The Audio Aficionado (Aaron Brown's Blog)

Posts Tagged ‘Audio Aficionado’

If you are reading this then you are likely aware of how difficult it can be to get your start as a professional audio engineer. Whether you want to work in recording studios or the games industry, breaking in takes more than just talent and dreams. In this post I’ll give you a lot of tips on how to get your big break and stay employed once you do.

Making a plan

The first and most important step is to make a plan. Without a plan you will waste valuable time doing things that won’t get you where you want to be. Start by making a five, two, and one year plan. Go ahead and start it now! I’ll wait. Once you know the big picture of what you want to achieve, the short term planning becomes much easier. Then you will have a better idea of what you’ll have to do to achieve your dreams.  Here’s an example of what you might put into your plan.

• Recording Engineer plan example.
• 5 year
  • 1. Become a Staff Recording Engineer at a well known studio.
• 2 year
  • 1. Intern or assist at a reputable local studio.
• 1 year
  • 1. Record a few bands.
  • 2. Improve knowledge on mixing, microphones and other gear.
  • 3. Take some classes on DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) and audio engineering skills.
  • 4. Make a resume.
• Sound Designer in the games industry plan example.
• 5 year
  • 1. Become a lead sound designer at a reputable game studio.
• 2 year
  • 1. Get credit on a well known game mod or small developer project.
  • 2. Continue to update your resume and develop contacts.
• 1 year
  • 1. Get experience making sounds for games using game specific tools.
  • 2. Begin networking and start visiting game developer conferences.
  • 3. Make a resume and demo reel

Solving The “Experience” Paradox.

Now that you have a plan you just need to get the ball rolling There is a problem though: In order to get a job in the industry you need experience, but to get experience you need a job. This makes it seem like there is a huge wall between you and your goals. Don’t worry, there are ways around this.

One solution is to buy some audio gear and teach yourself how to do things. Quality DAWs are cheaper every day. Many professional game tools, such as Wwise, are available for a free trial. There are numerous sources of tutorials online that cover all of these subjects. I believe that the best learning tool is experience. By doing things on your own you can learn how things work in a pressure free environment. Here are some recommendations of common tools and skills you should have.

Audio Engineer Tools: ProTools (Cubase, Sonar, and Logic are also great, but less common in pro studios), digital plug-ins, outboard gear (compressors, EQ, preamps, signal path, consoles), microphones, Mac Computers (much more common than PCs).

Audio Engineer Skills: Mixing in the box and on consoles,  how to properly use microphones, basic music theory knowledge, recording and dealing with bands, cable wrapping (over/under FTW), and coffee making (Yes, I’m serious).

Game Industry Sound Designer Tools: Wwise (or another game sound engine such as FMOD), Unreal Ed (or another similar game engine like Crysis), Sound Forge or Peak (I’m a bigger fan of sound forge), SoundMiner or another sound library management tool, Perforce source control, Native Instruments Komplete, Waves plug-ins and other creative tools, multitrack editing software like ProTools, Cubase, Sonar or Logic, MAC and PC computers.

Game industry sound designer skills: How to integrate sounds into a game, how to use game building tools like Unreal Ed (3dBuzz.com has some great free tutorials on this), quickly editing and batch processing lots of files at a time, memory management/limitations of current platforms,  capturing gameplay (Fraps or other capture devices), how to set up a ProTools session with video capture of game-play and bounce out sounds to put into your game.

Resume

While you are getting your start you need to develop your resume.  Formatting is very important to a good resume.  Find some resumes online and get a feel for what they should look like.  If you have access to professionals who look at resumes then ask them for help as you set yours up.  It will take years to get meaningful experience.  Until then, fill the resume with every little audio related thing you have done.  This includes albums you have worked on, assisting on things, personal projects, goals, skills, and tools you are familiar with.  Update your resume each time you progress through your goals.

