Audio General: Tips, Tricks and Do-Dads
Before this used to be a thread on how people go about making the different types of music/sounds/noise they are use in games, but lately I've been thinking it would probably be more helpful if this acted more as a resource pool for anyone who could just use a bit of direction, insight or general advice on what our community finds interesting.
Sooo for this to work I'd encourage posting anything that you find useful, or interesting that we could all use at some point in our love and pursuit of air disturbances=].
With that said feel free to still post your stories on how you got started in audio or music because personally, these stories keep me going and give me ideas on where to go next, and if that's true for me its probably true for someone else as well.
Sooo for this to work I'd encourage posting anything that you find useful, or interesting that we could all use at some point in our love and pursuit of air disturbances=].
With that said feel free to still post your stories on how you got started in audio or music because personally, these stories keep me going and give me ideas on where to go next, and if that's true for me its probably true for someone else as well.
Comments
I rarely do audio these days, but when I do I'm usually generating sounds on my iPad, or using sfxer/bfxer or chiptone. I don't get great results, admittedly, but sometimes all I want is a bit of audio feedback for a prototype.
Used macbook + Audacity to record my own voice
Used BFXR to make little electronic-y sounds
Used Figure (iOS app) to make a tune. It's almost idiot proof.
Used Garage Band (iOS version) to make a tune. Much harder than imagined if you want some control.
Googled and found music generators online... There are a couple, and it's very hit and miss. This one is fun, it generates whole albums complete with track titles and album names, lol :P
Asked Tim Harbour :P
I've always wanted to make music. Composing is really hard without musical knowledge, I've been waiting for the ability to play instruments by voice command. http://imitone.com/ is a thing but it's not done yet. Hope it'll be great.
That album generator program is dope, in a this-might-be-the-end-of-my-career-type-way =']. I actually like it more than im letting on, cause it gives me a chance to measure whats missing from my own compositions and what stops people from going to that site instead of asking me. In essence, i hope more people hear about that because it will undoubtedly breed a new race of composers =]. Furthermore im also going to be telling more people about Imitone, because i had no idea such a feat was even possible, and just think of the possibilities. I like how it also accounts for filtering out incorrect key tones for us less professional singers, and a host of other features to be as accurate as possible for song creation.
On another note, there are various other programs that ive heard of like Landr that helps people get a more professional mix of their songs. If i had the money i'd definitely try and deconstruct what it excels at and what its limitations are, but yea...From looking at their website it sounds like the program works well, but i cant say for sure.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's one more program that I know of called Meludia that im currently busy with and its like a blessing from up above when it comes to learning the about the perception of music (like teaching you the ability to define a chord from others [this is a major, this is a minor, this is a C chord, this is a D minor 7, this is a F#13add6 chord, and so on]). Its pretty helpful if you want to learn more about how constructing melodies, hearing drum patterns, differentiating pitch or tonal qualities, basic theory and also explained better than how most people go about teaching music orally. They also have this different teaching model for Music theory they call S.E.M.A. which entails learning music through Sensation Emotion Memory and then Analysis (according to them the usual approach is analysis and then Memory). Without droning on further i will say that i have tried many oral training exercises that rely purely on arbitrary or basic repetition which usually results in barely anything being learned a year later, that being said Meludia is still quite new to me, but i am enjoying it more than the other things ive done.
Many thanks @Tuism. You might also want to try this site i found a while back. Really helped me get a stable footing on musical theory and composition rules. Tim is definitely a cool dude.
To share some light on the process of Sound Creation and hopefully give you some food for thought:
Every Sound Guy has his own recipe and yours definitely doesn't sound like a bad strategy at all, it might just be a motivational thing that is blocking you..
It is obviously useful to know how your craft - if Sound is something that you are wanting to create more often it is handy to know about Frequencies, Post Processing, Musical Genres, Types of Musical Instruments and what they sound like, Recording Foley and Creative Mixing techniques.
I think most of my stylistic choices are still very random (Dada-esque) which can sometimes result in a weird sound that works but I mean sheesh, there are tons and tons of sounds that don't work at all..
