You know the best sound tool you have is the one you've got on you.
So I think that you need a digital audio workstation or DAW that you are comfortable in
and there's a lot and I got some really great advice from somebody early on
who said use the one that you're fast in and that you like
because really they all put out audio
you might reach a point where you're gunning for a job or get a job at the studio who use a specific one
and you know you should probably kind of have an understanding of it but
I think being competent in any DAW
and getting quick and good in it means you'll transfer to another one way quicker.
I think learning software is actually a really big part of the skill set and this job
and kind of uh like probably a long-term career.
Things change really fast and I quite like just sort of throwing myself into a new engine you know
I spent the really the first part of my career only in Unity
and I sort of knew what Unreal did and how it worked but I hadn't been in there
and I guess I was happy to see that people were really open to me saying
"Look I don't really know this engine but I've spent nine years in Unity it's not going to be that hard you know."
My DAW choice is Reaper I've tried a few I've used a few but I've landed on Reaper
I think a lot of the sound designers in the games and industry do use that for
reasons of speed um I hundred percent agree with what Ali's saying but
you know learn one and choose whichever your quickest at.
If you're looking at in-house positions it would be beneficial to try Reaper out and at least be familiar with it and comfortable
and then in terms of audio middleware I've been using Audio Connectwise quite a lot in the last few projects but
I have these proprietary solutions as well.
What's important is that you learn the fundamentals and
uh why things are behaving a certain way and what they're actually doing and when you when
you have that down you can then apply that to anything that comes your way because
you know fundamentally they're all doing the same thing they're all making a game
and sound will all need to be implemented at some point it's just learning the basics of
that and then the software and when they combine you know you can pick things up very quickly.
I have been a Pro Tools user for 20 years because that was what I learned on and like Ali said
you know I was given the advice of you know stay with what you know really well um i've also used Reaper
for about 14 years I think
Actually, the most important thing overall is spreadsheets
really get really really comfortable with spreadsheets because you're going to spend a lot of time with them
I would say really get your hand around get your head around spreadsheets and
just the idea of um of how they export and import how they interface with the whatever audio tools
whatever engine the outsourcers you're working with are working with
One of the things that I would really actually which isn't an audio tool is that
I would say if you are working with dialogue with games and you plan to
I would say looking at narrative design tools and game writing tools can be really really useful as well.
Game script tools and what people use for that I think can be really really useful for anybody going into dialogue for games
to really understand how scripts are put together
and how they're generated and how that kind of part of the system works
I think in terms of you know it's the amount of sound that's there you know
from the ambient environments to the feedback when you uh
If you're playing a shooter game there's tons of feedback and there's tons of kind of very uh
dynamic and responsive audio that's responded to your gameplay
you know the gameplay and your actions on screen and how much of that is feedback
if that's working well you might not actually notice it but you're subconsciously kind of interpreting that so
for example in a racing game you know you might start hearing after you bashed your
car about that you might start hearing things rattle now there's nothing on the screen that's
telling you be careful you know this car's about to die but you know you got the subconscious kind
of feedback coming in there.
A lot of our work is feedback but also setting tone and environment um and vibe really
and a lot of that goes on without being particularly in your face and particularly kind of immediately aware to the player until they start to think about it but
um yeah there's a lot going on in the background that kind of enhances and embellishes the
gameplay on screen.
The misconceptions that people have about voice directors is that it's not a job in itself
particularly in the games industry it's just something that other people do
so and in a way that that does happen a lot you know
a lot of writers direct a lot of narrative designers also direct
a lot of sound designers also direct depending on what the role is
so I think there's a preconception that anyone can kind of do it it's just telling actors what to say after all isn't it?
