If you are reading this then you 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.
As VR and gaming experiences evolve so do 3D audio tools.
However, VR and location based experiences have brought sonic challenges that aren’t solved simply by applying 3D audio solutions. To craft truly compelling and fully immersive experiences we must explore new dimensions of sound.
What are these dimensions and how do they alter sound in VR?
How can you use the latest neural and auditory system studies to hack the player’s brain and choices?
Prepare to expand your mind by watching this 60 minute presentation that will show how to take your VR and gaming experiences into the next dimension of sound!
Click Here to Download my 5D Audio Keynote Presentation In PDF Format- Aaron Brown Sound
This is a video of my presentation at the 2017 Austin Game Conference . I’ve combined the video of the presentation with my edited slides so anyone interested in using audio to create more compelling and immersive VR experiences can watch and learn. I demonstrate my work from Robo Recall (Physics sound), The Mummy: Prodigium Strike (Sound design, implementation, mixing, audio lead), Salt Star VR (Sound design, mixing), and Super Lucky’s Tale (Music, music mixing).
After watching you will know how to use 5D audio techniques to enhance your experience in the following ways:
-Aaron Brown
Note: I didn’t work on the examples from Battlefront 2, The Stanley Parable, or Inside. The gifs and clips from rick and morty, Tim and Eric and JonTron are inserted for hilarity. Go buy and support all these games, shows and creators. They deserve it and you won’t regret it.
The beautiful artwork in the header image was created by Damian Kastbauer during the talk and I find it to be a rare glimpse into his mysterious and magical mind.
ROBO RECALL – EPIC’S FIRST FULL VR TITLE
After months of hard work I can finally talk about the latest VR title I’ve been a part of!
Epic just announced Robo Recall, a virtual reality experience where you can blast and tear apart robots to your hearts content.
It uses the new Oculus touch controllers and I’ve been fortunate enough to design the physics sounds for the game.
So far, I’ve discovered making realistic physics sounds in VR is even more challenging than normal video games. Everything needs to be just right because the VR experience itself is so personal and realistic. I’ve made many trips to thrift shops to buy new objects to bend, shake and break for all the robot mayhem that ensues.
I can’t wait for the full release to the public! It’s been a joy to work with Epic, Tom Bible, and the rest of the audio team on this VR experience 🙂
-Aaron
Feeling overwhelmed at the idea of learning Game Audio? You are not alone! Game Audio encompasses all audio disciplines that individually can take a lifetime to master.
Have no fear! I am here to guide you on your quest for Wwise and Game audio knowledge in the Game Audio Production course at Berklee Online.
This course treats the project as if it was a real world assignment. It covers setting up your system, pre-production, making a mock-up, creating ambience, sound design, foley, adaptive music using Wwise, working with dialogue, mixing, and getting a gig! These are the same steps I’ve gone through on almost every project over the last 10 years so you can be assured the skills apply to future jobs.
The course enables you to dive into the Unity game Angry Bots and award winning hit Limbo to create your own immersive sonic experiences!
Guidance is provided through the whole experience there are chats and discussions. This prevents roadblocks on your path to success which is critical when learning a tech heavy skill such as Game Audio.
Still not sold on the course? I’ll let these student reviews do the talking for me:
REVIEWS:
–“Aaron is the greatest tutor I have ever had! Great feedback, plus touches on topics that are helpful for people working the industry. Can’t say enough about him!“
–“Aaron was great – he’s very insightful and practical. He put some complicated concepts into simple terms for us, even adding a good deal of additional info and links for us to check out on the forum. His feedback in particular was always really spot on and helpful, never making us feel like we were out of our depth. You could tell he was very invested in our success! “
–“I am a freelance video game composer/sound designer so this class was excellent for adding to my skill sets.“
–“The embeded videos with specific walkthroughs were great for seeing how things worked in Wwise, but the class discussions and webchats were extremely helpful and in-depth, giving us a lot of context for the reality of game audio. Being able to plug our sounds into pre-made games and seeing existing Wwise sessions in action was fantastic.“
–“Tutor feedback was beyond great Tutor answer every question we had, and better yet went further and gave us video examples. Required reading was great. Course content was great “
–“Aaron has a clear passion not only for game audio, but also for helping people understand how it works. His feedback on my assignments was very thorough and helpful for improving the quality of my work. Never did I feel like he was giving my assignment a very casual and cursory listen since each time he was able to identify specific parts that needed improvements even if they were just minor ones. In the class chats he presented a healthy mix of industry information as well as demonstrations of techniques to record, edit, effect and mix audio for games. He ensured everyone’s questions were answered and even offered a dedicated, private chat session for people who needed additional help troubleshooting technical issues.Easily one of the most dedicated instructors I have had at Berklee Online or really any other educational institution I’ve attended. “
–“There’s no substitute for actually putting into practice the things you’ve been taught in the videos and reading. Each once kept the focus of that week’s assignment in mind and challenged me to demonstrate what I had learned. When each assignment was complete, it was satisfying to hear my newly created game audio in the game as if it belonged there all along.“
As you can see from the reviews, if you want to work in the industry and create compelling sound in Game Audio for a living, this course will give you a huge leap forward in getting there!