For Music this is a bit trickier to do and it definitely helps locking down a style that you are composing in. I have tried many times to just compose what comes to mind aka scribbling down ideas...but you need to say that you are going to make this or that kind of a song otherwise your Palette is waaaaaayyy to big and you will get demotivated quickly. Also just sticking with the characteristic elements of that style at first to lay down a basic structure is a very good first step to take - if you have a cyberpunk soundtracky piece for example you could start by making a cool dark bass line and add some gritty electronic drums underneath...then add your sweeps and jazz brushes if you feel like it adds to the track. :)
Finding the right sound is extremely difficult - if you are a perfectionist. There are a couple of cool GDC vault videos like this one of Akash Thakkar
But what if I dont have anything in mind or dont know what I am working towards? PLAY games!
The best way to get ideas is to just listen to (good) audio of existing games and build a taste/sense for what works and what doesn't. Obviously every composer/sound designer/musician is out to prove his/her own style but if you are going to be making audio for games, there are 30+ years worth of lessons to be learned from Pacman to Genital Jousting.
Which brings me to another point - come to the meetups!
I gave a talk on my process of Foley at the cape town meet up a few months ago and we had a lot of fun doing a Foley session inside Audacity. You can also chat with some of the local sound dudes a la SoundFoundry, Adam Linder, Tim Harbour, Jason Sutherland, Deon van Heerden, Sash etc. about their experiences doing sound for games.
We are all very willing to share, some of us just don't like typing long walls of texts :P
Oh and another cool thing is implementing the sound effect straight into the game - for me this is the most exciting part and also the biggest MOTIVATION to make more sounds because you can see how your sound fits into the soundscape of the experience - and when a sound/music piece works really well you will be excited and motivated to continue with the other 99 sounds that need to be made :D
!edit Sash added to the list of Sound gurus ;)
What was also very interesting was the idea of making that stylised sound for your game based off a reflective nostalgia rather than restorative. Watching another video on hyper light drifter, this really mean creating a false imitation rather than a perfect recreation of media that elicits nostalgia, and through that we have pieces of work that are made in a modern context but delivered in a way that seems old. The writer in the video explains it better and in greater detail but i thought that was an interesting idea worth speaking about in a condensed form.
Thanks again for all the advice, on how to go about sound design. The dreaded wall of text is still a necessary evil if you ask me, but i do understand why people hate writing it as well as looking at it. On that note though, what do you think of making highlight reels versus trying to implement your audio in some one's game or your own? I was thinking of presenting one in the next meet cause i'm not working with anyone at the moment (The DIZ meet that is). This question is really open to anyone actually.
I too enjoyed the parts of designing from a space where you meticulously plan out everything to get as close a feel for the final piece of your game or sound as possible. The only drawback for me being that i have a tendency to get stuck with analysis paralysis. On a larger scale though, i find that the cohesion of the elements can make or break a piece of work for me, even if that means removing beauteous sounds that spark a revolution in sound and other aspects of life the world over.
Lastly, thank you for the post.
Now this person is quite amazing because they were able to not only lead a very interesting discussion on music hacks but also make this accessible to people who were not technically musically inclined, which honestly i find is the breaking point for most discussions of this nature. My ability to recall everything will probably be hazy at this point but I think its still worth documenting if it helps someone reach their "Ahaaa" moment and continue (or begin) tackling this mystical beast we call music.
Okay Idea number 1 of Ellie's:
The importance of Bass and Melody.
the idea as i understood this was effectively understanding how to subvert what one might define as "cheesey" or "annoying". Simply illustrated is that if you have a a melodic line that has very little pitch variation (say for instance only three notes that are arppegiated [the notes of a chord played individually one after the other]) the easiest/simplest/coolest way of mitigating its repeatitive nature or making it sound decent going on to awesome is to have a bassline that runs through the entirety of line. In practice this may look something like
Beats 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & ||
in 4/4 melody | C Eb F Ab G F Eb F || x 4
bass|C------------------------------------------|Bb------------------------------------------|G------------------------------------------|
|Ab------------------------------------------|
and that could be the basis of your tiny song.
