The Audio Aficionado (Aaron Brown's Blog)

Posts Tagged ‘how to’

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

Throughout my life as a musician I’ve always contemplated what it is that makes a song great. Some songs can hit you deep in your soul in a place you never knew existed. We go through life remembering these songs. To this day I can remember where I was when I heard these songs. Hearing them can trigger memories from our past and even bring out emotions we forgot we had. What is it that makes these songs so powerful?

I think today’s music can be broken down into parts. Most music critics primarily rate music using a simple numeric scale. To me this seems antiquated. Music is too complex to be given just one rating. I think most music can be broken down into a few categories. This gives a much more accurate rating to a song. I just came up with this idea so it is a work in progress. Please post comments if you disagree or think something should be added!

Lyrical Content - Poetry in song. Meaningful honest lyrics can be the most powerful part of a song. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon thrived as songwriters who’s lyrics can be read as poetry without the music to back them. Lyrics can trigger emotional responses that hit the entire range of the human spirit. Good lyrics aren’t necessarily poetry though. Classic rap songs all had very effective choruses that people sing in unison to this very day. Great lyrical content is that which delivers the songs intended message with clarity and honesty. When I listen to Bob Dylan, I hear his pain and I believe every damn word. When I hear classic Snoop Dogg tracks I want to go drink some gin and juice and get laid (Not what you would call my typical behavior). Why can music make you want to do things you ask? Because the message of these songs is so honest that I can empathize with them even though I’ve never met either of them in person. When someone is conveying a message they REALLY believe it comes across well. It is also important to deliver the message in a succinct way. As Shakespeare once wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit”. Wiser words have rarely been written. Why write something like, “Annie was a very happy carefree girl and we were on a roadtrip going somewhere new which was very exciting to us both.” when you could sing “Annie and a smile carried us to new spaces, wild places”. Which sounds better to you?

Emotional Content – Most music triggers an emotional response. Cheesy 80s dance music can make you feel like partying, love songs can make you feel heartbreak you thought you forgot, and even Muzak can trigger animosity! The more a track captures the emotions it intended the more powerful it can be. Johnny Cash used this to his advantage. His chops weren’t what you would call mind blowing, but just listening to him playing a simple I/IV/V progression singing his heart out can be as impactful as getting hit by a 5 ton Mack truck.

Memorability/Catchiness – Without a memorable line most people won’t be able to remember a song at all. Repetition through lyrics, melodies, or the chorus can all be important for listeners to come away singing music. This can range from Unmemorable to Ridiculously Repetitive. I find the best music lies in the middle. Good jazz artists know this and occasionally repeat ideas within their solos. Great pop artists all know that catchy songs are the key to success (just look at the ridiculous lineup of people nominated for Grammy Awards). It is used to have people singing your song all day! Pretty powerful stuff. Just don’t overuse it or you will sound like the Black Eyed Peas (If that is what you are going for then you should really only care about this and the next category)

Production Quality – Good production can make awful music entertaining to hear. It can also take a well put together track and take it into another level of enjoyment. Bad production doesn’t necessarily mean it’s low fidelity and not using the most expensive gear. I consider bad production to be inappropriate production values. When a song is ridiculously overproduced to compensate for a songwriter’s awful talents, or a song has cheesy midi sounds when it calls for REAL instruments to be played then it has bad production quality. It is difficult to describe to those that don’t know production, but to me bad production sounds like a big lie. It’s as if something has been done to alter the original intention of the music instead of harnessing it’s original energy and accentuating it. Nine Inch Nails has lo fidelity and heavy distortion for good reason and Wilco has an impressive high fidelity soundscape because it FITS THEIR MUSIC!

Unique/Fresh – Many big acts have had hits because their song is fresh to listeners around the world. This doesn’t mean it has to be completely unique. Most artists today have taken a classic sound and put their own twist on it. Duffy and Amy Winehouse used this to put a hi fidelity twist on motown’s classic sound. The Killer’s took a fresh (Well, sort of) perspective on the classic 80′s sounds. This category can often be related to production quality. It can also be related to taking classic chord progressions, time signatures and melodies in new directions. Radiohead tends to do this quite often.

Vibe/Feeling – This attribute is simply to categorize the intentions of the song. It ranges anywhere from fun summer dance tracks to moody songs about heartbreak. Each type of song has it’s place in the world and each vibe can have great music. However, good vibes don’t necessarily translate to the longevity of a song. It takes much more to have a track that can last through the ages. Take disco for example…

Musical Talent – Some songwriters and musicians are simply too talented not to give them a listen. Even if their song is just average, their soloing and musicianship can captivate any listener. I can name lots of good vocalists out there that make terrible songs, but I still listen since they manage to show me they have some talent. I can also forgive a songs shortcomings if I can hear the talent behind it. For example, I’m not a fan of Ben Folds or Bob Dylan’s voices, but DAMN are they talented and write amazing songs. On the flip side, there are many cases which talent can’t save a train wreck. For example, see every single We Are The World video.

Authenticity – A theme common through all of these categories is authenticity. It really ruins music when someone makes songs about something they don’t really believe in. If you are writing about getting drunk and partying then by god you better enjoy getting wasted and having late nights out on the town. If you write songs about true love, but you are really a young teenager then your music will come across as fake and ill conceived. Do yourself a favor and write about what you know and believe. Experienced songwriters and music lovers can easily tell the difference.

