Audio

I can’t believe January is almost over…wow.

Anyhow, more brand new music tracks are looking for homes in your projects. 100% free to use with attribution:

On my Fantasy 10 page:

HAUNTED TUNNELS – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Funny 7 page:

GOOFY GUM – (Looping)
GOOFY GUM 2 – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

PUZZLE FRANTIC – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Sci-Fi 8 page:

TRIPPY SPACE TRAVEL – (Looping)
GRUNGY FUTURE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-8/

Follow me on Facebook for daily updates as I release new tracks:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100017638394276

And don’t forget my super high-quality Ogg files.

Enjoy!

Happy February! I hope everyone had a good weekend.

Here are this week’s new free music tracks:

On my Fantasy 10 page:

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF DREAMS – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Funny 7 page:

SUPER SPLASH – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

PUZZLE MADNESS – (Looping)

BRAIN TEASER 2 – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Sci-Fi 8 page:

DEEP SPACE OUTPOST – (Looping)
CYBER CITY DETECTIVES – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-8/

In other news, we’re using social media to share my free “Dune’s Island” films with the world. This is a huge challenge as it was a community project and our advertising budget is $0. Here’s a link to the films…please feel free to help us share them with home schoolers, educators and anyone else who might find them helpful. Thanks!

https://vimeo.com/showcase/6574338

Greetings!

This week’s new free (with attribution) music tracks are:

On my Funny 7 page:

COMMANDER FART HEAD – (Looping)
SCOPING IT OUT WITH THE ANT HILL GANG – (Looping)
MORE SEWER SLIMERS – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

PONG-A-LONG – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

OGG NEWS

Very high quality Ogg versions of the following tracks are now available on my Dark/Ominous 2 page:

MIDNIGHT FOG – (Looping)
MIDNIGHT MIST
MORE SEWER CREEPERS – (Looping and Standard)
OMINOUS UNDERGROUND GOINGS-ON
THE SECRET LAB
FUTURE GOTH – (Looping)
CREEPY STREET PERFORMER – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/dark-ominous-2/

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook for daily updates as I release new tracks:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100017638394276

Enjoy…and keep being creative!

More brand new free music tracks are ready for your projects:

On my Chiptunes 3 page:

NOSTALGIC FOR ARCADES – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/chiptunes-3/

On my Fantasy 10 page:

TROUBLED LANDS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Introspective / Emotions page:

DEEPER THAN FRIENDSHIP

https://soundimage.org/introspective/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

LIGHT PUZZLES 4 – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Sci-Fi 8 page:

MORE MECH MONSTERS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-8/

Enjoy…and don’t forget my super high-quality Ogg tracks.

Big news, guys! All of my tracks on my Dark/Ominous page are now available as very high quality Ogg files. They sound amazing…almost as good as the original WAV files that they were created from…and are much much smaller in size…perfect for videogames. Give them a try.

https://soundimage.org/dark-ominous/

On that note, some people have asked me why I’m offering Ogg files when they can simply convert my free MP3 tracks to Ogg themselves. You are certainly welcome to do this, but it won’t increase the quality of the tracks at all because you’re starting with MP3. The reason my Ogg files sound so great is that I’m creating them from my original WAV recordings.

That said, this week’s new free tracks are:

On my Fantasy 10 page:

SKY DRIFTERS – (Looping)

SKY DRIFTERS 2 – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Positive / Upbeat page:

THE BALLOON HEADS DAY OUT – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/positive-upbeat/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

FUNKY PUZZLER – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Sci-Fi 8 page:

DESOLATE STREETS IN A MACHINE WORLD – (Looping)

ELECTRIC DRIZZLE – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-8/

Enjoy…and keep being creative!

Hi everyone, I’ve been super busy, but I did manage to get a few new tracks done…all free to use with attribution:

On my City/Urban 2 page:

BREAK IN_v001 - (Looping)

SODIUM VAPOR_v001

SODIUM VAPOR_v001 (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/city-urban-2/

I just opened the Sci-Fi 9 page with this brand new track:

SLIMY ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE! – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

My Sci-Fi 8 page got a bit too big, so I moved these two tracks to the new Sci-Fi 9 page as well:

DESOLATE STREETS IN A MACHINE WORLD – (Looping)

ELECTRIC DRIZZLE – (Looping)

Enjoy…and have a good week!

Greetings!

This week’s new free (with attribution) music tracks are:

On my Drama 3 page:

THE INSPECTOR IS STUMPED – (Looping)

ANOMALY_v001 – (Looping and Standard)

https://soundimage.org/drama-3/

On my Epic / Battle page:

ANCIENT GAME OPEN – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

And on my History page:

ANCIENT INTRIGUE – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/ancient/

Don’t forget my super high quality Ogg files…they sound awesome!

If you have kids (or know someone who does) I’ve created a website for my free video learning series, “Dune’s Island.” You can access all of the episodes and support documentaries as well as tie-in curriculum written by a team of science teachers.

I’ll be expanding it with all kinds of cool activities and more fun documentaries, but I think it’s a good start.

I hope the site is helpful. Please feel free to share it with anyone who might find it helpful…and encourage them to share it as well.

https://www.dunesisland.org/

Hi everyone,

More developers have been reaching out to me about my Ogg music tracks. Please know that I’m in the process of creating them and uploading them to Gumroad, but it’s taking time since there are over 2000 tracks on my site. If you want an Ogg version of a track that isn’t available yet, just email me and I’ll be happy to create it for you and put it on Gumroad.

Anyhow, this week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

On my City/Urban 2 page:

“HUNTING A FUGITIVE”

https://soundimage.org/city-urban-2/

On my Introspective/Emotions page:

“ISOLATED”

https://soundimage.org/introspective/

And on my Nature/Science 3 page:

“FAR NORTH” – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/nature-science-3/

Stay safe and healthy.

Hi folks,

This week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

On my Chiptunes 3 page:

PIXEL RUNNER – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/chiptunes-3/

On my Fantasy 10 page:

THE ENCHANTED FOREST SMOLDERS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

And on my Sci-Fi 9 page:

ORBITING INDUSTRIES – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

More developers have been reaching out to me about my Ogg music tracks. Please know that I’m in the process of creating them and uploading them to Gumroad, but it’s taking time since there are over 2000 tracks on my site. If you want an Ogg version of a track that isn’t available yet, just email me and I’ll be happy to create it for you and put it on Gumroad.

Stay safe and healthy.

Hi everyone,

Here are this week’s new free MP3 tracks:

On my Drama 3 page:

THE NOMAD’S LIFE – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/drama-3/

On my Fantasy 10 page:

OF CASTLES, MAGIC AND SPELLS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

And on my Puzzle Music 5 page:

CRAZY CANDY PUZZLES – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

Please stay safe and healthy.

Hi everyone,

Here are this week’s new free MP3 tracks:

On my Drama 3 page:

THE NOMAD’S LIFE – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/drama-3/

On my Fantasy 10 page:

OF CASTLES, MAGIC AND SPELLS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

And on my Puzzle Music 5 page:

CRAZY CANDY PUZZLES – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

Please stay safe and healthy.

Hi guys,

This week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

On my Funny 7 page:

THE MAD XYLOPHONIST – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

On my Nature/Science 3 page:

A SEA OF STARS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/nature-science-3/

And on my Puzzle Music 5 page:

DRIFTING THROUGH MY DREAMS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

I had a request over the weekend for a bunch of higher quality Ogg versions of my tracks that I hadn’t yet converted, so they are now available if anyone is interested. They are:

Funky Gameplay
Windle Pixel Saves the Day (Looping)
Puzzling Curiosities
Points Tally
Pixelin’ It Around Town
Mysterious Puzzle
Cyber Puzzles
Cryptic Puzzler 2
Arcade Puzzler_v001

Keep being creative…and please stay safe and healthy.