Leave out anything that is totally unrelated, like restaurants, unless you had a management position and you have nothing else to put.  As you progress your resume will start to fill itself out.  Better resumes will open up more options to you in your career.  Eventually you will look at your resume and wonder why it was so hard to get it started.  Keep your eye on the prize and you will get there.

Demo Reel

Your demo reel is vital to get your big break.  A demo reel is just a collection of works by a person.  Though the term originally comes from having your work on reel to reel tape, the colloquialism is still used today.  It will show employers your skills.  In this digital age it is important to have both your demo reel and resume online.  Recruiters meet hundreds of audio people at every convention so it is important to have an easy to find and well organized demo reel.

Now that you have some skills you can put together your best work into a demo.  Remember that your demo reel needs to demonstrate the one skill that the job requires.  If you want to be a sound designer, then it’s best to have video that only has an SFX stem.  No one likes to hear music on a foley demo.  Similarly, no one wants to hear explosion SFX over a music demo.  Keep it short and sweet.

I have learned that three video demos are enough.  However, if you only have one video that is professional don’t put two other videos on your reel just as filler.  Everything on your demo needs to be of the highest quality you can produce.  Try finding a movie clip online, stripping out all the sound, and redoing it in your programs.  Start with video that is between 30 seconds and one minute.  Don’t pick a five minute video unless you have time to really do all five minutes at the best of your abilities.  Your demo reel needs to be easy to navigate and mastered well.  If it isn’t organized it makes you seem unprofessional.

Be sure to mention what work you actually did on each part of your demo reel.  Well organized reels also show that you can pay attention to detail so make the demo a seamless experience.  Keep your demo online in a common format like Quicktime H264.  Display the link to your website on your resume.  Having a few DVD copies of your demo reel is also useful, but many people I know prefer to find your work on the internet for convenience.

In the games industry, if you get a break you may get asked to make a specific demo for a studio.  They will send you a video and you will have a chance to prove your talents.  MAKE SURE YOU TAKE ALL THE TIME THEY GIVE YOU AND DO IT RIGHT!  By this I mean you should borrow or rent the best audio gear you can find to work on it.  Mix it in a well tuned room and on headphones.  Get feedback from other audio people before you send it off.

This could be your big chance and it’s worth putting other things aside to get it done.  You will only get one shot at these “auditions” so you need to make sure you do your best work.  These studios won’t cut you a break just because you only own cheap gear or a lack of free time.  Do whatever it takes to make this sound AMAZING.  Also, finishing it quickly doesn’t earn you any extra points.  Be sure to use all the time they give you to polish your work.

Immerse yourself in your trade

Subscribe to online audio forums, websites and trade magazines.  Make friends in the audio profession who are starting out just like you.  Buy gear to use at home for practice.  Act like the person you want to become.  Here are a few of my favorite online sources.

• http://www.tapeop.com/subscription/
  • The most accurate and unbiased magazine about audio gear IMHO.  It’s free so go subscribe now!
• http://www.gamasutra.com/
  • Great place for jobs, tutorials, and anything else game related.  This is a great place to find mods and other projects you can work on to build your skills.
• http://www.gearslutz.com/board/
  • Forum all about professional audio gear.
• http://sxsw.com/music/daily_chord/
  • Subscribe to their informative emails about what is happening in the music industry.
• http://www.edge-online.com/
  • Another good source for information about games.  They have daily emails.
• http://www.audiogang.org/
  • A great source for beginning audio engineers.  It’s focus is on audio for games and the potential for networking here is great.  A few of it’s members gave me some much appreciated advice on how to get my start.

Attitude is Everything

Positive attitudes can be more important than talent.  I believe this now more than ever.  If you are a positive person who gets the job done you will be more likely to get a good job and recommendations.  Think about it.  Would you rather hire a super talented jerk who is difficult to work with, or a person of average talent that is uplifting and fun to be around.  I know that I’d prefer to work with people that make every day a fun experience.  Attitudes and work ethics can be infectious whether they are negative or positive.

