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I gave a presentation last week on the Sounds of Star Wars. Here's how the "Whoosh" sound of the Lightsaber was created. Watch it be reenacted live against the film. Lightsaber Foley if you will.  

[audioblackholes]

What happens when you collapse an underwater bubble with a soundwave?

What happens when you collapse an underwater bubble with a soundwave?

[audioblackholes]

Looking forward to winter... 

[audioblackholes]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10374890/SDN%20Sounds%20of%20Star%20Wars%20Promo%20Small.mp4

**The Sounds of Star Wars*** Presented by Richard Gould and Richard Ludlow of the Berklee Sound Design Network.

May 2nd 2013, 6-8pm

Media Lab,

150 MASS AVE,

Berklee College of Music

Boston,

MA

Special thanks to Aaron Valdez for letting us use his 20th Century Fox clip.

[audioblackholes]

There Could Be… - Composing Music and Sound Design for "The Last Symphony" (2012)

Other posts in this series:

The Pick Up (Part 1)

The Pick Up (Part 2)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2)

There Could Be... 

This blog entry was written by audioblackholes and originally posted on the MIT Game Lab website. The full post can be found here.

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This post is a continuation of Richard Gould’s reflections on his work as a sound designer for The Last Symphony. The soundtrack is completely free and can be downloaded here.

This is the last in the series of blog posts by Richard Gould about the making of The Last Symphony.

On Completion of “The Last Symphony”, several people enquired whether or not there was a soundtrack to accompany the game. My response was always “there could be”… and with that somewhat ambiguous answer, I embarked on a personal journey to create my first ever soundtrack. The GAMBIT program had ended, I had cleared my desk and said goodbye to some dear friends, but my journey with “The Last Symphony” was not yet over. For the next month, I spent what time I could scrounge creating the official soundtrack, which can be downloaded for free here.

In creating the soundtrack, I faced several challenges. The first most glaring issue was that the musical content within the game only totaled about 10m. Hardly long enough for a respectable soundtrack. Not only that, but many of the pieces were only 30s or so in length because they were designed to layer, evolve over time and loop. These techniques are key to allowing limited audio content to be more dynamic and create more variation in non-linear mediums (such as a video game), but the fixed nature of CD audio meant I couldn’t utilize these features for the soundtrack.

Clearly I needed more music, so I decided to use the looped sections I had created for the game as the climactic moments for larger pieces of music.  I planned to build up to and tail away from these moments so essentially I was adding content to extend compositions that already existed.

With that done I had twelve full tracks, each now a more reasonable length. Ten from the story pieces, one piece from the end credits, and the opening sound of the orchestra tuning up that plays at the main menu. The other five pieces on the album aren’t in the original game itself, but were instead ‘inspired’ by it and just as the other pieces from within the game do, they also relate directly to the narrative. Much of this new musical content came from that initial piano sketch I mentioned previously from which I developed all of the music. I think this approach really helped keep some sense of cohesion between all the pieces because in some sense, they all come from one source.

So with the soundtrack, I was able to expand some of the musical content beyond the barrier of 30s loops that I faced during production and I got to tell some more of the story musically, which had always been my goal.

One point worth noting is that as I had already recorded my live instrumentation, I didn’t have any live players to hand for the new pieces or the extended sections. In some cases I was able to use harmonization techniques to actually reuse a performance over a different harmonic backing. In this way I was able to create more original music that contained live instrumentation without having to do further recording sessions. I’d tell you where this happens, but that would spoil the fun! In one case, I actually had to pervert the last note of one of the live solos because on its first instance I wanted it to sustain a note before repeating whereas in the performance I recorded, it moves quickly to another note. To solve this, I had to crossfade the “live” track with a sample instrument playing the same note so that is seemed to sustain.

You can go on reading this blog entry here. The soundtrack to The Last Symphony is completely free and can be downloaded here.

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Richard Gould is a Composer, Sound Designer and Voice-Over artist from the United Kingdom. Examples of his work can be found on http://www.hexanyaudio.com. He blogs regularly about the topic of Sound Design on http://www.audioblackholes.com. Feel free to contact him by email <[email protected]>.