If you have any questions about the course, or game audio in general, leave a comment and I’ll reply ASAP.
SYLLABUS:
Lesson 1: Setting up your Game Audio Production Environment
Lesson 2: Pre-Production
Lesson 3: Ambience
Lesson 4: Sound Design
Lesson 5: Adaptive Music
Lesson 6: Composing a Musical Maze
Lesson 7: Stingers, Transitions, and Custom Cues
Lesson 8: Dialog
Lesson 9: Horror Ambience and Music
Lesson 10: Interactive Music
Lesson 11: Mixing
Lesson 12: Getting a Gig
After many months of heavy anticipation, the day has FINALLY come!
Lucky’s Tale, the whimsical 3d person platforming launch title for Oculus Rift, has launched! As the composer and mixer for Lucky’s Tale, I couldn’t be more proud of how it all turned out.
Though it has only been out for a few hours, it has already been called “The Gold Standard For Third Person VR Video Games” by UploadVR and the “Super Mario Bros. of virtual reality” by Gizmag.
Composing the music and mixing the sound for Lucky’s Tale was one of the highlights of my career. Not only did my music have to capture the nostalgic charm of classic third person platformers, but the projects whole audio team also had to solve many new challenges brought on with the VR revolution. Having such wonderful visuals and the immersive VR environment Playful designed is a unique experience I feel quite fortunate to be a part of! I was grateful for the support of Playful Audio Director David Chow, who composed, arranged and implemented lots of his own music, helped diversify the music and created a dynamic audio system that evolved as the environment and gameplay changed.
Through the coming months I will be making a series of posts and giving talks about how I, Matt Piersall and Chris Carroll at Gl33k, and David Chow at Playful solved those VR audio challenges and crafted an immersive VR title using compelling sound!
While waiting for my own Oculus order to arrive, I look forward to seeing all the videos of players mesmerized by the Lucky’s Tale experience.
Luckys Tale – VR Composition Demo Reel from Aaron Brown on Vimeo.
Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronbrownsound
Demo Reels: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/resume-awards-demo-reel/
About: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/about/
http://www.playdotsound.com/portfolio-item/build-your-own-foley-pit/
Hey there audio aficionados,
I get 100 hits a day on my post about building acoustic panels. In the same spirit of that post, I wanted to share a tutorial on how I built my own Foley Pit!
Head on over to PlayDotSound, where I wrote up the article with detailed steps about the process and all materials involved!
I’ll be updating the post with recordings in the future. I made the blog post right after building it and was too excited to share it to wait to post about it!
Happy Holidays
-Aaron
PlayDotSound, the new Game Audio Tutorial Blog, has been launched!
Play Dot Sound is designed to be laser focused on teaching Game Audio concepts and sharing insider industry knowledge.
As a Berklee Educator, I wanted to have an outlet to share concepts that go beyond the courses I teach ranging from the basics to unusual creative concepts.
Part of my personal mission has always been to give back to the community which has given so much to me!
So, if you are new to Game Audio, or are an old school game audio veteran wanting to learn some new tricks, head on over to PlayDotSound and let the learning begin 🙂
-AaronBrownSound
ABOUT PLAY DOT SOUND
Play Dot Sound is a website dedicated to help you make the best game audio possible.
This site is full of insider tips on creating video game sound effects, how to make music for video games, and how to integrate it all into your games. There will also be interviews and articles from video game industry leaders to help inspire both audio professionals and newbies.
Play Dot Sound is the creation of game industry veterans Aaron Brown, Brad Fotsch, and Matt Piersall.
I have worked on a few iOS games lately and realized how useful it would be to simulate the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 speakers. It can be a real pain in the neck to transfer sounds to your iOS device when testing or waiting for a new build to see how your sounds will work on each devices speakers. Well, I decided to sample the impulse response from each device to do just that!
These impulse responses will work in most convolution reverbs as long as they can import .wav files. Make sure you change it to mono to really simulate what will happen! I’m using Izotope Trash 2 to do this on my computer, but you can use any software that allows importing impulse responses and summing stereo to mono signals.
So, what can you use these for? I’m glad you asked!
Any sound designer or developer working on game audio can use this on a master audio bus in their DAW to simulate how an iPhone or iPad will alter their sounds. Anyone making music for portable devices like smartphones can do the same and get an idea of what frequencies will jump out on these small speakers! If you work in post you could use them to simulate a conversation on a smartphone or music through one of these devices.
Pretty useful eh?
By the way, if you want to make your own impulse responses for your convolution reverbs using a free tool check out one of my other posts for a clear tutorial.