You should know that word travels very quickly in these tight knit industries.  By being a positive and passionate person your attitude will help you get started in the industry.  It will also improve your reputation and help you get work in the future.  So when you are starting in the industry give a lot of thought to how you want to be thought of throughout your career. Who wants to be a mean anti-social jerk anyway?  What better time to change your attitude than now while you get your start.  Besides, developing a positive successful attitude will do wonders for your personal life as well.  :)

Where to start – Persistence is paramount

If you already have a basic knowledge of these tools then it’s time to get more professional experience. I recommend internships for people wanting to work in studios. If you want to work in games you should work on mods or other projects for free. Almost all recording studios are in need of interns or people to help out. You may need to contact them multiple times to prove you are interested. The best studios get hundreds of applications a month to be interns. You have to stand out from the crowd by proving your determination to succeed, doing good work, remembering that you are a subordinate and showing professionalism.

College experience helps you get in the door, but isn’t necessary. It is more important to know the profession and have a positive attitude. You can find game audio positions on Gamasutra.com. This site has lots of projects looking for sound designers for small projects. Mod communities exist for many games, and they are a great way to learn how things work.

Keep in mind that You WILL have to do some free grunt work for a while until you build up a resume!  The tasks you do at this stage of things will be the work other people don’t want to do.  Accepting this becomes easier if you keep your eye on the prize.  Sweeping floors, cleaning up after sessions, and making coffee become daily tasks.  By demonstrating your thirst for knowledge and success you will show prospective employers how valuable you are.   You will also learn a lot of very important things along the way.  I was an unpaid intern about 8 months at a few places early on in my career.   I learned how to work with clients, how to act as an intern, how to run professional studio sessions, and other things that have formed how I work today.  Remember, EVERYBODY had to start somewhere!

College for the entertainment industry – Necessary or a waste of time?

College is expensive, a lot of work, and a lot of time.  So, is it a necessary step in achieving success in as an audio person.  Now that I’ve been in the industry for a while I can safely say that success isn’t dependent on college experience.   However, college can be a very good at opening doors to your future.  I attended two colleges for music related careers and came out with two degrees.

After all that effort I only received brief recognition of my college experienced.  No one has ever checked into my grades or coursework.  What I gained from my college education mostly came from connections, a sponsored internship, and obviously the classwork that improved my skills.  Many internships require college so if you skip education then you are at a disadvantage over those that haven’t.

College also puts you in touch with like minded people who can teach you more than any class.  Developing these contacts can get you work and expand your skill sets much more than college classes will.  Most of the audio professionals I know have gone to college for their trade.  Many of them didn’t graduate.  I recommend at least starting college to build contacts and get an internship.  It will make things much easier on you in the long run.  Having a degree does look better on a resume than not having one.  However, having a ton of professional experience seems far more important than college in the audio industry.

Networking and Interviews

Conferences, College, Classes, Facebook, LinkedIn, Online Audio Forums and musician friends are all good to use for networking.  Keep a list of every contact you have in Outlook, Gmail, or other organized manner.  Make sure you back-up this list.  It may very well hold the name of the one person willing to give you your big break.

Conferences are the best places to develop professional contacts in the games industry.  Some good conferences to attend are GDC and the Austin Game Developers Conference.  First, warm up by talking to some people about audio.  I also recommend a practice interview with a friend.  This way you will be socially loose and ready to go.  Now that you have your resume, demo reel, and a knowledge of the industry you can really make things happen.

Go to each recruiters booth and ask if they have position open for a sound designer.  If they do then keep asking questions and be confident.  Express your interest and passion for game audio.  Give them your resume and a DVD of your demo reel.  Having any sort of game experience on your resume immediately puts you ahead of every other audio person who isn’t prepared.

