Robot Cousin Soundworks

I’m blown away. I have heard audio heaven, and it is programmed via FMOD. Now, years ago, I heard about FMOD and was immediately interested in it, but didn’t know where to go from there. I’m on a mac, so I don’t have access to UDK/UnrealEd to really test out whatever I could make in it (my Presonus and WinXP don’t play nicely together, so sound design via bootcamp just isn’t happening anytime soon). Plus, it was an extremely complex program. Needless to say, I was disheartened by what seemed like a huge brick wall in front of me, made worse by the fact that I could hear the wonderful, gorgeous, dynamic sounds of Bioshock on the other side of said wall.

Well, today, I’m just checking around online, and I pop over to my new favourite sound blog, Designing Sound. Right there, as the recent update was a post about how the FMOD dev team have begun posting video tutorials of FMOD. I excitedly started watching, and didn’t stop until I had seen them all. I didn’t stop because I couldn’t stop.

I think I’m in love. My heart is pounding, I feel dizzy, all I can think about is our future, myself and FMOD. And I wouldn’t be half as excited if I hadn’t brought it up to a few important people at work, and they genuinely took an interest in perhaps integrating this into our programming and games!

Wow. Wowee wow wow wow! /Walken

Now myself and my fellow sound designer can’t stop imagining all of the possibilities that would be opened up to us, if we start using this. Right now, the programmers take our sounds, just as we make them (music and SFX both) and just place them into the games. There may be some looping, or slight volume adjustments, but nothing truly dynamic. And to be fair, doing that is a TON of work, and it’s not like we just put out one game every 2-3 years.

But if we used FMOD (and I’ll admit, FMOD isn’t the only sound API out there, but it seems to be among the sleekest/most user friendly), then we, the sound designers, can have that much more control over our content, and exactly how it works in our games. Right now, if we have a game that involves tiles being smashed like glass, and they want a random sound, that means that we have to create 3-4 different sounds, and the programmers just set them up to play randomly.

With FMOD, as you’ll see if you check out the videos, I could take those same 3-4 smashing sounds, and put them into one smash ‘event’. I would then tell this event to randomize the pitch by a set number of semitones, randomize the volume from 0 to perhaps -3dbfs, increase the polyphony and timing, and voila! I’ve now created a virtually-endless set of sounds to occur, and all the programmers have to do is call on that one event. FMOD handles the rest.

This is something that I will definitely be pushing for. A lot of people may think of FMOD as something that’s used in most big-budget retail games, but it’s actually applicable to anything you may wish to program, outside of Flash.

Here’s hoping. Either way, I will definitely be spending a fair bit of time outside of work playing around with this, now that I at least know how to get started.

There are always things I want to learn. Sometimes, I find it really tough, other times I find it not challenging enough, but I always want to learn new things, especially if it expands on something I already basically know. I’m going to try and set some goals for myself this year, in reference to me learning new things. For example, this year I want to learn the following (or at least make an attempt)

• 1- Modes (Lydian, Phrygian, etc) – I know what they’re for, but having them memorized would really help. Maybe that doesn’t count in “learning” them, as all it is to me at this point would be pattern recognition, rather than the understanding I already have/had of them, but I want to learn/memorize them nonetheless.
• 2- All of my synths – I know how synths work, so when someone says to increase the attack time on the envelope generator, I know where to go. That’s not enough, though. If you take a synth like the ImpOscar or especially the Minimonstah, even though you know the functionality of each control on its own, I could really use to get to know my synths, as it can only help me get where I want to go faster. See also: quadraSID… that one’s currently a bit of a mystery.
• 3- Flash Scripting (edit – found a good resource!) – quite a change from the musical goals above, but I believe having a basic-to-good understanding on how to actually get something done in Flash would really benefit not only this site, but perhaps any program I may think of making in the future… which brings me to…
• 4- Programming/C++ – This was a goal for last year as well, and I’ve checked out a lot of resources I’ve been given, and this is something I could definitely grasp. Alongside this, I would love to get to the point of making an iPhone app or game.

So, as of right now, that’s what I want to fill my brain up with this coming year. Easier said than done, but I have a number of books on a few of the topics listed above, so at least I could take some of it in while being stuck at work.

So, people out there reading… is there anything you’d like to learn in the near future?

