engine.
Charles Deenen from EA covered many areas but seemed most passionate about evangelizing better in game mixing. Beyond volume, beyond DSP, we need to reference information from more data points in the game to create “great” adaptive mixes.
Charles made good sense to this enthused mix engineer. Accessing hundreds of points to create a top notch virtual mixing engineer in the game shouldn’t be far off, I hope…
My good friend and brilliant engineer, Rob Castro, spotted this query on the cover of Mix Magazine:
ATTENTION: GAME SOUND DEVELOPERS
We’re guessing you didn’t always work in videogames; we know a lot of you have roots in music and post. Tell us why you made the switch to the game world, and the name of the first title you worked on. E-mail us at mixeditorial@mixonline.com.
So… I thought about it for just a minute, and responded:
WHY I MADE THE SWITCH TO THE GAME WORLD
I grew up engineering in the collaborative recording environments of the ’80’s and ’90’s. Studio multiplexes that fostered groups of creative people working on multiple projects simultaneously, water cooler talks, and a healthy, competitive industry. With the advent of desktop recording, the process of making music became more isolated for the creators. With less collaboration came less innovation.
I became interested in the videogame industry because I saw the collaborative environment that motivated me to get into music recording in the first place. Huge teams of energetic people pushing innovation and technology to their limits. It’s those elements that I believe are the making of great change, and artistic creation.
I’ve been working on mixes of a musical tribute to John Goddard and the Sweetwater. It was recorded at the Sweetwater and the Throckmorton Theater last fall when John’s Village Music and the Sweetwater both closed their doors.
It’s around 7 hours of music featuring many long time Marin music scene favorites. Tonight I’ve really been enjoying a Nick Gravenites set with a fantastic band behind him. Something soothing about listening to a real “Blues Man”.
Up next: Dan Hicks…