If they don’t have any positions you should find out if they ever hire external contractors or only use internal sound designers.  Either way, be sure to get their contact info, write notes on their details, and follow up about a week later.  If they have a position and are considering you for a position make sure you are persistent.  Show them that you really want the work and are interested in the position.  Don’t be too pushy, but be sure to keep up on all leads for a position.

At first you won’t get any offers, but as your resume improves and you get more confident the offers will come much easier.  If you keep working hard and building everything I’ve described you’ll have a huge list of professional contacts all willing to help you get work.  At this point it becomes more about managing your professional contacts than going to recruiting booths.

Now that you are out there developing professional contacts with the necessary experience you will eventually get interviewed.  Interviews really come down to answering one question:  Are you the best overall person for this position on this team at this time.  You need to communicate that you are this person early in the interview for them to know it. To be this person you need the proper work history, attitude, and skills to do the job.

Don’t be afraid of talking yourself up.  I’ve botched interviews in the past because I was afraid to brag about my own talents.  Don’t come off cocky, just be confident of your abilities and assure them that you can handle the position.

Do your research on the company you are interviewing for.  By doing your homework you will appear more interested in the position and come off looking like a better prospective hire.  Have a list of questions for them based on your research.  Showing up prepared with a pencil, paper and pre-written questions makes you look very prepared and organized.  You can ask them questions about their games, life/work balance, tools and workflows.

You should also ask for more specifics about the position and what it is like to work for the company.  Remember to be personable, honest, and confident.  Definitely set up some practice interviews with friends before you go to the real interview.  Think up what they may ask you and have some responses ready.  If you do all this you will greatly improve your chances of getting the position when you get your big chance!

Conclusion

You may be wondering why I’m giving all of this advice for free.  Well, I want to help people get their start just like some audio professionals helped me when I was starting out.  Now that you are armed with more knowledge on how to get your start, you are well on your way to becoming an audio professional.  It starts as an uphill battle, but you can learn to enjoy the challenge.  Keep focused on your long term goals and you will achieve them in no time.

Please post a comment if this helps you at all.  I’d love to hear about your successes, trials, failures, and any other feedback you have on this post.  Thanks for coming by.  I hope this helps give you the confidence to achieve your dreams.  If it does, feel free to pay me back by buying me a nice Belgium beer at a game or audio conference.  More importantly, pass your knowledge on to those around you to help build a better audio community.  Who knows, one of you may end up being my boss someday!

-Aaron Brown

Ever since I heard Daft Punk’s “Around The World” I have wanted to recreate that sound.   Now I can finally make this sound and you can too!  Last week I broke down and bought a used Rocktron Banshee talk box!   Since it was used I had to buy a replacement tube at Home Depot. I just received the power supply i bought online (It takes a 2000 ma 9V adapter).  Now it is as good as new and I’m ready to rock!!!  Behold, the Rocktron Banshee in all is glory!

Rocktron Banshee Talk Box

For those of you who don’t know the difference between Talkboxes, Autotuning and Vocoders I’ll quickly explain what kind of sounds they make.   I will attempt to simplify this as much as possible.  There are plenty of resources online to get more detailed info about their history and how they actually work.  Videos of the Talk Box in use coming soon!

• Vocoders: These are processors that make voices sound robotic and synthetic.  To oversimplify a very complex effect, vocoders essentially take a voice, modulate it with another sound source that has been divided into frequency bands,  add some noise and let you control the levels of each sound.   Most of today’s vocoders allow you to control the pitch of the signal and even play combinations of notes.
  • Example: Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
  • Vocoders available to buy: Waves Morphoder (plug in), Native Instuments Vokator (plug in), Prosoniq Orange Vocoder (plug in), Nord Modular (hardware), Electro Harmonix Voice Box (Stomp Box).