Hi everyone,

Here are this week’s new free MP3 tracks:

On my Fantasy 10 page:

WINTER OF DESPAIR – (Looping)
OF CASTLES, MAGIC AND SPELLS_Remixed – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Puzzle Music 1 page:

MYSTERIOUS PUZZLE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

OF JEWELS AND PUZZLES – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Chiptunes 2 page:

PIXELIN’ IT AROUND TOWN – (Standard – non looping)
PIXELIN’ IT AROUND TOWN_v001 – (Standard – non looping)
PIXELIN’ IT AROUND TOWN_v002 – (Standard – non looping)
https://soundimage.org/chiptunes-2/

Don’t forget about my premium Ogg tracks. They sound great and are super affordable…a cool way to support my work.

Stay safe and healthy.

This week’s new free MP3 music tracks are from two pages on my site:

From my Chiptunes 3 page:

THE PIXELVILLE HALL OF JUSTICE – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/chiptunes-3/

And from my Funny 7 page:

GAME WORLD SILLINESS
LOLA PIXEL RETURNS
MORE FISHBOWL ACROBATICS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

Please stay healthy and safe.

A Request to Everyone:

If you can, please consider making a small donation on my website to support my work. The synthesizers I use to create free music for everyone are very expensive (2 Korgs and a Yamaha.) I actually have to make monthly payments on them and donations from the creative community really help me a lot to pay for them. Thanks in advance. :-)

That said, I managed to get some new tracks done for everyone. Free to use, of course, with attribution:

On my Fantasy 10 page:
DESERT MYSTERY – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Sci-Fi 9 page:
BLAST OFF – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

And on my Events/Travel 2 page:
COUNTRY CELEBRATION
https://soundimage.org/events-travel-2/

Be well and stay healthy.

A huge heartfelt THANK YOU to the kind folks who reached out and supported my work this month by donating on my site. You folks literally make this all possible. Thank you!

That said, this week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

From my Puzzle Music 5 page:
ICE PUZZLE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

From my Sci-Fi 9 page:
TWISTED DYSTOPIA – (Looping)
DETECTIVES IN DYTOPIA (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

Big Ogg Track Update!

Super high-quality Ogg versions of a bunch my tracks are ready. They sound really cool and could be used for all kinds of things besides puzzle games I’m sure. They are:

BOUNCE LIGHT 1 & 2– (Looping)
FROSTY PUZZLER (2 versions) – (Looping)
PUZZLE TRANCE – (Looping)
HYPNOTIC JEWELS – (Looping)
PIANO PUZZLES – (Looping)
MONKEY ISLAND PUZZLER – (Looping)
MUSIC BOX PUZZLER – (Looping)
PUZZLE CLUES – (Looping)
CRYPTIC PUZZLER 1 & 2 – (Looping)
BELL PUZZLES – (Looping)
MELLOW PUZZLER 1 & 2 – (Looping)
THOUGHT PUZZLES – (Looping)
ROBOT’S CUBE – (Looping)
HAPPY PUZZLER – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-2/

Have a good week and stay safe.

Good News:

Super high-quality Ogg versions of all of my Puzzle Music Tracks are ready. That’s around 100 tracks to choose from…all created from my original WAV recordings (but much smaller in file size.) They’re really cool, too, because they can be used for all kinds of things in addition to puzzle games. You’ll find them on my Puzzle Music 1-5 pages.
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music/

More Good News:

All of the tracks on my Fantasy 9 page now have Ogg versions as well. They sound great!
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-9/

And even MORE good news:

If you create arcade-style games (or know someone who does) Ogg versions of all the tracks on my Chiptunes 1 page are now ready, too.
https://soundimage.org/chiptunes/

That said, this week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

On my Epic / Battle page:
PREPARING FOR BATTLE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

On my Fantasy 10 page:
THE KEY TO THE KINGDOM – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

And on my Looping Music page:
RACING MENU_V001 – (Looping)
80’S SPACE GAME LOOP_V002
https://soundimage.org/looping-music/

Keep being creative and please stay safe.

OGG TRACKS UPDATE

Super high-quality Ogg versions of all my Fantasy Tracks are finally ready. That’s about 200 tracks to choose from…all created from my original WAV recordings (but much smaller in file size.) They sound great and are a cool way to support my work.

That said, this week’s new free MP3 tracks are improved versions of the following:
On my Fantasy 1 page:

Misty Bog
Mystical Backstory_v001_Looping
High Altitude Station_v001_Looping
https://soundimage.org/fantasywonder/

On my Fantasy 2 page:

Strange Game Menu_v001a_Looping
Strange Game Menu_v002a_Looping
Strange Game Menu_v003a_Looping
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-2/

On my Fantasy 5 page:

Mystical Lands Beckon_v001_Looping
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-5/

On my Fantasy 7

Sadlands_v001_Looping
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-7/

And on my Sci-Fi 7 page:

Alley Chase_v001_Looping
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-7/

Enjoy…and please stay safe (and healthy.)

Another Special Request to Everyone:

If you possibly can, please consider making a small donation on my website to support my work. The synthesizers I use to create free music for everyone are very expensive (2 Korgs and a Yamaha.) I actually have to make monthly payments on them and donations from the creative community really help me a LOT to pay for them. Thanks in advance. :-)

That said, I managed to get a couple of new tracks done for everyone. Free to use, as always, with attribution:

On My Epic / Battle page:
“COMRADES ALWAYS” (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

On my Fantasy 10 page:
“OF KNIGHTS AND KINGS” (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

Please stay safe and healthy.

Another big THANK YOU to those of you who reached out and supported my efforts this month. You make this possible for the rest of the community…thank you!

It’s been a very busy week, but I did get a few new tracks done for everyone. You’ll find them all on my Sci-Fi 9 page:

ROBO BOSS BATTLE – (Looping)
GRUNGE STREET – (Looping)
MOONLIT CYBER ALLEYS – (Looping)

https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

Enjoy…and please stay safe (and healthy.)

Another very busy week…and I’m a bit under the weather…but here are some new tracks for everyone. Free to use, of course, with attribution.

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

ISLAND OF PUZZLES – (Looping)
TROPICAL MYSTERIES – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

On my World page:

EXOTIC DANGERS - (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/world/

I’m glad to see that my Ogg files are being utilized…I’ll try to get more uploaded this week. If you need any that I haven’t done yet, just message me and I’ll upload them for you.

Thanks for your support and please stay safe.

Hi Folks,

This week’s new free music tracks are:

On my Fantasy 10 page:
A TRAIL OF JEWELS – (Looping)
QUIRKY GAME WORLD – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Funny 7 page:
THE FISHBOWL ACROBATS RETURN – (Looping)
WINDLE’S WHIMSICAL STREET – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

If you’re wondering what the big fuss about Ogg tracks is, they have several advantages:

-They are small in size.
-Game engines seem to handle them better for looping…MP3 files occasionally need editing.
-They sound fantastic…almost as good as my original WAVs.
-They’re a cool way to support my work!

Hey guys,

Here are this week’s brand new free music tracks. I hope they are helpful.

On my Chiptunes 3 page:

CAFFEINE CRAZED COIN-OP KIDS – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/chiptunes-3/

On my City/Urban 2 page:

COOL MENU LOOP – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/city-urban-2/

And on my Positive/Upbeat page:

SUMMERTIME FUN – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/positive-upbeat/

Please stay safe and healthy…and don’t stop being creative!

Hi everyone,

If you possibly can, please consider making a small donation on my website to support my work. Your contributions help me to pay for the keyboard synthesizers I use to create free music for the creative community.

