Audio for games and DVD: how go give interactive entertainment projects, which are caining in popularity by the day. Distinctive and high-quality sound

Post, May, 2003 by David John Farinella

There is good news for those working in the world of DVD and game audio post. Not only are consumers snapping up DVD players and the latest gaming consoles at a swift pace, producers are allowing musicians, sound designers and mixers a heightened level of creativity.

In the DVD market specifically, many post houses are seeing a boom in demand for audio services for new offerings as well as for some of studios' older catalogs that need to be revamped for eventual DVD release.

Alan Ett, of Alan Ett Music Group and Media City Sound, points out that new opportunity means a substantial amount of work.

"A lot of product exists that now needs to be prepared for the DVD format, which ends up meaning remixing things that were originally in stereo -- promos, trailers, whatever products and elements exist that have not been mixed in surround or prepared for DVD," he says. Now we have the opportunity and the mandate to go back and rethink that. As formats change we all know that becomes opportunity for us. It's a problem for the broadcasters and the distributors, and it's an opportunity for us.

Likewise, the audio post market for games is seeing a resurgence, especially as new gaming consoles boast better sound and picture capabilities. Where sound designers and composers used to have to worry about oppressive compression rates, nowadays consoles can play audio formatted up to surround sound and have more memory so sound effects and design can be more detailed and nuanced.

To be sure, this is one of the bright spots in an audio post market that's struggling along with the rest of the economy.

Let's take a look at some recent projects...

INVOKING AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

Award-winning composer Billy Martin of Laguna Hills, CA's Billy Martin Music (www.billymartinmusic.com) has been busy with a number of videogame titles for Disney and Ubisoft, which he considers on par with composing work he's done for television or film. "I'm trying to invoke an emotional response in a listener that will pull them into a story they're watching or listening to," he says. The main difference, he adds, is that instead of composing to a picture, he's writing to a character performing an action. "So, you have to tailor the music so it will fit into all of those areas. Sometimes that's by writing one long piece of music that plays throughout or writing several small pieces that are triggered by some action that a player does during a game that makes you switch to a new piece. Hopefully that is done in a manner that is seamless or at least not jarring."

To get that done, Martin relies on TASCAM's GigaStudio as well as a handful of hardware samplers that will eventually all be replaced by computer samplers. He's using Steinberg's Cubase SX for sequencing, and a Mackie 24-8 console. Martin is able to get an intimate musical feel while working on computers by adding organic instruments. "I made my living as a woodwind player, so I'll often play a flute part or a sax part or a little clarinet on anything that I'm doing. Even if it's not the main melody it really helps the group come alive," he explains. "I try to liven up anything that I work on and whenever budget allows I'll bring in additional players to give it that human element."

Martin has been impacted by composing for games because of the limits on cue lengths and not on resolutions. "Music used to get squashed down to lower resolutions a lot, mono 22K or worse, but most of the time the music is CD quality," he points out. "Most of the consoles can put out a Dolby Surround Sound mix now. So, as far as sound quality, the music is pretty good and I'm sure the next console generation will be indistinguishable from anything else." And there is the challenge of working within the sound design of a game. "You have to be aware of what kind of sound effects are going to be in," he reports. "In a game there will be areas that play like a cinematic movie, but there will be other areas [that] you might want to stay out of. You might want to leave some space and do a lot of high stuff that's going to cut through, or if you're going to use the lower area, have some big hits that hit hard but are then out of the way."

CONQUERING 27 FOREIGN LANGUAGES

According to senior producer Jeffrey Lerner and re-recording mixer Chris Colley, the team at LA's New Wave Entertainment (www.newwaveent.com) is busy working on DVD featurettes, commentary and menu mixing, as well as post assignments for games and DVD-ROM material. New Wave recently completed the work on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The main challenge for the Potter project, Colley reports, was that he worked on a total of 27 foreign language translations. The key to getting that done, in addition to many extra hours of work, was pre-mixing a consistent set of sonic beds. "Then we tailored each one to every individual language, because some languages are faster or slower than English," Lerner explains. The key was consistency Colley adds, from version to version as well as all of the value added pieces within the DVD.