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BONUS: I created an impulse response for my Behringer Behritone speaker. This is a grot box that I use for mono testing and small speaker compatibility checks. It’s kind of a cheap Auratone speaker, which is funny considering Auratone was designed as a cheap speaker for contrast… but I digress…
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Please let me know if you found these impulse responses useful and I will make some more 🙂 If you want some other impulse response I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
All product names used in this webpage and download are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Aaron Brown. These trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose tones and sounds were sampled during impulse response capture.
Thanks for visiting the Aaron Brown Sound blog! Come back soon for more posts about video game audio, audio engineering, sound design, composing and all other things relating to being an audio professional 🙂
Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronbrownsound
Demo Reels: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/resume-awards-demo-reel/
I was recently nominated for the AIAS oustanding achievement in sound design for my work on Uncharted 3. Although it didn’t win, it was an absolute honor to be a part of such a talented team at Naughty Dog. Their team does an amazing job of focusing on bringing all parts of the gaming experience together and being as cohesive an experience as possible.
It is great to be considered along such great sounding games like Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run. Congratulations to the Battlefield team for winning the award. The game indeed sounds excellent and their tech is pretty damn cool as well 🙂
http://www.interactive.org/
Thanks for visiting the Aaron Brown Sound blog! Come back soon for more posts about video game audio, audio engineering, sound design, composing and all other things relating to being an audio professional 🙂
Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronbrownsound
Demo Reels: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/resume-awards-demo-reel/
DIY Acoustic Panels – How to build your own room treatment and Vocal Booth!
One thing that has always bothered me is my untreated home studio. Every professional studio I’ve worked at or visited has had rooms with proper acoustic treatment. Last week I decided to have my home studio join the ranks of these treated rooms! This post covers the many hours of research, planning and building that went into making my very own acoustic panels for treatment and a vocal booth.
The first thing I did was visit the numerous websites that talk about room acoustics and panels. This alone took me about 40+ hours of research. Room acoustics and panels are a very complex science that takes YEARS to master. What I learned is that, despite the daunting amount of intricacies involved with acoustics, it IS possible to make your own acoustic panels for a small amount of money.
Luckily, I ran into a professional acoustician, Doug Greenlee from soundkinetics.com, at a studio get together. He provided me with a great starting point. If you ever plan on building a professional set up there is no substitute for hiring someone like Doug!
I found a TON of people who have built their own panels providing me with the motivation and knowledge to make my own. I’m going to keep the rest of this post as straight to the point as possible from here on out. If you want to learn more about acoustics or see other people’s plans I added a handy bibliography at the bottom for all your researching needs!
THE PLAN:
Make 8 versatile acoustic panels in one day that can be used as wall panels, baffling and a portable vocal booth for UNDER $250.
THE PARTS FOR 8 ACOUSTIC PANELS:
Total Cost = ~$220
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
THE RESULTS:
I am amazed at the results of these panels. Not only do they work INFINITELY better than Auralex treatment, they look professional and really make a difference in my room. They also work great as a vocal booth or light baffles. I wish I would have made these YEARS ago.
The 3 lb. density panels absorb enough bass and reflect just enough sound to make the room treated, but not ENTIRELY dead. Make sure you make the frames for your panels. It makes them solid and professional looking and the small amount of reflective space added is well worth the extra stability! It wouldn’t take a lot of tweaking with this design to build a thicker baffle or add lots more Owen’s Corning to make them into a bass trap. See the links below for details on this.
Do yourself a favor and get this done early on in your career. Why would you buy something like one SD Electronics Reflexion for $300 when you can get 8 full sized panels for $70 less??? For less than $250 it’s a no brainer to build these. If you have more money it’s probably a better bet to go with a professional company to save you the time and offer their expertise. However, anyone with some free time that wants to stretch their budget should ABSOLUTELY build their own panels.
I’d like to thank my very supportive dad for taking the time to help me build these things. It made building them way more efficient and fun. I recommend you build these with a friend for the same reasons.
I hope this motivates you to build your own panels. Please share your thoughts, questions and anything else here. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
*UPDATE* – NEW POST – Build your own Foley Pit: I just wrote steps about building your own Foley Pit! If you love this post, then you’ll really enjoy learning how to make your very own wooden foley box for your home studio!
http://www.playdotsound.com/portfolio-item/build-your-own-foley-pit/
LINKS:
Doug Greenlee – Acoustician Professional
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ACOUSTICS AND ACOUSTIC PANELS:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/low-end-theory/515220-so-say-im-going-start-treating-my-room.html
http://www.readyacoustics.com/education.html
http://gikacoustics.com/education.html
http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1312693
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=255432
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec07/articles/acoustics.htm
A friend of a friend named Hwbilly Schleifer decided to use these plans to build his own studio treatment! I’m glad people are finding these plans useful. I thought I’d show the photos here so you can see what they look like in different settings!
Thanks for visiting the Aaron Brown Sound blog! Come back soon for more posts about video game audio, audio engineering, sound design, composing and all other things relating to being an audio professional 🙂
Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronbrownsound
Demo Reels: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/resume-awards-demo-reel/
About: http://www.aaronbrownsound.com/about/
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