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Slamdance!

February 18th, 2006
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After a long hiatus, I am finally back to finish my series on how to creat voice overs that don’t suck… but first! Slamdance!


It’s been a busy last month for a multitude of reasons, part of which was attending SlamDance in Park City, Utah. A game that I worked on, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa was a finalist in their “Guerilla Games” Division. If you’d like to see some pictures of the event and parties before and after (if any of you are going to GDC — you are bound to meet some of these people!) I posted a photo tour off my website. Enjoy!

As a musician and sound designer there are few things I learned here:

1. Always carry your business cards on your person
I handed out cards everywhere from the bus, to the bathroom (awkward), to restaurants to parties. If you don’t have a card with your name, business, phone number and email/website… you just don’t look like you have your act together. Nothing looks more amateur than having to scrawl your email on the back on someone ELSE’s card. I seriously questioned folks who didn’t have a card to give back to me in return.

At conventions/competitions like these, everyone is there to try to network and find the “next gig” as fast as possible and to generate the most leads. Having a card that presents yourself in a professional manner… perhaps with a good company name and/or logo really help. I also developed a pet peive — the translucent business card. The fact that you MUST place these plastic cards on a white sheet of paper to READ THEM seems a bit ludicrious to me. Just one man’s opinion.

Read more…

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How to produce voice-overs that DON’T SUCK: Part I, Why Voice Over?

February 18th, 2006
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Hello everyone,

I’ve decided to break this article down into four parts so as not to have any one of them become too long for the reader. I hope that you find the information contained in these articles both useful and thought-provoking. As always, I encourage you to add comments and questions regarding the material within.

Part I: Why Voice Over?
Although music can be very memorable in a game, voice over (VO) can also have a great impact on the gamer’s experience. Whether its something short:

Red warrior needs more mana!
(Gauntlet Legends)

or much longer, such as an entire memorable cut scene:

(Resident Evil 4)

In my mind, these are really the two major types of VO. There is the kind that is short (like in gauntlet) that is almost more of a sound effect — it is triggered by the player’s action and acts as an aid to prevent them from doing something incredibly stupid or to praise them for doing something right. The other type is integral to the storyline of the game, such as the RE4 cut scenes, with character narration, etc, but really is much more controlled by you, the game designer as to when such dialog is played. Why is this so critical?

Read more…

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By Request: General Thoughts about “Casual Game” Music

February 18th, 2006
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This just in…

I received an email recently from a developer at GG who was asking about
my general thoughts regarding music and the casual game. He thought it
might be useful if I shared my response in this blog.

Most of you will be unfamiliar with this term, but just in case, there is
a nice explanation of a few general “gamer types” in this wikipedia
article:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_players

That being said, there are specific ramifications in the sound design that
may influence the success of your game. Also, there are certain
considerations that will need to be made when planning to put sound and
music into your creation. I hope to outline some of these with my
thoughts but welcome disccussion and experiences from developers as well:

Shhh! We’re trying to work!
In most cases, the occasional Half Life Tournament is not condoned by management at most offices. However, the lunch and break time solitaire, Bejewled, or various Yahoo online game, DOES get played. Although online games do NOT constitute all there is to casual gaming, they do play an important part in the kind of game experience you want to present to your user. Perhaps the user has high speed internet at work but not at home. How can you convince them to try your game out there and then buy it and bring it home for some weekend fun?

The music and sound should SWEETEN the experience, but NOT make or break it. Many corporate computers don’t have speakers or possibly even a sound card. If your game relies in a very crucial way, you may have many frustrated potential customers! For instance, if you hear a sound cue that means the dinosaurs are coming so you better stock up on ammo — this could get very annoying when you are constantly unprepared because there is no visual cue to help out.

This may or may not apply to your game, but is something CERTAINLY to think about.

Is it working?
Think of sound design as another way to help a user interact with the virtual world you are creating.