[audioblackholes]

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2) - Composing Music and Sound Design for "The Last Symphony" (2012)

Other posts in this series:

The Pick Up (Part 1)

The Pick Up (Part 2)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2)

There Could Be... 

This blog entry was written by audioblackholes and originally posted on the MIT Game Lab website. The full post can be found here.

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This post is a continuation of Richard Gould’s reflections on his work as a sound designer for The Last Symphony. The soundtrack is completely free and can be downloaded here.

Another requirement of the audio was that each object should have a unique sound that would playback when the item was collected. For those the items that relate to specific stories, their sounds contain musical phrases that stem directly from the musical piece associated with that story. So when you truly hear the music on the screen with the truck, you’ve already heard segments of that piece from when you initially picked up the objects.

  We Have The Technology 

The technical component.

As far as how the music was scored technically, I composed the majority of the work in Digital Performer using sounds from Native Instruments and Vienna Instruments.

                For the pieces that contain live players, parts were created using Finale 2011 notation software. Violin parts were sent to Richard Ludlow in L.A. who recorded his parts remotely and sent them back via Dropbox

  The cello was recorded by myself in my apartment and was performed by Ro Rowan. As I didn’t have a professional studio to have, I had to create a makeshift studio/fort. I used AKG C1000 & C3000 microphones for the cello.

I’m actually thrilled with how the live instrumentation came out and it certainly elevated the quality of the music. Including just a couple of real instruments can bring an otherwise fabricated score to life and to many, is then indistinguishable from the real thing.

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You can go on reading this blog entry here where I discuss the layering aspect of the music as well as the subject of compression. The soundtrack to The Last Symphony is completely free and can be downloaded here.

[audioblackholes]

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1) - Composing Music and Sound Design for "The Last Symphony" (2012)

Other posts in this series:

The Pick Up (Part 1)

The Pick Up (Part 2)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2)

There Could Be... 

This blog entry was written by audioblackholes and originally posted on the MIT Game Lab website. The full post can be found here.

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This post is a continuation of Richard Gould’s reflections on his work as a sound designer forThe Last Symphony.

So with a musical direction laid out and implementation planned, the writing began. My process began with an initial sketch of what (in my mind) was a whole movement from the fictional 9thSymphony, which is key to the narrative. The player takes the role of a museum curator who is tasked with visiting the residence of a recently deceased composer to uncover the mystery behind the 9th Symphony, which had an uncharacteristic change in style that left the musical world perplexed!

So from my initial sketch, I took sections from it and developed them before setting them to full orchestra. I did this for ten separate sections (one for each of the main story threads within the game). Conceptually, each piece is an excerpt from a larger movement from the 9th Symphony. The music is thematic with identifying melodic and harmonic ideas for the key characters in the story.

With the soundtrack download, a document is included that goes further into these thematic ideas and how they work within the music.

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You can go on reading this blog entry here where I describe how the mechanics of the music were settled after a potentially hazardous change in the game design. 

[audioblackholes]

The Pick Up (Part 2) - Composing Music and Sound Design for "The Last Symphony" (2012)

Other posts in this series:

The Pick Up (Part 1)

The Pick Up (Part 2)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2)

There Could Be... 

This blog entry was written by audioblackholes and originally posted on the MIT Game Lab website. The full post can be found here.

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This is part 2 of Richard Gould’s blog post about working on The Last Symphony. Read part one here. 

Interactive Audio Examples

The following audio examples were indented as demos of interactive music mechanics to be used in-house and are not reflective of the finished audio quality in the game or official soundtrack.

Interactive Audio Example – Layered Melodies

Layered Melodies that would play over one another, one would enter for each object collected.

Interactive Audio Example – Branching Phrases

Harmonic Layers added to background underscore in either a synchronous or asynchronous manner depending on the nature of the music.

Warm / Cold musical cues that playback when players are hovering over an object (or the contrary).

Branching music that would loop until the next item was found at which point it would branch off and develop into a new section.

Branching music that would play one phrase and stop until the next item was found at which point it would play the next phrase. In this example two stories could be uncovered so two musical ideas are expressed.