going smaller than that with some arpeggiation you could simply do:
Beats 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & ||
in 4/4 melody | C Eb G Eb C Eb G Eb || x 4
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & |1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & |1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & |
bass|C--------Eb--------G---------------------|Bb--------Eb--------G-----------------|G--------Eb--------G---------Eb-------|
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & |
|Ab------ Eb-------G--------------------|
Obviously this isnt award winning composition and you could develop these ideas further if your musical background is deep enough to allow for terms like Ostinato (a repeating melody or rhythm) and the "rules of counterpoint"(The idea that melodic lines, and pitches resolve best when following this age old rule set), but even then if you dont know what these ideas are you can still get almost boundless miles out of your music making.
Idea number 2:
Do not reinvent the wheel.
This one hits a little bit close to home as i often question how inventive I'm being with my own compositions, but anyways back to the idea.
Essentially whenever you find something that you really dig, be that a drum fill/a synthesizer setting/cadence (basically a chord progression ending)/maybe even an entire chord progression don't be afraid to reuse material. Copying and pasting ideas into other songs is cool. In fact its closer to an iterative process if you're also improving on that one thing. If you come up with a cool drum pattern its better for you to keep digesting it and using in your work rather than using it that one time in that random song. Maybe you'll realize that the placement of where you put it was not right for the piece and in other pieces it works. Conversely maybe it doesn't, but that doesn't matter because you are learning from the experience rather than waiting idly for he next magic moment. Relying on past experiences is far from an indication of creative failure than you think.
Idea Number 3:
An intro should never be hard.
So if you have your song then its pretty much guaranteed that you have an intro. This idea is simply that your intro should be the reduced form of your main song. If that means taking out the melody and just leaving your chords and a drum beat then dope! You have an intro. An introduction is simply that, a section devoted to giving reference/relevance to or foreshadowing future coming events. In my personal experience of dealing with introductions i prefer to take the foundational ideas of the bulk of my song and re-imagine different parts in a really minimalist way just so an idea of the sounds to come is present and there is variation from the main song to come.
Idea number 4:
Dont let a lack of ideas slow you down.
Now if you're ever thinking to yourself "I need to make something great and it need to come entirely from me" then you should know that is not necessarily true and also you are wasting time. The idea here is that remaking a song is often a better avenue than waiting on inspiration. Trying to recreate a song (especially if its in an unfamiliar genre) is a mountain of progression towards your abilities. You'll start to scrutinize every instrument, melody line, beat placement until your ears think it is aligned with your reference material. Now the wonderful part about this is your brain will begin to do its creativity thing and somewhere along the line you will think ""wouldnt it be cool if..." and the song you were making will turn into something else or you gain a notebook of idea and you will actively learn from your trial of re-creating. In my personal experience, I once had a request to make a swedish folk song despite having a musical basis in jazz and classical music. I got where i needed and ended up with a song i have no taste for but still does its job, From this i'd like to launch into a point that goes along with this idea of recreating and that is the power of observation.
The power of observation:
If you ever need a sound or specific atmosphere for your game do your research and pin point exactly what it is that evokes that feeling that you are craving. If you need a rock song understand what drives a kick-ass guitar lick if you need a scary atmospheric horror song delve into what it is that gets the blood boiling. That is to say that if you have similar sounding instruments then your work is half done. To really observe in this sense means to understand the timing behind where that instrument is played, why its played in this way, how many other ways it occurs. There is a language to most things you encounter in life and music is no different. Learning the grammar behind something is always far more helpful than learning a simple phrase.
To close off...
Elie is super dope and you should probably holla at them or hit up that follow on twitter. I found all of this information refreshing and i hope it finds use to some one even if its not in the way of music. Ideas normally translate between mediums so looking past this shouldnt be too hard. Lastly I would like to give mention to another easy to use music program called Bosca Ceoil if it hasnt been mentioned above already. Its really easy to use, slick interface, and has a mini tutorial to get you cozy with how it works. I will say for more advanced composers it has its limits but for anyone new this is probably the best application i have encountered for the making of the music.
Sounds: Re-mix whatever I need, or record in special occassions.