so I think there's a real uh what people don't realize is how much thought and time goes into
goes into preparation preparing it preparing a script and breaking down characters
and understanding what's needed from the game and not just rocking up into the session and
and talking to the actors and getting them to say stuff in a cool way
but actually actually being able to um uh being able to guide an actor through a script
I think a couple of things one of them is the amount of library material that someone like me would use
so I think when I talk to a lot of people who are new they ask me do you record everything that you
make and "I wish!" uh is the true answer you know it seems like I kind of didn't realize
perhaps that that was like under the rug or something because um yeah I know of
triple A studios who record absolutely literally every single thing that goes into their game but
that is a huuuge undertaking
but the reality is that a lot of it is me going to amazing indie library marketplaces
and spending £20 £30 £100 maybe on a really big library you know like not crazy money
and just getting slowly building up a big resource and then the creative task is
somewhat akin to editing or selecting like you know it's really going through
and having a vision and and like using the tools that you have to enable your vision
I think um there's a simple way of framing this for me which is to put the player at the core of it so really
uh you know you're making an experience for the for the end user gross but the player you know
and so you really want to you want to think about how it is for them and what their experience is
and that just really helps me to frame kind of everything that I do so if I'm stuck so
one of the like tangible ways that that affects things is I will often start with some of the
sounds that happen the most and they may not be the most important sounds in fact in most cases
they're footsteps and they are not important but they happen the whole time so you really
want to make sure that you get that kind of thing right for the player because otherwise it's just
super annoying for everybody and they'll put your game down or worse turn the sound off
so maybe the other way around maybe them turning it off is worse.
There's a really great Sid Meier quote who's the designer behind the Civilization series
and he said he was talking about design but he said "who's having fun here
is it the player or the programmer?" and I just try to think that
like the amount of times that I want to do something that just feels really cool and fun and expensive
but like is it really going to change the player's experience if not then I probably shouldn't do it
I would say um what's most useful to me when somebody's giving feedback on my audio is
firstly to try and avoid emotive terms like that was bad or that was good because they don't mean anything to us
if something usually if people are giving feedback on something they want to change
it's because it's not doing something for them it's not making them feel something or
there's something functional it's not doing so that's what I want to know
I want to know why it's not working for you
Is it because you need you want the player to feel something different at this point? You feel that's not there?
Or is it because is it because functionally that it's not doing the job it should?
If at all possible listen to it together so you can actually sit there together
and then go "is that the bit?"
They can go "This bit this moment here" Do a play through together or watch the watch the capture together
"At this bit here I don't you know it should be this and it's not".
Because it's really irritating to just kind of get a note saying this doesn't work and you're like what doesn't work
which bit of this whole sonic landscape doesn't work for you
I really like Mattia Cellotto uh i probably pronounced his name wrong
he's a london indie designer and uh there's just some incredible ones if you look up uh
Polarity yeah Polarity yeah by Mattia Cellotto that has just it's got so many freebie goodies in it
If you're starting out uh go on websites like Sound Effect go on Boom Library go on ProSound Effects go on Sonos
sign up to their mailing lists every month pretty much they'll send you free sounds and
if you're just starting out style libraries are very expensive or can be very expensive sorry
so just get some free sounds it will give you a decent amount to start a lot of people off.
The best sound tool you have is the one you've got on you so if you have your phone on you and
you hear a cool sound record it with your phone that's the one that's got on you but I mean
you don't need a lot of expensive kit to start off with like a really um you know there's uh the Zoom
recorders are really are really good to start off with you can go buy a Zoom H-8
uh which is great but if you wanted something that's slightly cheaper maybe
a Zoom H-4 i still use my Zoom H-4 on quite a lot of stuff especially capturing initial sounds
because it's quite it's very straightforward to use um if you want to
go slightly uh slightly more expensive but not on the not only totally in Sound Devices MixPres
are very good the Sound Device MixPre I think it's about the Mix 33 is about sort of
four or five hundred quid uh if you want to if you want to go up that far and like a Sennheiser
MKH416 just a shotgun mic 416s are fairly standard but there's loads of others out there there's the
Rodes which i can't remember just a simple shotgun mic a decent recorder will do you as
a starting to go off and do things but really whatever you can afford
yeah Zoom make fantastic budget stuff and Rode where you have Rode mics definitely echo that and and don't be
afraid to look on the used market because audio equipment is generally quite well looked after