Interactive Audio Example – Melodic Fill In Interactive Audio Example – Melodic Expansion

Melodic expansion, where every object found developed a melodic idea. This could work in two forms, either empty space could make clear that notes are missing e.g. 1 _ _ 4 _ 6, or by simply having the phrase be extended upon an item being collected e.g. 1, 1, 1, 12, 12, 12, 123, 123, 123 etc.

Interactive Audio Example – Melodic Fragments

Having melodic fragments linked to the discovery of objects, only to have the whole piece including the melodic ideas played back upon all objects being discovered.

Interactive Audio Example – Increasing Fidelity-1

Using increasing fidelity as feedback, music starts grainy for example and becomes increasingly clear as the player collects more objects.

Interactive Audio Example – Maturing Composition-1

Having the musical content become more complex and sophisticated as items are collected.

Interactive Audio Example – Orchestral TuningInteractive Audio Example – Maturing Instrumentation-1

Having a piece of music reflect the level of success by omitting layers or orchestral sections if key items were not found or by having more sophisticated ensembles play the same piece, e.g. solo piano, string quartet or full orchestra.

Interactive Audio Example – Object Based Layers

Having layers of music enter in upon objects being found.

Interactive Audio Example – Object Based Layers Multiple Stories

Having layers of music enter in upon objects being found, but also allowing for two stories with two pieces of music. When layers enter, it’s indicative of items being found relating to the same story, when the music shifts compositionally, a new story is being discovered.

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You can go on reading this blog entry here where I demonstrate how some of these examples were created, the results from a study we did into how people listen when they play games and deciding upon the musical direction for The Last Symphony.

[audioblackholes]

The Pick Up (Part 1) - Composing Music and Sound Design for "The Last Symphony" (2012)

Other posts in this series:

The Pick Up (Part 1)

The Pick Up (Part 2)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 1)

Putting Pen to Paper (Part 2)

There Could Be... 

This blog entry was written by audioblackholes and originally posted on the MIT Game Lab website. The full post can be found here.

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This is the first in a multi-part series of posts written by one of our Sound Designers from last summer, Richard Gould.

My name is Richard Gould. I’m a Composer, Sound Designer and Voice Actor from the United Kingdom.

  In the summer of 2012, I was lucky enough to find myself serving as “Audio Lead” for a video-game project at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game-Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The title of my position may be a little misleading; in reality I was a one-man audio team and thus led only myself. That being said, I wasn’t without a team as I worked directly alongside several other (supremely talented) individuals, including Producers, Artists, Programmers, Designers and QA Leads. At the helm of what would later become “Shoefish Games” were Clara Fernandez and Han Shengyi, our Product Owner and Producer respectively.

We were one of seven teams in the summer of 2012, each of which were exploring a unique research question put forth to them by their Product Owners. In our case, we were tasked with creating a game that explored design strategies based on indexical storytelling within the context of a hidden object game.

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You can go on reading this blog entry here where I describe how music and the associated mechanics were considered very early on during the brainstorming process.

[audioblackholes]

Considerations for Creative Field Recording pt.5 - Elemental

Other posts in this series:

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

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This is the last in my "Considerations for Creative Field Recording" series of posts and today I'm going to be looking at playing with Earth, Wind, Fire and Water... yes, the "Elements".

By adding new elements to whatever it may be that you're recording, you can alter the sound in some interesting ways. It might be that you capture two separate sounds distinctly from each other, or perhaps the original sound takes on the quality of the new element as they blend. At the aforementioned firework display at the beach, I did the first of these somewhat unintentionally (capturing two distinct sounds that created an interesting combination). I was unable to capture the sound of the fireworks in isolation on account of having an omni-directional microphone, and as such, I captured an interesting combination of the waves lashing up against the shore intermixed with the explosive firework display. So always try to listen for interesting combinations of synchronous sounds that might be occurring around you. 

Taking the second idea, you might try to create a single sound by combining two sources in a more literal way where the independent sources are less clear as the elements come together to create one sound. For instance I recently recorded the sound of a teacup spinning around on a table. So I was already experimenting with 'technique' (see the last post) as this is not normal practice when using teacups. Of course, there is one notable exception to this rule!

