Current News: Day 2 at GameSoundCon

So I've just finished up my second day at GameSoundCon.  I'm a bit exhausted from the experience, but really glad to have been here.  It's really an amazing experience that I think anyone who's interested in thinking about and getting into game audio should attend.

I started the morning with a hands-on Wwise training class.  This was undoubtedly one of the coolest things that I did at the conference.  As a teacher of music technology, I know there's nothing like getting down and dirty with the software to understand how it works.  Led by Robert Brock, the session starts by getting the current version of Wwise and some sounds on a flash drive to install on your laptop.  Then, in an hour, you learn some of the very most basic of the features by giving sounds to a gunshot.  The demo is available on the Wwise site and is called Cube.  This training was great because it's something that I can show to my students.  I'm definitely planning to explore more of the Wwise demos in coming weeks.

After the hands-on training, I headed to a session entitled "Integrating Game Audio with Unity" led by Steve Horowitz and Scott Looney.  This session caught my eye because my engineering friends who teach game development at UM use Unity, so anything I can learn about how sounds work in that engine is of interest.  Several of the examples they discussed came from their book and the corresponding app that goes with it, so I was familiar with them already.  (I haven't reviewed the book yet because I want to play around more with the examples and training first.)  Their session opened my eyes to how much there is to learn in with regard to Unity and sound integration.  The session felt a bit rushed and I was glad to hear that they offer whole day long courses on the same material.  Hope I can either catch one of those in the future.

Before lunch, I caught a demo of Dolby Atmos which was superb.  When I bring my students to tour the sound facilities in the Duderstadt at UM, one of my recording engineer friends at UM, Dave Greenspan, has been talking to my students for years about the importance of height in sound and mixing.  Atmos is basically that to a huge degree.  Speakers above make an incredible difference in sound and I loved seeing it demoed both in games and movies.  Afterward, I snuck in a bit late to Penka Kouneva's session on budgeting and recording live instruments for games without large budgets.  It was definitely an interesting session with lots of good information-- particularly in her discussion as she surveyed friends/colleagues about how they made music work on tight budgets.

Not only does Brian Schmidt do an amazing job of coordinating this entire event, but he gives a great talk as well.  I'm so fortunate that he was one of the first people who I came in contact with when I started my game audio journey years ago.  Thanks Brian for finding me on my blog!  His talk on Casual/Mobile games was informative with lots of details I can share with my students.

Probably my favorite part of today (aside from the raffle where I won a GameSoundCon t-shirt) were the roundtable discussions at the end of the day.  The first roundtable discussion was with composers Garry Schyman, Austin Wintory, Adam Gubman, and Tom Salta.  The second was with audio directors Paul Lipson, Guy Whitmore, and Steve Horowitz.  I thought I'd just jot down a few of their quotes that I found most interesting in the chat.  I've got a ton more than it's useful to share here, so these are just a few highlights.

First, here's a picture I took from my seat during the composers' roundtable.

"If I get stuck, 9 times out of 10 it's because I'm not having fun anymore."  -- Tom Salta

"Don't let technology get in the way.  Don't let interactivity limit your creativity."  -- Garry Schyman

"Writing the first note is the biggest challenge."  -- Adam Gubman

"The industry is like this convention: everyone sharing a space together.  It's about relationships.  Contribute to the community.  The industry is accommodating to all different personalities and skill sets.  Find your place in it.  Be authentically yourself."  --Austin Wintory

"Audio programmers are instant hires right now.  They're unicorns."  -- Paul Lipson

"We need to break the freelance gap-- and by this I mean that freelance workers don't see the game.  I don't hire composers who don't deliver their material in Wwise or otherwise implemented."  -- Guy Whitmore

"If you're thinking of getting into the industry, do some research: what's a company where you'd like to work?  What kind of titles would you like to work on?  What languages and software do they use? What does their music sound like?"  -- Steve Horowitz


In this second picture, you can see George Sanger, Michael Csurics, and Marty O'Donnell just in front of me enjoying martinis as they take in the audio director roundtable discussion.  Wish I'd thought to get one during the break between the discussions!