That said, this week’s new free music tracks are:

On my Epic / Battle page:

PIRATES! – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

On my Puzzle Music 5 page:

MAGICAL MINNIE PUZZLES – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-5/

And on my Sci-Fi 9 page:

AUTOMATED CREATION – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

Enjoy…and keep being creative.

After a hectic 5 weeks, my schedule’s finally opened up a bit. If anyone needs custom music created, this would be a good time to do it. Just send me an email. My address is here:

https://soundimage.org/custom-work/

In the meantime, I managed to get a couple of cool new tracks done for everyone over the weekend…free to use, as always, with attribution. They are:

On my new Action 4 page:

SPIES – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/action-4/

On my Fantasy 10 page:

A MEADOW OF MYSTERIES
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

Don’t forget my premium Ogg tracks…they’re another cool way to support my work.

Enjoy…and please stay safe.

Hi everyone,

Here are this week’s brand new free-to-use-with-attribution music tracks:

On my Funny 7 page:

MORE FARTY CROOKS – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/funny-7/

On my Puzzle Music 6 page:

GLITTERING THINGS – (Looping)
ANALOG QUIRKDOM – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-6/

And on my Sci-Fi 9 page:

FUTURE GRUNGE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

I hope they are helpful!

Hi everyone,

I’ve had a number of requests from developers who wish to download my tracks in bulk so I’ve begun creating Music Packs of my Ogg tracks. So far, I have packs available for all of my Fantasy pages…they are available on Gumroad. Here’s the link if you’d like to check them out:

https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs/

That said, this week’s new free MP3 tracks are:

On my City/Urban 2 page

CRIME GAME MENU – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/city-urban-2/

On my Puzzle Music 6 page:

QUIRKY CLUES – (Looping)
COOL CONTEMPLATION – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-6/

And on my Technology 2 page:

BINARY DREAMSCAPE – (Looping)
BINARY DREAMSCAPE_VAR1 – (Looping)
BINARY DREAMSCAPE_VAR2 – (Looping)
BINARY DREAMSCAPE_VAR3 – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/technology-2/

Enjoy, keep being creative and please stay safe. :-)

Hi Folks,

If you possibly can, please consider making a small donation to support my work and my website. The keyboard synthesizers I use to create free music for everyone are very expensive…I actually make monthly payments on them…and your donations really help me a lot to pay for them each month. Thanks in advance!

That said, this week’s new free MP3 music tracks are:

On my Looping Music page:

MYSTICAL OCEAN PUZZLE GAME_v001 – This version doesn’t include the mark-tree percussion sounds heard in the original.
https://soundimage.org/looping-music/

On my Puzzle Music 6 page:

PUZZLES ON ALIEN WORLDS – (Looping) – Maybe for a sci-fi themed puzzle game of some kind?
CRYPTIC COOLOSITY – (Looping) – Perhaps for a cool matching game or something cryptic with motion in it?
https://soundimage.org/puzzle-music-6/

And on my Techno page:

HAPPY TRANCIN’ – (Looping) – A really fun-sounding tranc-y loop.
https://soundimage.org/dance-techno/

I’ve also had a number of requests from content creators who wish to download my tracks in bulk rather than one at a time so I’ve begun creating Music Packs of my Ogg tracks. So far, I have packs available for all of my Fantasy pages…they are available on Gumroad. Here’s the link if you’d like to check them out:

https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs/

Enjoy…and please stay safe and healthy.

Hi everyone,

This week’s new free MP3 music tracks are:

On my City/Urban 2 page
ALLEY GRUNGE – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/city-urban-2/

On my Fantasy 10 page:
INFILTRATION – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/fantasy-10/

On my Sci-Fi 9 page:
DREAMING IN DIGITAL – (Looping)
https://soundimage.org/sci-fi-9/

And on my Technology 2 page:
THE WORLD WIDE MIND
https://soundimage.org/technology-2/

Please don’t forget about my Ogg tracks. They sound great, game engines love them and they're a cool way to support my work.

Enjoy!

Hi everyone,

I've received a lot of requests for sound effects, especially from game developers, so next week I'll be opening new pages with original free sound effects. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, all of my newest looping music tracks are on the Horror/Surreal Page:

“Zombie Game”

“Nightmare Freeway”

“Sewer Monsters Town Hall Meeting”

“Surreal Game Menu”

“Hazy Disorientation”

“Disturbing Chimes”

http://soundimage.org/horrorsurreal/

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great weekend!
Eric

Hi everyone,

As I said, I've received a lot of requests for sound effects, so I've created some and begun opening new pages for them. So far we have:

SFX - Alerts (general bells and chimes)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-alerts/

SFX - Creepy
http://soundimage.org/sfx-creepy/

SFX - Power Ups/Downs
http://soundimage.org/sfx-pwrupdn/

SFX - SciFi
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi/

SFX - UI (User Interface)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-ui/

This is just the beginning, of course, but I think it's a pretty good start. I'll be adding more pages and sounds and will post updates as I go. I hope some of my sounds are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTE ... /playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

I've posted some new sound FX for everyone:

On the SFX-SciFi Page we have:

"Undersea Power Plant"
"Psycho Copter"
"Mad Voltage"
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi/

And on the SFX-PwrUp/Dn Page, we have:

Power Ups 28, 29 and 30
http://soundimage.org/sfx-pwrupdn/

I hope some of my them are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTE ... /playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

I've released some new looping tracks, non-looping ones as well as some new sound FX:

Looping:

“Farty McSty”_Looping (on the Funny 2 Page.)
http://soundimage.org/funny-2/

“Timeless Story”_Looping (on the Fantasy 6 Page)
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-6/

Non-Looping:

“Mission Accomplished” (on the SciFi 4 Page.)
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

“Closing In 2” (on the Horror/Surreal Page)
http://soundimage.org/horrorsurreal/

“Mystical Journey” (on the Events/Travel Page)
http://soundimage.org/events/

Sound Fx:

Looping Wind Sounds (on the SFX – Weather Page)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-weather/

Mechanical Drone Sounds 8 - 20 (on the SFX - SciFi Ambience Page)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi-amb/

I hope some of them are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

I've released some new looping tracks, a couple of non-looping ones and a bunch of new sound effects.

Looping:

“Monkey Drama”
“Analog Nostalgia”
“Crazy Candy Highway 2”
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

Non-Looping:

“Confusion and Clarity"
http://soundimage.org/drama-2/

“Unforgiving Himalayas”
“Mystical Journey"
http://soundimage.org/events/

Sound Effects:
Quirky User Interface Sounds 19-35
http://soundimage.org/sfx-ui/

Creepy Percussion 9 & 10
http://soundimage.org/sfx-creepy/

I hope some of them are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

It's been a rough week, but I managed to get a few more tracks done:

“Hypnotic Orient” (on the Events/Travel Page)
http://soundimage.org/events/

“Crystal Caverns” (on the Looping Music Page.)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

“Once Around the Kingdom” (on the Fantasy 6 Page.)
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-6/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a good weekend,
Eric

Hi everyone,

I've got a few more tracks done:

"Runaway Food Truck" (on the Looping Music Page.)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

"Trashy Aliens" (on the Looping Music Page.)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

"Awkward Princess's Day out" (on the Fantasy 6 Page.)
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-6/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a good week,
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's new tracks and sound effects:

MUSIC:

“Another Case for the Inspector” (on the Drama 2 Page)
http://soundimage.org/drama-2/

“The Last of Winter” (on the Nature/Science 2 Page)
http://soundimage.org/naturescience-2/

“The Furry Monster’s Laboratory” (on the Looping Music Page)
“Water Balloon Maniacs” (on the Looping Music Page.)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