For example, your game consists of picking up stones, ala “Mankala” and moving them around a board. Well, you have nice visual cues, but as anyone who’s played that game, knows that there are some rich opportunities for some folly and sfx cues. When you grab the stones, there should be a sound. When you drop them individually, there should be a sound. Is the wooden basin you’re dropping them in have more stones in it or is it empty? All of these will create slightly different sounds. This is the kind of thing that although seemingly hyper-detailed and tiny will do wonders to make your game far more professional and enrich the interactive character of the user experience.

Music! Music!
Ah, the obligatory “background in-game tune”…

Yeah, just have something that loops. That should be good.

Well… not necessarily. Are you trying to establish a certain mood? Many casual games are puzzle-oriented in nature. Is the player racing to accomplish something in a specified amount of time? If so, it would be ideal to have a tune that is EXACTLY that long (assuming, of course, the time limit is not more than 5 minutes or so). This gives the user some feedback as to how much time they have left while not having to watch the clock. A great example of this is the classic Nintendo Mario Kart. Remember how the music always sped up in almost comical way during your last lap? The pressure is *ON*!

Also, emphasize to your composer that this is the ONLY tune your are commissioning/using. (They may assume you are buying library tracks as well) This is the ONLY thing the user will hear over and over and the game needs to be associated with it in a positive way. If things get to tiresome or (worse) annoying, the user may come to no longer enjoy the game. Music that is too fast, too monotonous, too loud or too melody heavy can get this way FAST.

The last part there is especially important. Melody heavy tunes do NOT make for good eternal loops. They make for great cut-scene music, battle music (if its short), musical hits, title screens, etc… but NOT for background. Its much easier to hear repetition in something that has a strong melody. Melodies that are more subtle and change slowly work far better.

If a single tune is constructed well, it can last for hours of play time. If your a doing more of a fast-skin/level changing game a la Tetris, you may opt to have more melody (even song-like) tunes written, and have many of them (a new one every level even!) Granted, this is far more expensive, but this can be very rewarding to players to “unlock” these levels. Save the BEST tunes for late in the game.

Empty wallet syndrome
So… a little short on cash, eh?

Let your composer/sound designer know your budget up front (though, they will surely inquire after they tell you their rates). Try to be creative about negotiations. If you are really stretched, offer extra perks, like non-exclusive use, or hefty royalties. Of course, depending on what the composer thinks of your project, they may or may not decide to risk the time and effort on creating something for a non-guranteed payout.

Try to minimize the number of sound fx you use — finding multiple uses for the same effect. Go for shorter loops of music, and only one. Realisticly, anything shorter than 2 minutes however will be fairly repetitive and may be tough to endure after a while. Again, this depends on the style of music, mood, etc.

In a worst-case scenario, you can, of course, try to find some library music that will fit your project. You might even ask the composer/sound designer you are working with if they might have some library tracks of their own to sell you. Of course, you then run the risk of having another project with the same track as well as something that only fits… sorta.

The truth of the matter is, that good music production is expensive. In this great age of software samplers, fast computers and prices falling on audio interfaces, the good stuff STILL costs quite a bit of money, not to mention the time and energy of the talented people who work in this field.

I welcome your comments and questions. Thanks for the write-in!

-John Seguin
Composer/Sound Designer
www.seguinsound.com
jseguin@seguinsound.com

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Working with a Composer, Part IV: Providing Useful Feedback

February 18th, 2006
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Welcome back to the series. Please remember to view my previous posts if you are just jumping in (use the links following this blog).

Today, we are discussing how to provide useful feedback to your composer.

I say useful because EVERYONE provides feedback, but providing good feedback is far more difficult. A couple of pointers to consider after receiving the first round of tracks from you composer before going back to them with comments.

Listen, and listen again.
And then AGAIN. Play it with the game. Play it in the car. In the shower. Over breakfast. While jogging. Back with the game again.

Sick of it yet? I hope not! Especially if this is your SOLE track (which many money and download-size savvy programmers are using…) you want to be especially sure that you like this tune. And if you don’t like it, or a part of it, you need to be sure of what that part is. A quick listen and then “yeah — that’s GREAT!” is not a good idea.