  Within the teacup however was a collection of coffee beans (for aromatic reasons). As I spun the cup, I did my best not to disturb them so that I just captured the sound of a spinning cup. However I failed to do so and I unwittingly discovered that the combination of the spinning cup and the freely moving coffee beans created a new sound with it’s own quality.

  So next time you’re out recording sounds, try to consider how you might capture multiple sound elements at the same time, or purposefully intermixthem to create entirely new sounds.

In review, my five tips for further experimentation when field recording or sampling are as follows...

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Playing with Context

Altering Technique

Incorporating New Elements

 -ABH

[audioblackholes]

Considerations for Creative Field Recording pt.4 - Technique

Other posts in this series:

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

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This is a continuation of a series of posts exploring different approaches you can take when field recording. 

 This week I'm going to talk about technique, and I don’t mean microphone technique (that was covered a little in the post on perspective). I’m instead referring to the way you use your sound source. A firework indeed was intended to go ‘bang!’, but I’m always trying to think outside the box and consider what other sounds I might be able to get out of an object. I’m going to move away from fireworks for now because other than launching them far into the air at a safe distance, I wouldn’t want to suggest a different technique. Instead let’s consider a classic sound, that of the bowed cymbal.

Whilst you typically see people hitting cymbals and hearing the associated clash that soon follows, by applying a different technique you can get a completely different sound! By using a violin bow and literally bowing the cymbal edge, you illicit a different form of sustained vibration that causes the cymbal to react and 'sound' differently. You’ve no doubt heard this before in countless horror films but you may have been left wondering what that sound was.

  I always try and carry a bow with me when I’m out recording as well as drum sticks, mallets (soft and hard) and sometimes gloves.

wrong kind of bow

So next time you’re recording an object consider lots of ‘doing’ words. Throw, hit, smash, rip, stretch, bow, shake, rub, wave… do everything you can and see how your source reacts.

[audioblackholes]

Developing the Sound Designer's ear in four stages

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Hearing versus Listening

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Considerations for Creative Field Recording pt.3 - Context

Other posts in this series:

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

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This is a continuation of a series of posts exploring different approaches you can take when field recording. This week I’m going to be looking at how differing the context of a recording can offer up more possibilities. 

-recording in a historical context

So in this context... "Context" relates to the "Perspective" (our topic last week) but while that focused on directionality of the microphone and multichannel recording, "Context" concerns the environment in which the source, the microphone(s) or both are placed.

The acoustic space is worth considering, in fact, the sound from the buildings I mentioned in the previous post was a combination of my having taken advantage of a different perspective (pointing the microphones away from the fireworks) and the context (having a staggered reflective wall of concrete). Alternatively  I might have tried to capture the sound of the fireworks while submerging the microphone beneath water or beneath the sand had I had the ability to do so without putting my microphone in jeopardy! Both would have been other examples of altering the context of a recording.

The Maya civilization were very sensitive to sound and actually created acoustic sculptures and architecture that yielded sound phenomena. When I travelled in Central America, there were numerous instances of this, but none more impressive then the staggered slopes of Chichen Itza's temples in Southern Mexico where the staggered steps (not unlike my buildings) act like multiple delays in close succession and turn the sound of a human clap into the bird call of the Quetzal, a bird that had huge significance to the Mayan people.

Now listen to the real thing...

So, you should always try to consider in advance what possibilities a location might allow for and come prepared for any eventuality. Keep your eyes open for interesting formations, chambers, substances and such. Stairwells are a good place to start.

Or perhaps you're more refined...

Either way, explore what context has to offer when you next record a sound.

-ABH

[audioblackholes]

Considerations for Creative Field Recording pt.2 - Shifting Perspective

Other posts in this series:

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

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This is a continuation of a series of posts exploring different approaches you can take when field recording. This week I'm going to be looking at how differing perspective can offer up more possibilities. 

 When I use the word "perspective", I'm referring to that of the microphone. Typically when we record a sound, we do our best to point the microphone at the source and often try to record in close proximity. But ask yourself what other possibilites there are given the context of your surroundings.