• Autotune: Autotune is an effect that has become used in most recordings these days.  These work by taking a signal, defining a set of notes that the sound can use, and only allowing the signal to use those notes.  Many autotune devices can also be used with a keyboard to retune the vocal live, or in a sequencer, based on the notes being triggered while the signal is playing.  Their sound ranges from subtle pitch correction to inhuman-like  pitch accuracy and vibrato.   It sounds less robotic than vocoders has a high intelligibility.
  • Examples: AutoTune the News
    • T-Pain and Lil Wayne
  • Autotune devices available to buy: Antares Autotune(plug in), Melodyne (plug in), Cubase 5 built in autotune.

• Talk Boxes: This is the sound I’ve wanted for so long.  Talk boxes take an amplified signal, put it through a tube that goes to your mouth, and let you use your mouth as a filter.   Microphones are only used to record the signal or send it to a PA.  The sounds you can make with them range from simple formant filter (A, E, O, etc) to forming words while you play an instrument.  It is most typically used with distorted guitars or synthesizers.  It is important to note that TalkBoxes can only exist in hardware unlike Vocoders and Autotune devices.  Since your mouth is the filter it has to be a signal sent to your mouth to form that signal into words or formants.  It is for this reason that Talk Boxes tend to sound like talking instruments more than processed voice.  I guess it could be a virtual plug in if someone with years of free time could synthesize the human voice, create a digital representation of the mouth cavity, create words in real time, and side chain in a signal….  That’s a lot of work for something so simple.  I recommend we quit trying to make everything a VST and accept that some things make more sense to exist as hardware.
  • Examples: 2 Pac “California Love”
    • Daft Punk “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
  • Talk Box devices available to buy: Rocktron Banshee, Heil Talk Box, Dan Electro Free Speech, Custom Built.
    • Personally, I like the banshee option the most for it’s blend of simplicity and tone.  Heil seems to have better tone, but there is more set up hassle involved.  Dan Electro is commonly reviewed as the cheaper lesser option.  There are a few tutorials online to build your own for cheap.  If you do this I’d love to hear your results.

Come back soon to hear a demo of the Rocktron Banshee in a video demo!  Thanks for stopping by

Intonation Matters! Do you want the notes on your killer solo to be this out of tune?

Have you ever picked up an stringed instrument that seems in tune, but as you play some chords up the neck it begins to sound out of tune?  Perhaps you started to play a great lick only to find it just sounds kind of flat.  I know I have and I used to blame cheap instruments and poor craftsmanship. As it turns out this could just mean the instrument isn’t set up properly.  If you try to record an instrument that isn’t set up you will quickly find that tuning becomes a big issue.  Playing with other people is also difficult because your tuning changes while theirs may be constantly in tune.  The good news is that this can be very easy to fix!

Intonation is one of the most important things to understand with many stringed instruments. Electric guitars, bass guitars, and even instruments like banjos all have adjustable intonation. Instruments like acoustic guitars make it much more difficult to adjust the intonation and will require help from a luthier. This is because the bridge on acoustics isn’t easily adjustable like those on electric guitars.

How to adjust intonation:

You can test your instruments intonation by tuning the first open string correctly then playing the 12th fret on that string to see if it is still in tune. If the 12th fret note is sharp then your string length needs to be longer. If the 12th fret note is flat then the string needs to be shorter.  Adjust the bridge of your instrument appropriately. Now re-tune the string and test again. Once it is in tune on the open fret and 12th fret you can move on to the next one. Do this for all of the strings on your instrument and **BAM** you’ll have a properly tuned instrument ready to rock!

Note that none of this covers the action of the guitar .  That is a different issue that is also very important.  I may make a post on this later.

A smart man once said a picture is worth a thousand words.  Below you will find a few pictures to show you exactly what I mean

Examples:

Here is a diagram of how to adjust the intonation on a banjo.

Bridge of a banjo

Electric instruments usually just need a regular or small screwdriver to adjust their intonation.  Follow the same steps as above and do each string one at a time.  You’ll have a properly tuned  instrument in no time!  One thing worth mentioning is that you don’t want to press too hard on the 12th fret while making these adjustments.  If you press too hard it will bend the string and produce a sharper pitch than you normally do while playing the guitar.  Just try to press the 12th fret as hard as you would playing normally.