In evaluating music, snap decisions are NOT the way to go. This is not top-40 music (unless you’re doing Tony Hawk 9 or whatever they’re at now or something similar…) and this a tune that you must live with. People will associate your game with this music. When they boot it up, they will make the conscious decision to turn up the volume, or put on another CD. Which do you want to do?

A great track one should be one that is both instantly accessible and has long-lasting appeal. If immediately you can get into it AND it sticks with you for quite a while, its a good track. Does it play well with the game? When you are debugging you game are you humming the tune or hearing it in your head? These are all GOOD SIGNS that this is going to work out. But what if its not perfect? What if its NOT sticking with you?

No more Mr. Niceguy…

Not every comment that you make needs to be of the “constructive” kind they always told you to give while you were in school. Remember, you are paying this person, and they are professionals. They can take the blow to their ego if you are not happpy with what they are giving you. This does not, of course, give you the license to be NASTY about it, but don’t feel that you have to baby your composer and always tell them that everything “sounds great” out of fear of making them angry. A positive working relationship will be formed by you simply being honest with the composer. I would rather hear that this track sucks because of x,y,z then “this is great” and then just never work with me again without giving me a chance to improve it.

Here’s what I’d like fixed

Bad news will go over much better if their is a silver lining presented that can save the track.

“Everything is great EXCEPT this part about :40 into it… the transition throws me off when I’d like to stay in this groove…”

Knowing what about a tune you don’t like can really go far in helping describe the problem. A simple “I don’t like it” is very hard to work from and the composer will be forced to either hang up the towel or start pulling your teeth to get the REASON you don’t like something.

If you are having troubld putting your finger on the problem. Try thinking about these common descriptions/problems that might be present. Your beef with the tune probably stems from one of them:

For help with some of these musical terms, visit my earlier post here.

Is the tempo incorrect for the gameplay?
Is the emotion wrong for the scene?
Does the music seem to busy? Is the texture too thick?
Does the music have too much variety? Too little?
Is the instrumentation appropriate?
Is the style appropriate?
Is the production value up to the level that you require/desire?

After running through this checklist, if you see that almost everyone of these is wrong with the track, you should probably FIRST look inwards. What did you ask the composer for in the first place? Did you specify such things? If not, you are really wasting the composers, and your, time. However, if you DID specify these things and they gave you totally the wrong thing you may need to look at…

The Bail-out plan

There are sometimes when your relationship with the composer will have to end before it really begins. This is an unfortunate occurrence, but when it happens, its probably best for everyone involved. If you have given your composer a good description, including reference material, and their track doesn’t come anywhere close to what you are asking for, they probably will not be able to deliver, so you should look elsewhere.

However, note that there are many causes of the bail-out that are unjustified. These are probably the most common:
1) Producer does not listen to the track for very long and gives quick feedback before fully letting the track set in. By the time the first fixes are made, the producer has new ideas, and the circle continue to repeat until someone gets irritated and cuts it off. Some patience and careful examination of the first draft could have prevented this.
2) Producer fails to fully explain what he/she is after. This would be partly the composer’s fault too, of course, as THEY should be asking lots of questions to make sure they are on the same page as the producer. After a few drafts of getting seemingly nowhere, the producer has to bail on the composer.
3) Producer dumps the composer quickly because the track done does not match the “placeholder track”. Note my article about the dangers of this here.
4) Producer dumps composer because of seemingly very low production value. Producers, however, should realize that it is not usually in the composer’s best interest to go through the entire mixing and mastering process before a sketch/draft is approved. If you like the track and its perfect for your project but it doesn’t seem very “professional sounding” make sure that you ask your composer about this element and give them a chance to explain themselves or improve upon it. However, if they are unable to improve the quality to the standard that you seek, you may have to bail and seek out another composer. Granted, of course, that production value is roughly (and I mean VERY roughly) equivalent to the fees that composers seek. In general, the person who can command $1,500/minute will probably deliver a higher production value than the guy popping out tracks for $20 each!