“Sewer Creepers” (on the Sci-Fi 4 Page)
“Sci-Fi RPG Intro” (on the Sci-Fi 4 Page)
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

SOUND EFFECTS:

“Edge of Ocean” (on the SFX – Environments Page)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-environments/

“Gentle Rain” (on the SFX – Weather Page)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-weather/

“Morning Birds” (on the SFX – Animals Page)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-animals/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new tracks are:

“Magical Getaway” (on the Events/Travel Page)
http://soundimage.org/events/

Action Rhythms 1-10 (on the brand new Looping Rhythms Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-rhythms/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are:

“Mystical Ocean Puzzle Game” (on the Looping Music Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

“Digitally Dazed” (on the Technology Page)
http://soundimage.org/techno/

“Evil Automation” (on the Sci-Fi 4 Page)
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

Creepy Rhythms 1-5
Quirky Rhythms 5-6
(on the Looping Rhythms Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-rhythms/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's new free tracks:

On the Snd Fx – Sci-Fi Ambient Page, we have:

“Melt Down” (plus looping version)
“Quiet Dread” (plus looping version)
“Rez Drone 1” (plus looping version)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi-amb/

On the Snd Fx – Sci-Fi Page, we have:

“Cyber Chimes 1 & 2"
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi/

And on the Funny 3 Page, we have:

“Drive-In Monster 1-3"
http://soundimage.org/funny-3/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Playlists are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mnTEE6xP74YcZDpkKGy-A/playlists

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's new free tracks:

"Puddle Jumping" (on the Events/Travel Page)
http://soundimage.org/events/

"Network_v001" (on the Corporate Page)
http://soundimage.org/corporate/

"Blob Monsters on the Loose" (on the Looping Music Page)
"8-Bit Mayhem" (on the Looping Music Page)
"Good Morning Doctor Weird" (on the Looping Music Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

I hope some of my tracks are helpful,
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's new free tracks:

"Faltering Circuits" (on the Sci-Fi 4 Page)
"Tronic Trouble" (on the Sci-Fi 4 Page)
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

"City of Tomorrow_v001" (on the Corporate Page)
"Future Business_v001" (on the Corporate Page)
http://soundimage.org/corporate/

"Spooky Island" (on the Looping Music Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

I hope some of my tracks are helpful,
Eric

Hi everyone,

I've received a lot of requests for epic sounding tracks, so I'm working on some to hopefully release next week.

In the meantime, here are this week's new free tracks:

"Quirky Puzzle Game Menu" (on the Looping Music Page)
"And the Machines Came at Midnight" (on the Looping Music Page)
"Future RPG" (on the Looping Music Page)
http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are on my brand new Epic/Battle Page. They are:

"Tower Defense"
"Into Battle"
"Forward Assault"
"Ancient Troops Amassing"
"Fantasy Forest Battle"
http://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are:

"Defending the Princess Haunted" v001 and 002
http://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

"A Long Journey for a Little Bot" on the Sci-Fi 5 page
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-5/

"Retro Frantic_v001_Looping" on the Action Page
http://soundimage.org/action/

"Magic Clock Shop_Looping" on the Fantasy 6 Page
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-6/

"Clippity Clop_Looping" on the Fantasy Page
http://soundimage.org/fantasywonder/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great weekend!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are:

"Into Battle (Looping)_v001" on my Epic/Battle Page
http://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

"Great Minds_v001" on my Classical Sounding page
http://soundimage.org/classical-sounding/

"RPG Battle Climax_v001" on the Fantasy 7 Page

"Some Dreamy Place_v001" on my Fantasy 7 Page

"Spell's a Brewin'_v001" on the Fantasy 7 Page

http://soundimage.org/fantasy-7/

I hope they are helpful.

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are looping versions of some of my early fantasy and sci-fi tracks:

"Fantasy Game Background_Looping" on my Fantasy Page

"Puzzle Game_Looping" on my Fantasy Page

"Fantascape_Looping" on my Fantasy Page

http://soundimage.org/fantasywonder/

"Urban Jungle 2061_Looping" on my Sci-Fi/Space Page

"Trouble on Mercury_Looping" on my Sci-Fi/Space Page

http://soundimage.org/sci-fi/

I hope they are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's new free tracks:

"Sewer Monsters on the Move" on my Funny 3 Page
http://soundimage.org/funny-3/

"Aftermath" on my Horror/Surreal Page
http://soundimage.org/horrorsurreal/

"Alien Swamp" on my SFX - SciFi Amb Page
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi-amb/

"Alien Vistas" on my Sci-Fi 5 Page
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-5/

"Cyber Dystopia" on my Sci-Fi 5 Page
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-5/

I hope they are helpful!

Daily updates, as always, are here:
https://twitter.com/EricMatyas
https://www.facebook.com/soundimage.org

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

I have some new free looping tracks for you. I hope they are helpful. You'll find them directly under their non-looping versions:

"Trouble in a Digital City_Looping" on my Sci-Fi 4 Page
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

"Tower Defense_Looping" on my Epic/Battle Page
http://soundimage.org/epic-battle/

"Drafty Places_Looping" on my Dark/Ominous
http://soundimage.org/dark-ominous/

"Ocean Game Title_Looping" on my Fantasy 2 Page
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-2/

"Digital Clouds_Looping" on my Fantasy 3 Page
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-3/

"Sewer Monsters on the Move_Looping" on my Funny 3 Page
http://soundimage.org/funny-3/

Have a great week!
Eric

Hi everyone,

This week is a mixed bag. First off, I made looping versions of a some of the tracks on my Events/Travel page...I think these new looping pieces could sound very nice in games.

Here they are:

"Puddle Jumping_Looping"

"Magical Getraway_Looping"

"Mystical Journey_Looping"
http://soundimage.org/events/

Here's a short intro piece that might be nice in a deep space game of some kind...or a video:

"Space Game Intro" on my Sci-Fi 5 Page
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-5/

And a silly piece that might work in a crazy game or app:

"Monkey Races"
http://soundimage.org/funny-3/

Next up, we have some sound FX on my Sci-Fi Ambience Page, starting with another slimy sounding Alien swamp piece. As I say on my site, if Kirk tells you he's been to this place, he's full of crap.

"Alien Swamp 2"

"Alien Atmosphere" (Looping and non-looping)

"Dystopic City Drone"

"Dystopic City Echo"

http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi-amb/

Just for kicks, we have:

"Creepy Percussion 11"

http://soundimage.org/sfx-creepy/

And lastly, we have a force field sound effect. In retrospect, maybe I should have named it "Energy Field" instead, but oh well.

"Force Field" on my Snd FX -Sci-Fi Page
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi/

As always, let me know if they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Well, I've reached another milestone: 1000 tracks. I'd like to send out a big heart felt thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging...it really means a lot. THANK YOU!

That said, I have some new music to share as well as a couple of cool new sci-fi ambiences.

On the Fantasy 7 page, we have:
"Castle Lost"
"Dark Fantasy Open"
"Sad Lands"
http://soundimage.org/fantasy-7/

On the Horror/Surreal page, we have:

"Moment of Strange"
http://soundimage.org/horrorsurreal/

On the Sci-Fi 5 Page, we have:

"More Introspective Machines"
http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-5/

And on the SFX- Sci-Fi Amb Page, we have:

"Creepy Mech Drone" (Looping) - 2 versions.
http://soundimage.org/sfx-scifi-amb/

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Hi everyone,

My newest free tracks all live on my brand new SFX - Urban Ambience Page. They are:

Street Ambience (1-6)
City Park Ambience (1-3)
http://soundimage.org/sfx-urban-ambience/

Several of them loop and might be nice in urban-based games, interactive novels and other things.