Fender Fat Strat Bridge - This is what mine looks like with good intonation.

Bass Guitar Bridge - Properly intonated Ibanez GSR200.

It should be just as in tune on an open string as it is on the same strings 12th fret of your instrument.  I know it’s not perfect in these screenshots, but it’s really hard to get a screenshot while it’s perfectly in tune.
Here are snapshots I took of what the tuning should look like on a tuner using GuitarToolkit on my iPhone.   It’s a great tool!  Buy it if you have an iPhone.  You won’t regret it

Tuning 6th String

12th fret of the 6th string also in tune on the guitar. This proves that the 6th string is properly intonated.

Video demonstration coming soon!

I’d like to thank the good people at Exploring Music for showing me how to properly set up my banjo. They have very helpful employees and cheap lessons. I took a few violin lessons there and I plan on returning!

-Aaron B.

Don’t you just hate when you see a piece of gear in your studio just sitting around unused?  I recently admitted to myself that I don’t need my oxygen 8 anymore.   Instead of giving it up, and since I only paid $5o for it, I decided to try to make it into something useful.  The other day I started taking it apart to see what makes it tick and what I may be able to create using it’s parts.  While I don’t have a heavy background in electronics I do have a little experience with circuit bending.  I thought this would be a fun departure from my normal audio work.  Here are some pictures of its deconstruction.

Here you can see what it looks like with the main screws removed and most of the components still attached.

Oxygen 8 spring action keys. When pressed they put pressure on the gray rubber parts which in turn send the midi messages. Notice that the feel of the keys is simply a spring on the back of each key.

Once you remove the rubber under each key you can see that the messages are sent when the rubber is depressed and the two black dots come in contact with the circuit board. I'm assuming that they bridge the gap and send the electrical signal, but I'm curious to know how it detects velocities.

Oxygen 8 components removed and isolated.

Now that I have taken it all apart and marked where all the parts go I can begin planning what to create!  I’ve got a pretty good idea what I want to make out of it’s parts.  If you want to see what kind of contraption I build you’ll have to come back to my blog later and check out Part 2. Thanks for stopping by

BTW, I have more detailed photos of the process.  If you end up taking yours apart and can’t remember where each part connects just let me know and I’ll send you them in an email.

I’d like to say I loved this device.  When I lift my feet while I use it I can tell it would really improve my workflow!  Yes, you read that correctly.  Regretfully, the AlphaTrack has a big problem.  If any devices attached to the computer it plugs into aren’t properly grounded, or perhaps on a different circuit, then the device is rendered COMPLETELY USELESS.

I wrote Frontier and the only solutions the have are to solve the ground problems, wear an anti-static wrist band or using a laptop isolated from power. The apartments in SF aren’t grounded well, I’m not about to wear an anti-static wrist band just to mix, and I tried unplugging the laptop with no success.  Removing external drives on a different circuit isn’t what I call a solution anyway.  It’s pretty astounding they couldn’t isolate the fader and knobs from the circuit to prevent this issue.

To be fair almost everything else about this device seems great.  The way it maps to Cubase 5 is elegant and easy to use.  It even maps to plug-ins pretty well.  I’m sure you can find reviews on the web saying how great the device is.  The controls are great with one exception.  The encoders are also pretty useless.  They are WAYYYYY too finely tuned.  This means it takes about 5 full rotations to go from far left to right panning.  No, the resolution isn’t adjustable.

So in the end this great idea, with mostly great execution, is rendered unusable by a seemingly easily fixable design flaw.  I regretfully go to return it tomorrow.  Goodbye AlphaTrack.  When I wore thick soled shoes you were almost entirely a great device!

Video Demonstration of the Grounding issue below.

-Aaron Brown