All in all, I have to say GameSoundCon was incredible.  The networking is powerful-- meeting others who are thinking and learning and interested in what you are.  I definitely refined some of my thinking about game audio and got some awesome hands-on knowledge.  The knowledge wasn't earth shattering for me, probably because I've read and studied so much about game audio so far.  However, I'd definitely recommend GameSoundCon to anyone who is interested in game audio as an early step toward learning more and meeting folks working in the trenches.  I'll suggest to my students that they attend GSC for as long as I teach video game music!

Current News: Day 1 at GameSoundCon

I'm just getting back to my hotel from the first day at GameSoundCon.  Great day!  Totally lifted my spirits from the fact that my flight in yesterday was delayed, the hotel oversold, and I was moved into a craphole where I feel like the sheets are going to give me Ebola.  As I walked into GameSoundCon this morning, George Sanger was lugging his suitcase up the steps in front of me and we started chatting.  When I got to the registration table, Alexander Brandon was passing out the registration information for the N-Z folks, which of course included me!  These are two great composers whose music I admire and whose books I love and have written about (George and Alex).  A great start to the day to help wash away the rough arrival yesterday.

After a mass meeting, I spent the morning in FMOD sessions with Stephan Schutze.  I felt a bit awkward initially when Stephan asked everyone how they identified as a sound designer or as a composer.  Then he asked who didn't raise a hand-- just me-- and I said I identified as a teacher of game music.  He went on a bit of a tirade about how there were a lot of "Bobs" who were teaching game audio and had no business or knowledge to be doing so and it was fraud.  Then quickly followed this with the caveat that he was glad I was seeking out the training that many didn't know they needed or care to get.  After that bump and a technical problem with the projector, the sessions progressed quickly as he showed many of the features of FMOD.  While the class wasn't the sort of FMOD 101 I was hoping for, it was interesting to watch what was possible in the software.  One of the main points he stressed was that folks used to linear media need to get out of the mindset of "get your sounds in ProTools, mix them, and export them off to the game."  Instead, technology today allows for the game engine to mix the sound interactively in the game.  Principles I understand already from readings, but cool to see how he applied them with the software.

After lunch at a gastro-pub, I headed to Alexander Brandon's session discussing his work on the Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity.  Most cool about this session was hearing how he worked in Unity 4 on this game and used various techniques and softwares to conquer audio problems.  Alex seemed to be a fan of Wwise, which was not used in these games, but he is hoping to use in future games.  He also discussed the differences in updates to Unity 5 that are improvements to how the audio works.  While I haven't used Unity much at all except for exploring just a bit of Steve Horowitz' book, it was cool to see that the interface wasn't so much different from the Unreal demos I've seen in The Game Audio Tutorial.  At the end of this session, I was sitting close enough to Winifred Phillips to get her to autograph my copy of her superb book, which I've been reading on this trip.

I was planning to head back to the FMOD session for some talk about generative audio, but instead I headed down to chat with some of the sponsors.  There were numerous tables set up by different groups and products: IAsig, Wwise, RealSpace VR Audio, and ProSoundEffects.  I'm planning to join IAsig next year as this year is my year of GANG.  Wwise and ProSoundEffects are both things that I think could enhance my teaching at UM, so I chatted with them about possibilities for students and educational packages.  The hardest of these for me to describe is RealSpace VR audio.  They had headphones where the audio changed in relation to the placement of a second device around you, changing the mixing as you were stationary in the headphones and the device was moved around you.  Next, they had me put on enormous goggles and a second set of headphones that looked into a beautiful 3D environment and it was possible to move through the environment by looking at various objects in it and hear the sound change in relation to your position in the virtual environment.  I'd never seen or heard anything like that.  Definitely something to keep an eye on in the future!

Marty O'Donnell gave the keynote address.  I forget that he wrote that memorable Flintstone Kids jingle from my childhood.  Never knew it was his daughter who sang the final "and growing!"  I never played Halo, but of course know the music anyway.  I played a bit of Riven, but was way more into Myst-- didn't realize he got into the later sequels in this series.  Anyway, fascinating to hear about his journey and some of his advice.  I may use some of his points and examples in my own teaching.  His three main points were: 1-practice, 2-take risks, and 3-have friends.  Good advice in any field, certainly any musical one!  The end of the talk was a bit of a downer as he talked about abuse in the game audio field and how to protect yourself and your creations.  Again, good advice, but too bad that folks get burned enough to make that a front and center issue in the field.

All in all, a wonderful, tiring, busy day.  Looking forward to tomorrow with some Wwise training and audio roundtables.