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Hey everyone,

I have some new free looping tracks ready for you. They are:

"Building Itself"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/sci-fi-4/

"Hong Kong Midnight"_Looping
"Jewel Thieves"_Looping
"The Jazz Man"_Looping
"Stage Door"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/urban/

I hope they are helpful! :-)

Eric

Hey everyone,

This week's new free tracks are all on my Funny/Quirky/Weird page. They are:

"Invasion of the Giant Disco Ants"_Looping

"Disco Ants Go Clubbin’"_Looping

"Cheesy Science"_Looping

"Warped Alien Band"_Looping

"Cranky Monster"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/funnyquirky/

I hope they are helpful! :-)

Eric

Hi everyone,

This week's new free tracks are:

"The Ant Hill Gang Strikes Again!"_Looping

"8-Bit Indigestion"_Looping

"Bumbling Burglars"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/funny-2/

"Beneath the City"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/ancient/

"The Concrete Bakes"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/urban/

I hope they are helpful! :-)

Eric

Hi everyone,

New free tracks are waiting for you:

On the Fantasy Page we have:

"Some Dreamy Place"_Looping
"Strange Phenomenon"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/fantasywonder/

On the Horror/Surreal Page we have:

"Moment of Strange"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/horrorsurreal/

And a couple on the Funny 2 Page:

"Ant Invaders"_Looping

"Classy Ghouls Halloween Gathering"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/funny-2/

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Hi everyone,

It's been a very hectic week, but I did manage to get a few new free tracks done. They are:

"Unforgiving Himalayas"_Looping

"Special Moment"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/events/

and

"Arcade Fantasy"

http://soundimage.org/looping-music/

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Hi everyone,

New free tracks are ready:

"Monkey Business" (looping and non-looping)

http://soundimage.org/funny-3/

"Intriguing Future"

http://soundimage.org/techno/

"Slick Streets"_Looping

"Wandering the Streets"_Looping

"Delivering the Goods"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/urban/

"Electric Rain"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/dance-techno/

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

Hi everyone,

Here are this week's free new tracks:

"Techno Celebration"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/dance-techno/

"Snake Trance"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/dance-techno/

"10 Past Midnight"_Looping

"City Moon"_Looping

"Moonlit Streets"_Looping

http://soundimage.org/urban/

I hope they are helpful! :-)
Eric

If anyone thinks they may be interested, send me an email! at andrewleachy@gmail.com

I've found out pretty much the same thing. I hadn't found any examples of actually implementing the FFT though. (I'm at work so haven't had time to go through your links).

Audiosurf parses the track and builds the level during level load too. Not sure if they use FFT's though, all I could really find mentioned was "Frequency Analysis".

If pausing the game and the sound occur instantaneously I can't see a problem with losing sync.

Just found another similar link on GameDev, where someone commented that creating a 'beat' file for each music track would be much better (though far less preferable for our purposes).

Let's look into it, but they seem to think that a suitably accurate algorithm is either not possible, or will be to CPU intensive anyway.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=473462

I'll see if i can get a look at FMOD tonight to see what it has to offer.

Good work guys. I expect me and Jarrod will use your research here for the programming considerations section of our musically inclined game proposals.

You guys rock - now just gotta make sense of it all...

Cheers,
Jarrod

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. - The Teachings of Don Juan

Yep good work there.

I think if they can't think of their own melodies, they are lacking creativity & should not be working in the industry as a composer!

had heard mention that certain countries like america activly promoted not respecting copyright of intelectual property during the cold war of russian IP like music... for polictical resons treating vast section of russian music as public domain.

this may very well be related to that?

then again, though america only started recognising copyright when they where pumping money into startup holywood in the 1920's? before then they considered themselves 'too poor' a country to need to respect IP of other countries... how times change. (ie, plagerising in newspapers large sections of Charles Dickens works without payment to Dickens)

-David Coen

I think it is quite obvious that Big Boss inspired Georgy Sviridov to compose this piece in the 70's

If you listen to enough music of a similar mood and style, you stumble across plenty of familiar melodies. It's partly the folly of only having 7 notes in a key, and when you find yourself using a similar instrument set to match a certain sound or style, the probability of recreating someone else's melody increases - especially if the creator may have heard the melody in the past but no longer consciously remembers it. In any case, I can come up with heaps of movie and game soundtracks that are equally guilty. Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream remix, for example, has turned up in a lot of places - probably a side effect of directors 'wanting music just like that but not like that'.

Konami probably could have fought it, but it's not worth the fuss. The plagiarism - presuming it wasn't just unfortunate chance - probably wasn't intentional, but on the off-chance it was deliberate, why bother? They can hire Harry Gregson-Williams of all people to write them a new one.

Heh, well, I don't think Tappy Iwase has done much of note since? None of his actual credits (bar newer franchise games reusing/remixing his old music) occur in the past 10 years. Possibly had a tough time adapting from chip-based music to the current composition style.

Considering he's the guy that did soundtrack for the original Suikoden, though, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. ...Unless some dudes in Europe pop up saying he stole those melodies too.

Yeh, I've certainly heard a fair few renditions that have been inspired by that Requiem for a Dream theme. That seems to be a popular one.

The latest I've recognised is the Prometheus theme, which seems to be inspired by that famous Inception soundtrack Half Remembered Dream.

In this case, it isn't plagiarism, but it's interesting to hear some obvious influences and trends like this..

Incidentally, what blew my mind was that Hans Zimmer slowed down the beginning of "Non, je ne regrette rien" as the base of that score.

It's amazing how you can slow down some scores by a huge factor and get entirely different feeling musical piece. The Jurrassic Park theme slowed down by 1000% is just hauntingly beautiful..

Huh?

Audio is sample and time based - You will need to work out what the time difference is between 30 and 24 frames with how long the file is. Then, all you need to do is stretch it (any basic audio application should do it).

Thanks for replying.

I used After Effects to set (stretch) the frame rate to 24 frames per seconds. But it played faster.
I need to adjust the playback speed without shifting and bending the pitch.
Can anyone name any proper audio editing tool that can achieve this?

audacity.sourceforge.net is a (seemingly) simple free audio editor that can change length without changing pitch. It uses the fast fourier transform to do it's magic afaik, so you may find some "spectral smearing".

In Audacity 1.3 it is "change tempo" in the effects menu.

Thank you for replying.
According to Audacity's website version 1.3 is unstable. I tried it anyway and it gave me shocking result.
Version 1.2.4 gave me a better result, but still not accurate.
Do you (anyone) know any other audio editing tool that can achieve this?

Forgive my crap question, I'm not an audio guy.

quote:Originally posted by ussmc

Thank you for replying.
According to Audacity's website version 1.3 is unstable. I tried it anyway and it gave me shocking result.

Odd, I tried it before suggesting it and it worked fine for me- I time compressed "A Love Supreme" (John Coltrane) and it sounded fine. I'm using Linux though of course.

Adobe Audition can do it, as can all the versions of CoolEdit- CoolEditPro evolved into Audition. Logic and Cubase and most of the audio packages should be able to- it's a pretty common requirement these days.

Just to make sure.
Did you use the "change tempo" in the effects menu?
Nothing else?

Thanks in advance.

Yep, that's all I did. Just did it again and it came out fine again, this time I reduced an 80 second fragent to 56 seconds. I suggest have a look in the audacity mailing lists at http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=6235

most mixers mix outside of the allowable bandwidth (ie 0 to 1). They are just saturated at the last step. That is called clipping.

You are talking about something else where a sound gets quieter due to something louder coming in, which people are already doing. It is called ducking and compressing.

really? what game is using this? I'd like to check it out. I've never noticed sounds (in games) dynamically adjust their volume relative to a louder sound nearby, it may appear to, because you now hear more than one sound, but as I was explaining, you'll still here your pistol at the exact playback level as before, even though your next to some huge turbine, I've never noticed a dynamic adjustment in the samples.