I guess today marks the pseudo-start of weekly meetings I’m having with a friend of mine over an upcoming project which may end up being the biggest thing I’ve worked on so far. I’ve mentioned it a bit in the past, and while I can’t say anything official about it yet, I can certainly be vague and non-descript! I think I’ll call it “Project R”

The project itself wasn’t my idea, but I wish it had been. Still, I’m the primary composer, so it does allow me a great amount of freedom and input. If Project R is my friend’s baby, then that makes me its “involved Godfather”.

We recently decided to hold weekly meetings, every Tuesday, if circumstances allow. Tonight was really productive. We hammered out and seemed to add a bit of ‘creative cement’ to the whole thing. There was one point where we were sort of both hit with the same idea, an idea that hadn’t occurred to either of us while going over this thing on our own. Very helpful to have active and involved feedback. We want to shape this into something good, something memorable. Something fantastic, hopefully.

Who knows how it’ll turn out? Certainly not me, but I do have the power to steer it here and there, and I just hope I make the right choices about it. Either way, it’ll be a HUGE learning experience. I just hope it ends up opening doors for other opportunities. While Project R won’t actually make me any money directly, who’s to say what could branch out from it? Definitely a possibility.

We’ll find out in two weeks if our work ahead will be on a paved or rocky road. It will be then when I’ll be able to take the tarp off of what we’re working on.

In other news, the yearly Silver Wave Film Festival is coming up. November 5-8th, Fredericton New Brunswick. It seems that this year will be attempting to out-do last year, just like last year did the same for 2007. I have to admit, I’m really excited for it. I was hoping that the two short films I scored would have been submitted to the panel (who generally accepts them, unless they involve questionable material, or are too long), but word from one of the directors was that he had been too involved with the organization of the film festival itself that he was unable to submit his film.

I’m not sure if he means it slipped his mind, or his involvement would prohibit it for being considered for any sort of award or recognition. I didn’t bother to clarify. It’ll be there next year. That’s cool.

—–

I wasn’t going to get into this, originally, but hey, it’s my site.

I hit a bit of a brick wall today, emotionally. It was one that I didn’t see coming, and even looking back, I still can’t really make it out. All of a sudden, I was overcome with a horrible feeling. I felt as though I was just wasting away, not doing what I was supposed to be doing, and others would soon pass me by, instead of walk alongside me. I felt like I was still, briefly, who I was years ago. It’s as if every bad thing I had ever done manifested itself as an emotional ball of hate that just decided to find me today, and mess me up. Well, it didn’t last too long, but it wasn’t good.

What brought me out of it was this: I’d like to think that I’m not only a different, but better person than I was just a few years ago.We all go through stupid periods in our life, times where we are nothing but emotionally and perhaps physically destructive for no good reason. To ourselves, to others, whether they deserved it or not. I made a deal with myself years ago. I said that I’d forgive myself for all of the stupid shit that I’ve done to others as long as I not only promise to change, but actually do it. And for the most part, all of that, to me, is now ancient history. Yet, every once in a while, a few thoughts will catch me, or something will remind me of how everything used to be, and I just get mad at myself all over again.

I have to remember that I’m still keeping good on my own promise.

I have too many, WAY too many unfinished ideas. For a while, I was happy making film music, because at least I could channel ideas into that, and work on them there, but now, now that I’m not doing that so much anymore, I have something like a waterfall inside my head that is always going strong. Worst part is, though… I don’t think my bucket is without holes.

I’ll have an idea, fall in love with it, hum it, keep it going for as long as possible…. and then drop it later. Or, I’ll start on something, and then never go back to it. I’m determined to continue work on ‘Carruthers’ (I don’t think that’ll be the final name, though) because I honestly really like the sound of it, although I’ll need better rhythm guitar, and more, different parts to the whole thing, rather than just the back-and-forth of what I have there now.

I don’t usually trust myself to come out with something good. I’ll have a quick idea, I’ll get it down, listen to it a bunch, and end up being somewhat happy with it because I’m too afraid of ruining the feeling I made it with, you know? Like, if I put too much work into it, it doesn’t feel natural, and then I don’t feel that it means anything, and then I end up feeling like I might as well write a three-and-a-half for the local radio station, singing about how “the girl, she makes me cray-zay.” No! I don’t want that! I like the “off the top of my head”-ness of it all. Carruthers took 20-30 minutes, altogether. Yes, it sounds like it did too, but I don’t mind.

I guess I should focus more on making my stuff sound more ‘organic’. Bottom line is that I should finish what I start, but keep the fire going the whole time. That’s quite the trick most of the time.