Musical Performance – This is the final attribute I can think of different enough to note. This is to rate how well the musicians performed on the recordings. It doesn’t necessarily mean they did or didn’t hit every note, but it means that they captured the idea of the song. If the song is meant to be whimsical then the players and singers must perform in a way that evokes that emotion from the listener. It also matters how well the players gel together. It’s too bad the F*ing digital age makes it hard to know if the groove is real or quantized to death these days. I still like to believe that I can hear when musician’s have played together and really come together to make a cohesive sound. Otherwise, I end up hearing a track that just doesn’t fit well.

Great music seems impossible to define. Even so, I think these categories are a step in the right direction. I’m interested to see what you all think. Please leave comments. I hope to use them to revise this list in the future! I plan to use these categories to review music in the future. I also think it helps guide my songwriting on my never ending quest to write the best songs I can. As always, thanks for stopping by.

-Aaron B.

Tutorial: How to sample your Reverb Units to use them in Convolution Reverbs.

Before you haul all of your gear out into the world and attempt to sample real spaces, it is worthwhile to make a few Impulses of reverbs you have in your studio.  I’m aware that convolution reverbs take WAY more CPU than your average reverb unit, but I do think it’s important to follow this guide to really get the process down.  By doing this you can demystify convolution reverb sampling and have a better understanding of how it all works before wasting a lot of time sampling real spaces.  To do this you only need a few things.  Really, it is a pretty simple thing to do.  Let’s get down to business!

List of gear you need to sample a Reverb unit.

1. DAW and Convolution Reverb unit (Obviously)
   1. I”ll be using REVerence which comes free with Cubase 5.
2. Hardware or Software Reverb unit.
3. DeConvolver to decode the recorded signal.
   1. Voxengo DeConvolver - This program is free to try and awesome.  It can generate your sine sweep impulses and DeConvolve sampled spaces so you can put the IRs into your Convolution Reverb Unit.

Once you have the necessary components you can follow these steps to sample a reverb unit.

• Run Voxengo DeConvolver.  Click the button at the bottom that says Test Tone Gen.

DeConvolver Test Tone Generator

• Now load the SineSweep into your DAW of choice.  Put the reverb unit you want to sample into the first Plug-in Insert.  I used a Hall Church setting that is in RoomVerb from Cubase 5.  Any reverb unit will work.
  • Set the reverb unit to 100% wet so it will be entirely outputting a reverb signal.  I also recommend turning the volume down to about -8 to allow headroom.
• Bounce the signal going through your reverb unit.  Be sure to set the bounce region to be long enough to keep the reverb tail.  I left about 2 seconds for the church hall.
• Take the bounced signal and import it into Voxengo DeConvolver to DeConvolve the signal.  First load your original Sine Sweep test tone file at the top, then load the bounced signal into the program.  See the screenshot below for my settings.
  • Click process to generate your very own Impulse Response file!

CONGRATULATIONS!  You have just taken the steps to make your very own Impulse Responses for convolution reverbs.  That wasn’t so bad was it??

• Now make a new track in your DAW with a convolution reverb.  Import the IR into your Convolution Reverb and you are ready to hear your sampled room at work.  After comparison you can hear that they are almost exactly alike.

Screenshot of Sampling Reverb Units in Cubase 5

This process isn’t limited to reverb units!

That’s right!  You can sample EQs, your favorite filter settings, or really anything you can put as an insert.  This is where you can start to get creative.  I hope this has demystified the process of sampling reverbs for you all.  I also hope you all start to get creative with this process.  If you do please take the time to comment and let me know what you’ve come up with.

Now that you know how to sample gear, you can use similar steps to sample real world spaces.  Stay tuned to the blog for Part 3 where I’ll show details on how to sample an acoustic space using a variety of gear.  This is where it will start to get REALLY useful.

-Aaron B

iPhone microphone - FFT Analysis

Places with interesting acoustic properties have always been interesting to people around the globe: Cavernous canyons have mystical qualities, old churches can produce heavenly reverbs, and large man made halls can all create larger than life sounds. All of these spaces can be useful to audio engineers, but until fairly recently it was extremely hard to reproduce the exact properties of a particular acoustic space. Can you imagine how useful it would be to “sample” a room’s properties and recreate it anywhere and at anytime? Now, with so many convolution reverbs available to audio engineers, it has never been easier to do! You only need a few things to start creating your own impulse responses! Ahhh, what a great time to be an audio engineer.

I’ve recently decided to start sampling spaces. As a sound designer and musician these will be useful in many ways. For example, I can sample a world class recording studio to give samples a more realistic room sound. Outdoor canyons can give an extra touch of realism to a space. I can also sample a trash can to see what texture that can add to my mixes.  Another use is to sample locations you have recorded in so you can simulate them later for overdubbing or post.  There are a multitude of creative applications for convolution reverbs.  So why is it that none of the audio engineers I know take the time to record their own impulse responses for convolution reverbs?

Over the years i have come to realize that if things aren’t simple and easily accessible they don’t get done. Now re-read that last sentence and really internalize it. To demonstrate this try putting your instrument out in the open for a week and see how often it gets played. Now take the same instrument, put it in it’s case and keep track of how often you play it. I guarantee you play it more when it is readily available.

It is for this reason that I’m making a simple tutorial on how to sample your own acoustic spaces. I will attempt to sample a variety of spaces using a variety of gear; iPhone, portable PA (crate taxi), Microtrack, MBox, Rode NT4 and Studio Projects C4 microphones. These results should tell you what results you can get from these devices. They should also give you all the information you need to make your very own impulse responses!

I will create the steps over a series of posts since otherwise this would be one giant post.  Stay tuned for more soon!

-Aaron