DICE's new Frostbite engine is looking at HDR audio.

http://www.dice.se/

Obviously it's an aesthetic choice - I'm not so sure about the games world, but in the TV world, if we go to the effort of recording someone's voice for any reason, then obviously we want it heard (regardless of whether it's some background blurb or main dialogue).

If a jet in real-life flies close to you, you wouldn't be able to hear what anyone is saying at all, let alone any other sound - but unless there's an actual plot-related reason, in TV you'll hear what someone is saying, even if they are only 'pretending' to be shouting. db scales are geometric, and there'd be no way to 'accurately' reflect the loudness of a nearby jet engine to a voice; all other sound would simply be eaten up (including any atmos/sfx/music etc). Likewise, a real gunshot without ear protection screws with your hearing a little too... Although I seem to remember a 'ringing' sound after grenades went off in Counter Strike, which was neat.

Everything you hear in TV is ultimately there for a reason, and it'd be the same in the game world (whether it's atmosphere, or an NPC telling you your next objective). Otherwise if we were getting dialogue that no-one would ever hear, we wouldn't want to be paying for it =P

Cheers,
Jarrod

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. - The Teachings of Don Juan

When I was writing orchestral music almost everyone was using Finale for producing the scores (it's an amazing music publishing package). I think Logic on a Macintoy (Apple bought it and killed the windoze version)would be a good choice- it's really nicely integrated score editing with midi and audio.

There are a few orchestral libraries available.

1. Garritan Personal Orchestra - small full orchestra for note padding and getting ideas.
2. Edirol Orchestra - same thing as above. Like a sound canvas for orchestra.
3. Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) - Expensive but professional grade.
4. East West QL (Silver, Gold or Platinum). - Comes in a Kompakt wrapper. From $400-$5,000 US depending on what you want.

I personally own EWQL-Gold but have written scores using Edirol Orchestra and also even the orchestral bank from Reason 2.

Top stuff there Brett. Does Fmod support a layered music system and can it make loop regions in a wave file?

Say it does the layered music system and I'll pose naked for the box cover.

sexy gradients make me happy. Needs tangent handles or curve interpolation types on that curve editor though (unless that's invisible in the screenies).

Only other thing I could suggest which is admittedly a very secondary thing since it'd be nice to assume the user isn't a complete moron, but the descriptions seem very microsoft styled vague or obvious -- example: "3D rolloff > Linear > the 3d rolloff model that will be used for this event". That seems rather obvious to me for property explanation, but what a user would find more helpful would be explanation of the value. Eg, what does linear do compared to other values? why use it and in what situation? Another example is the decibel level... maybe a quick range guide, eg "x=talking volume, y=jet engine".
I think the quick help system in zbrush is quite a good model in that respect -- hold down ctrl and mouse over any button to see a thumbnail (not completely relevant here) and a good explanation of what it does in a pop up box; so instead of being told that brushes let you paint, it gives details on what different types of brushes do what.

Anyways, like I said, very secondary and picky, so that means you've already got a solid new shiny tool that's bound to impress. Cool stuff Brett - should post it to ozdev too.

heh yeah everyone is asking if you can change the curve types, the answer is not right now, but probably in the next few weeks, its right at the top of our list and pretty easy to do.

Layered music is possible, you can make fmod event parameters move by themselves as if they were time based which allows you to sequence a sound event over time, and have its mood change by using crossfading.

I cant wait for Creative cards to have GSIF support - that way I can have gigastudio and EAX on the same PC!

Thats a dummy head with mics in the ears, or a 'binaural' recording. Steal a mannequin from a store and tear the head off and you should be able to reproduce it :)

Was it just me or was the sound behind all of the time?

It ain't just any binaural recording though... most of those dummy head mics are used to try and capture the sound as a person hears it from a particular position in the room. They all still record in stereo though... no front to back just left to right.

Holophonic sound uses a binaural recording that has an inaudible digital reference signal superimposed over the top. The interference that this causes is recorded aurally then added to the original binaural recording to create the 3d effect. Sounds like it is just a method of accurately manipulating the phase of two signals...

apparently hearing impaired people can sense the presence of something when listening to it which suggesting the effect is more than just auditory...

Intriguing stuff

Yeah, did the matches spin around 360 degrees or did it just stay behind the head? It seemed to just be behind.

Wow, I never actually heard the dummy head mic setup. Very Interesting.
One thing I can say is that no software or hardware can reproduce that. not now anyway. I've tried heaps with phase shifting methods but got nowhere close to that.

It was just behind for me. I liked it when it went up and down more than side to side.

We have a surrond sound mic at uni that I would really like to use at some point.

This place does seem a little quiet doesnt it! I have just bought my ticket to GDC next year and im really looking forward to the discussion on what changes we, as audio people, are going to face with NextGen. Anyway, ill go second:

Status : Fulltime, Freelance
Skill : Composer, Sound Designer, Audio Engineer
Years exp: 8

Might as well go third, I'm a bit hard to fit into the pigeon holes, so I'll provide some more detail, but stick to the sound stuff.

Age: 32
Status: part time student, part time employed.
Skill: composer, audio, midi and interactive music systems programmer, audio engineer, guitarist, teacher, researcher.
Years exp: hard to say. My first professional employment was as a guitar teacher starting in around 1992. I've done a lot of different things- one of the most fun was research and development work on a sonar based gestural musical instrument, literally a wand you wave around in the air to make music with. Funding dried up in the IT downturn and the project was canned.

Edit: given some of the people I'm finding out read sumea- that's a hint to you in particular Chris [:)] I should say a bit more still- I'm talking about the midiwand, I was part of trying to bring it to market.

Hey i'm new to Sumea and its forums - here's my info:

Status: Seeking Work (just finished my studies in audio technology last month)
Skill: Composer, Sound Designer, Musician (synths).
Years Exp: Havent been paid for my work yet, although i've been writing quality music for about 3-4 years now and have accumulated a nice, varied amount of tracks.

For those interested, check my stuff out at: www.insanelysane.org/music.html

Well thats 4 of us - thats enough for a jam!

Anyone else care to speak up about their audioness?

Skills include: composing music, audio, electric guitar, programming.

I have not worked professionally as a musician, just doing this for fun and I've been playing guitar for almost 15 years.

I made protracker tunes for the Amiga demo scene during the early 90's ( mostly chip tunes ), currently working on some new material and playing around with a guitar midi synth.

quote:Originally posted by muse

Skills include: composing music, audio, electric guitar, programming.

I have not worked professionally as a musician, just doing this for fun and I've been playing guitar for almost 15 years.

I made protracker tunes for the Amiga demo scene during the early 90's ( mostly chip tunes ), currently working on some new material and playing around with a guitar midi synth.

You're not by any chance a former member of the group Cydonia?!?

pb

Hi Peter.

Yes. It has been such a long time.

It sure has, I just checked the old Cydonia page on the way back machine:

web.archive.org/web/20010411051953/www.ar.com.au/~storm

Hmm, looks like the weird URL format confuses the forum code so you'll have to cut and paste it...

Anyway, it'll be exactly 10 years on 24/2/06 since we (that is the two of us as well as Souri!) did the Defy #5 intro!

pb

It still amazes me to this day that I could have had so much patience as to manually key in all the notes for the tunes I wrote.

I would improvise on an old nylon string and record parts of it to tape until I had enough for a tune, enter the score in one note a time on an Amiga 500 keyboard!

Unfortunately defy #7 never saw the light of day.

What have you been doing since ?

I used to be in an Adelaide based A500 Demo group called Frontier..

boy... memory blast lane!