You might start by placing the microphone closer or further away from the source of the sound. This will most likely alter the balance of direct and indirect sound you pick up. In this picture, I'm recording a garden faucet up-close to minimise the ambient sounds  Typically, the further from the source you get, the more "reverberant" the sound will become. This may not be such a bad thing if you're in an acoustically interesting environment such as a squash court where the reverberation is actually an aspect of the sound you wish to capture. If changing the proximity isn't possible, you can use different microphones with different polar patterns to help you in this endeavor. A unidirectional microphone aims to pick up sound equally in a 360 degree radius and would provide more of the room sound than a more directional microphone.

  In the context of the firework we used last week, it could be a little tricky and dangerous to get closer to the source (which is exploding) however you could use more directional microphones (such as a shotgun of hyper-cardioid) to change the perspective. These will capture more of the ‘on-axis’ sound and block out any ‘off-axis’ sound.

Another way you could alter the perspective is to record multiple channels. Some may be intentionally pointed off-axis to catch reflected sound from the landscape. I saw a fireworks display by Revere Beach near Boston and there was a line of concrete buildings off shore staggered diagonally and vertically away from the beach where I was recording the fireworks. Their shape resulted in the sound being reflected clearly off of each building in turn in sequential order, one slightly after the other. It was similar to the effect of cards being shuffled and sounded like an animalistic roar! In that instance I ended up recording more of the reflections than the direct sound, as it was more interesting. Here's a shot of the building.

  So next time you’re out recording, think about where you’re pointing your microphone, the distance from the source, do you have the ability to capture multiple channels of audio and if so, how will you use them?

-ABH

[audioblackholes]

Considerations for Creative Field Recording pt.1 - Additive/Subtractive

Other posts in this series:

Additive/Subtractive

Shifting Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

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My goodness the kitchen is a rich ‘sauce’ of sound. I could get lost in there for hours, recording implements, tools, food, substances and then combinations of all the above.

  Once I have recorded a sound that catches my ear, I always try to consider possible combinations of sounds or how new elements might birth a completely different sound.

Often I find myself doing this when I come to work on a project. Just recently for instance I had to create the sound of a smoke bomb and used several different sound sources that I had recorded for this challenge and mixed them all together, chopping away and adding DSP spice as a chef might when concocting a fine meal.

But what I want to discuss today isn’t post-processing after the fact, but instead the varying approaches you can take at the source of the sound itself. What follows is by no means a definitive list; there are obviously innumerous ways to add variety into a field recording session. Instead, I tried to categorize five general aspects that you might consider the next time you’re out recording. By doing so, you'll get a lot more out of your time out in the field. Here are the aspects we'll be looking at in the next few posts.

Additive/Subtractive

Perspective

Context

Technique

Elemental

 Additive/Subtractive

This could be in terms of size or the number of elements. You might try larger or smaller variations of the object, or multiple objects at once. I recorded some matches being struck for the Berklee Sound Design Network challenge last week. I decided to alter my approach by lighting not just one, but multiple matches at once and it created a different sound. Certainly louder, but it also had some interesting phase properties on account of the multiple sources in close proximity.

 So next time you’re recording, take a moment and think how you might use an additive or subtractive approach to capture a variation of the sound or a new one entirely! Can you record multiple sources of sound, is there a larger or smaller variation, can you safely add to or remove mass from the object in question?

In my next post, I'll be looking at "Perspective". 

[audioblackholes]

Sound Design Network: 30 Day Challenge pt.2

The very first day of the challenge, I nearly failed to record a sound!

I was walking to a friend’s birthday dinner in the evening and realized I hadn’t yet recorded my sound for the day, so I whipped out my portable recorder (then a M-Audio Microtrack II), put on my headphones and as I walked, I listened.

This is the wonderful thing about recording sounds; you can often go about your business and wait for them to come to you. Mine came to me thanks to the Boston public transportation network in the form of a bus.

Busses are really interesting, the mere sound of a vehicle passing by you is always interesting as you have the mix of the engine, road noise, wind noise and such, however buses often have to change gears frequently, may have more than one power source, might be in some form of disrepair, all of which make for a more interesting sound. They also have a weight to them that cars don’t have… at least they didn’t in Europe where cars are of a more modest size.

So next time a bus passes you by... listen attentively to it. Try and hear all the different elements that make up the voice of the bus itself.