This ends my series on working with a composer.

I hope that I have been informative in helping explain my end of the craft to all of you!

However, I will continue to post resourceful articles related to music and sound production for those of you aspiring musicians/sound engineers so that you can enhance your games yourself. As mentioned before, the next article I will be writing will be How to record Voice Overs that don’t suck. I will also be discussing my project to build a Computer Silencer Box so that I can more quietly track while using high-gain levels on my microphones. Even if you are not recording, it would still be nice to (fairly) cheaply quiet that harrier-jet you use for a computer, yes?

Please post any other requests/comments!

John Seguin
Composer
jseguin@seguinsound.com
www.seguinsound.com

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Working with a Composer, Part III: The Dangers of Placeholder Music

February 18th, 2006
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The Dangers of Placeholder Music
This week’s topic is about something that if mishandled, can make getting original music in your game very difficult.

Nobody likes to test games that they have written without music. It’s much more fun to see the complete picture, right? If you have already made the decision to go with canned library music, then this is no problem. You’ve picked out the tracks, they’re yours to include and play with, you’re done!

However, some people take music (sometimes even illegal music that they couldn’t use anyways — like a tune from a favorite CD) and pop it in the game to have something going on with the music side of things. The danger here is that just like smoking and reality TV, habits die hard. Your ears will actually become addicted to that music! (Granted, of course, that you aren’t repulsed immediately by it!)

It is a pyschological fact that the more times you are in contact with something, the more you grow to like it. This is why people who might continuously bump into each other have a better chance of being friends, dating, etc. The more times you hear “that song” on the radio, that you might not have ever gone out on your own and grabbed, suddenly its stuck in your head 24/7!

Good songs catch you immediately, but the Best songs are those you can hear over and over, and still find interesting… even if it takes a little more time to get into it.

Now, how does this apply to placeholder music? Well, if you stick one of these tunes in your music with the *intention* of it being a placeholder, like it or not, it will be HARD to give it up when the time comes. Even if your song isn’t perfect, that first time you hear the composer’s creation you’ll think… “hmm… but it wasn’t quite what this is that I already have…”

Solutions for placeholder blues

So what’s to be done? A couple of options here:

1) Buy good-quality library music and stick with it.
You won’t be the first ones, but it will be far easier on you (and your potential composer) in the long-run. I recommend this however, really only if your game has very limited market appeal, or its more of a demo, etc, because of the huge risk of having your music recognized from another source. The one exception to your music being recognized is if this is ON PURPOSE and you’ve managed to snag the rights to use the next U2 song in your game or something.

2) Give the composer’s music more of a chance.
This is a dangerous road that I can’t whole-heartedly recommend, but you can TRY to just listen and relisten and test and retest your composer’s music (for at least a day or two) before giving them comments back. If they are worthy of their craft, the composer has already done this and has decided that it fits well in your game. Not even taking the time to stick it in your game to play with is doing your game and your composer a disservice.

3) Get a composer involved early on.
This is by FAR your best choice. By arranging terms with a composer early on in the process, so that they are sorta on “retainer” to start work when you need them, you can get music put in your game fast, just when you need it. Really, its silly to have in-game music before there is at least basic playability functionality. Having your character just run around in the world you build is NOT gameplay functionality.

As soon as you are realisticly ready for them, then you don’t have to scramble to find someone at the last minute. You’ll have evaluated their work, perhaps they’ve done a speculative demo for you based on your requests and you approved it, and you are confident in their abilities. You are in good shape at this point, without ever needing to feel the temptation of placeholder music.

In Part IV of this series, I will discuss techniques for evaluation of your composer’s work and giving them useful feedback. Also coming up — how to record VO (voice overs) that don’t suck. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

John Seguin
Composer/Sound Designer
jseguin@seguinsound.com
www.seguinsound.com

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