Muse, I've been in the games industry since, when I get a chance I'll send you a more detailed email.

Frontier eh? If I remember right, you guys released Industrial Fudge at the 1994 Pearl party, then got disqualified, and then later vindicated (mostly). That was a real awesome demo! I was in Digital Access back then and we took first prize with Guru Meditation, but it felt like a pretty hollow victory.

And Souri got ripped off in the graphics comp!

Hmm, looks like there might be more Amiga demo sceners here than audio guys [:)].

BTW, if you guys haven't visited: [url]http://www.hemiware.com/ozscene[/url]

pb

quote:Originally posted by pb
Hmm, looks like there might be more Amiga demo sceners here than audio guys [:)].

I wasn't in the amiga demo scene, but I DID use an amiga1000 for audio early on...

Cool, what software did you use? Most of the demo scene was all ProTracker mods, but I remember in the really early days there was Aegis Sonix and Deluxe Music Construction Set. But with its built in MIDI port and a slightly lower price the Atari ST seemed to get most of the audio action back then...

pb

quote:Originally posted by pb

Cool, what software did you use? Most of the demo scene was all ProTracker mods, but I remember in the really early days there was Aegis Sonix and Deluxe Music Construction Set. But with its built in MIDI port and a slightly lower price the Atari ST seemed to get most of the audio action back then...

pb

I was using DMCS (electronic arts used to be a decent company) and Mimetics Soundscape. Also had a bunch of software for making the amiga's audio chip do all sorts of crazy synthesis, but this is back in the dark ages, and I don't remember what they were. There was also a parallel port 8-bit audio digitiser I was using, don't remember it's name either.

Later I moved to an Atari (the real Atari) STe, then an Atari Falcon, then Windoze (shudder), then Linux.

Heh, I keep forgetting that the "Electronic Arts" of that era, the very same people who made the seminal DPaint, are actually the company we now know as "EA". Hard to believe... Sonix was pretty crap compared to DMCS for the most part, but it had some very cool synthetic sound generation, I used to spend hours tweaking different parameters to produce all sorts of weird sounds...

pb

quote:Originally posted by pb

Heh, I keep forgetting that the "Electronic Arts" of that era, the very same people who made the seminal DPaint, are actually the company we now know as "EA". Hard to believe...

Yep, they were instrumental in developing the midi file format, were champions of open standards and formats in general, and made some really cool software for the time. Now they seem to be a money farm... [:(]

Yeah, that's right, they supported IFF - a kind of binary XML, which was years ahead of its time.. You could even argue that there wouldn't be an XML if it weren't for the ideas behind IFF.

As for now, well, that they're a money farm I have no problems with, but man, what about the quality... Just churn away another sport sim sequel in the sweatshop... I don't imagine they'll be releasing anything groundbreaking any time soon..

pb

Yeah, we did Frontier, and Vegemite and some other Music disk.

I was working at Midway Australia as a lead sound designer until well, last week. So back to Freelance full time until something else lands my way.

Funny thing was that another scener Alex Brandon - Aka Siren from way back was working as audio director at Midway SanDiego, so funny that 2 of us from the demo scene ended up in the same company, also to be made redundant at the same time.

I was at OZ96 and I think one of the Covens in Adelaide. It was in the University of South Australia - north terrace campus. All I remember was they watched Akira (which I fell asleep in) and Blues Brothers (also which I fell asleep in).

Siren, that name definately sounds familiar!! [;)] It's interesting to hear of other demo scene people from the Amiga days ending up in the games industry. There's certainly a fair few! I remember Frontier's demos and will have to open up UAE again to check out the music in them [:)]

quote:Originally posted by pb

And Souri got ripped off in the graphics comp!

It's been over a decade, but I'm still not giving in to the placings. I got rorted [;)] (pics below) I still remember busting a nut finishing the picture and uploading it to a bbs in South Australia the night before the party started with my trusty 9600bps modem. I wrote a passionate plea for anyone to bring it along too [:D]. Anyway, I got second place and Sumaleth got first. Some of you may know him now as a moderator at [url="http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/mainscreen.html"]Sijun forums[/url], which is a digital art forum..

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200512208616_SouriCure.gif…]
(in interlace mode on the Amiga, so it wouldn't be so stretched vertically)
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200512208657_SumealethNico…]

Its gotta be the second biggest injustice in the history of the Amiga demo scene [:)]... (Arte losing out to a couple of AGA demos in the unified ECS/AGA comp takes #1 I reckon...)

pb

quote:Originally posted by muse

It still amazes me to this day that I could have had so much patience as to manually key in all the notes for the tunes I wrote.

You probably wouldnt have liked the pc trackers like FastTracker2 or Impulse tracker then, they had 32 & 64 channel tracking, which makes for a lot of typing!

I released a few music disks myself back in the early 90s, i think i even won one of those coven demo compos in the music category, then came second thanks to hunz entering [8)] (hunz is another aussie who was probably the best tracker i saw in oz).

quote:Originally posted by Souri

It's been over a decade, but I'm still not giving in to the placings. I got rorted [;)] (pics below) I still remember busting a nut finishing the picture and uploading it to a bbs in South Australia the night before the party started with my trusty 9600bps modem. I wrote a passionate plea for anyone to bring it along too [:D]. Anyway, I got second place and Sumaleth got first. Some of you may know him now as a moderator at [url="http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/mainscreen.html"]Sijun forums[/url], which is a digital art forum..
You learned a lesson there, though - the masses will always vote for a picture of a chick. [:)]

That's right Brett way back in the day when you composed :) Man... I feel OLD. I think every group had it's own hyperactive composers and released Music Disks. You still keep in touch with Hunz at all? He kinda dropped out of sight and sound.

Souri: I remember those pictures!! You didnt' upload it to BackRoom BBS by any chance :) I know the guy who ran that, I was music moderator on it.

quote:Originally posted by Brett

quote:Originally posted by muse

It still amazes me to this day that I could have had so much patience as to manually key in all the notes for the tunes I wrote.

You probably wouldnt have liked the pc trackers like FastTracker2 or Impulse tracker then, they had 32 & 64 channel tracking, which makes for a lot of typing!

Used FT, Impulse was great too but I was actually hooked on using MadTracker. No longer had to key stuff in manually thanks to having the ability to live record from MIDI controllers.

Anyone checked out Schism Tracker ?

quote:Originally posted by groovyone


Souri: I remember those pictures!! You didnt' upload it to BackRoom BBS by any chance :) I know the guy who ran that, I was music moderator on it.

I can't remember. It was such a long time ago! I remember it was a Pearl HQ bbs though, if that means anything to you [;)]

Wow, a tracker and amiga demo discussion. Not what I would have expected in 2006 [:)]

I've never been a tracker fan myself- probably because I was too busy practising guitar and studying 20th century "classical" composition to get involved in the demo scene...

Mod files are being used on xbox360 right now. The reason is you can get really good sounding music in only a few hundred k.
Bejeweleed for xbox360 live arcade (ie so it is downloadable) used impulse tracker mods tracked by Skaven (of FutureCrew).
He used modplug tracker to make the sound and just about every channel used all stereo samples, resonant filters and echo filters in realtime. FMOD Ex was driving the game audio playback and it was quite processor intensive just for the music! (roughly 30% of one hardware thread on the xbox360 processor at times.) There are plenty of cycles to go around though with 6 of these hardware threads available.

What sort of music did you used to write Brett? I didn't know you were a muso, though it doesn't surprise me (many/most audio programmers are).

Trackers had little relevance to me is what I was saying (and they still have little, though for different reasons)- I was writing and desktop publishing music scores for classical musicians, and when using digital sound generation it was high end synths rather than trackers.

I understand the neatness of the format for games- seems rather limited to me though (compared to a real synth).

Am i too late to join in with the bios?

Just new to game audio but not computer music, samplers, audio engineering, etc. Have I made a mistake entering this specific field? I cant imagine it been any more ridiculous than trying to get work in film or rock n roll.

The more the better Alex! Its great to hear of some more people out there!

So you are in Brisbane? Whats your story?

Actually, the 'Crystalizer' that they refer to is just a multi-band compressor!!! How they got from there to "it makes MP3s sound better than CDs!" I dont know...

It's not hard to make a US$110 custom designed amplifier sound better than a cheap chipset amplifer - maybe the idea is thatyou listen to the CD using your motherboard crapset audio, then plug in the creative gear and listen. hey presto!

...and then I read the article... CROCK!

The Crystaliser "Tries to simulate how an audio engineer would remix the sample". So next they'll be telling me that taking a JPG compressed image and running it through a few photoshop filters will make it better then the original uncompressed image.

Twits.

quote:Originally posted by mcdrewski
The Crystaliser "Tries to simulate how an audio engineer would remix the sample". So next they'll be telling me that taking a JPG compressed image and running it through a few photoshop filters will make it better then the original uncompressed image.

Twits.

That's Creative [:(]

...so when is the first Sumea Audio Challenge?

Should point out that it was me who suggested it [:)] , but yes, Souri does rock [:)]

Sounds like a pretty cool idea. It really depends on how much audio people would be interested in taking part and if we can garner some incentive for them (usually prizes [:P]). There haven't been many audio people around here, although that's probably due to Sumea not having a forum section, profiles for audio people or any news related to them, but from what Mick has told me about the response he's got from an ad on Sumea, there's quite a few of you around or lurking.

Anyway, if we could get one audio challenge happening per year, it would encourage more audio people to the site. And Mick, Groovyone etc, you guys can't join in either, being the expert at your fields, you are! Judges, you should be!! [;)]

Oops, re-reading what I posted makes it look like I'm saying I suggested an Audio challenge. Not the case- I just suggested the audio section in the forums. I think a challenge is a great idea (thanks Mick), and I think I'd better count myself out from entering- unless people would like otherwise.

Mick (and any other sound people): what form do you think an audio challenge should take? Should it be (for example) producing a specific sound, a bunch of sounds, or a soundscape?

I think a great challenge is sound design for motion.

Perhaps Use some of the 3D animator's movies requiring some sound and have the sound designers , composers work towards putting sound to them. Then the Animators get good sound design, and the audio people get video to sync to.

I should point out that the mention of the audio challenge was a 'tongue in cheek' comment but hey, LETS DO ONE ANYWAY!

I think that would be a perfect suggestion Groovyone. We could get ahold of a small mpeg cg movie from somewhere and have the challengers practise sound design. I will happily get Lava Injection Studios to sponsor the event with prizes to give further incentive!

What do you think Souri? Is it possible?

I like your sense of humor Mick [:)]

lorien, you could enter, and set the benchmark that everyone else would be judged on?

Though the exact format of the competition, I don't know... Perhaps someone does a random rendering of some funky stuff and the challenge will be to create music to it, sort of like a reverse visualisation?

My main point in saying I shouldn't enter is afaik I'm the only person seriously studying game audio in australia, and with my background it probably wouldn't be fair. But I'm happy with Daemin's suggestion (means I couldn't win), and if this challenge happens and someone manages to pull of something better than me I'm going to want to buy them a beer! [:)]

Daemin has some idea of the things I've done in the past btw.

So what do you think Souri? Could an audio challenge be possible?

Yeh, certainly. Someone will have to write the competition guidelines once it's agreed on when it'll happen, how long for, and what form the audio challenge should take.

I'd love to be involved. Why shouldn't music be competitive?

Hello All,

I think this forum needs a little buzz. I suggest we all work towards getting this forum energized. I propose a sort of a healthy exchange of design and architecture.

To me, it's all about architecture and the message conveyed. Stagnant static designs bore me, which is why I propose a ORGANIC Audio GARDEN - OAG.

The rules I have multed for us are: After listening;
1) was the piece or overture moving.. did it pull any heart strings?
2) was the design and architecture breath taking?
3) was the production upto par?
4) was it a solo effort or a group effort?
5) was the feeling conveyed?
6) was the feeling lost in time and never recovered?
7) was techniques in design outstanding?
8)
9)
10)

Let's all post some work, hopefully short bursts... 3min only/-

As you can see, I have left the other three, for others to contribute to the judging process. What I am really trying to do is, get us all to recognize that, we all love our work and we'd all love to have a healthy discussion about our passion, which is music!

Sincerely to all,
KAyo

GOSH!!!!!!!!

Nobody has even answered the posting....
Man... this is goint to be a long wait looks like..

Cheers,
KAyo

Why don't you start and contribute a track of your own man! Get things rolling!

A dangerous topic with me on sumea HazarD [:)]. I want 3 things from game audio:

sub-millisecond latency (like pro audio software on Linux and MacOS has had for quite a while). This is simply impossible on Microsoft OSs- they aren't RTOS (real time operating systems), nor are Linux or MacOS for that matter, but they are close enough.

real-time low-latency scriptable sound synthesis i.e. making sound on the fly rather than playing back recordings. This will be a similar difference to what happened to graphics when they went from sprite-based to full 3d.

real geometry support: IMHO EAX is based on a completely broken series of dodgy hacks piled on top of each other.

My MSc research is largely about the first 2.

Can you elaborate on how this makes my sound experience better in a game environment Lorien ?

Elaborate as much as youd like, fill pages if you dont mind, I'll read it [:)]

Im quite interested in developing the sound / graphics relationship.

I could fill pages and pages you know, but I won't [:)] I'll take each point separately, with pauses between each because I'm rather busy this week...

The overall goal of all this work is to bring to game audio some of the characteristics of commercial and research music and audio software- my real passion is intelligent interactive music systems (software you can jam with in realtime) and computer enhanced musical instruments.

1)Latency
Latency is lag between the time you expect something to happen, and the time it actually happens. In game audio it's often between 50 and 100 milliseconds, which is quite noticeable. Some of the reasons for the lag lie deep in the windows kernels, and I think the audio section here isn't the right place to go into detailed explanations of why windows is so bad at it.

This lag is one of the things that makes game audio seem fake, in physical reality we are accustomed to a near instantaneous response between performing an action that creates sound, and the sound reaching our ears (actually latency is affected by distance, altitude, humidity, and other factors). It is also bad because it makes sophisticated interactive music systems very difficult to pull off (i.e. it's very hard to closely tie music and gameplay together effectively), and so it makes games not as much fun to work with as they could be for musicians.

One of the clearest demos of windows latency can be done in any realtime audio package (adobe audition, saw, logic, cubase vst, etc): put an effect on a track and change some effect parameters (ideally with a slider) while it is playing- better still, try doing it while copying a really big file and playing a DVD [:)]. You will notice a sizeable lag between moving the slider and hearing the result, and you may get audio breakup. Do the same thing on MacOSX or a specially prepared Linux and the change is instant- timing accurate to 2/1000ths of a sec is quite possible, 1 millisecond is very difficult, but almost possible, and as machines get more CPUs it is likely to end up quite possible. This timing would make games far easier for audio people to work with, and is likely to get more of the interactive music systems and audio synthesis geeks interested in doing game work.

The attitude of game developers seems to be that audio is good enough running at 30-60 FPS. I'm talking about audio running at around 1000 FPS, and those are not normal game FPS: game FPS vary up and down, but audio needs each frame to take a constant amount of time, so this 1000 FPS means each frame has to have finished before it's millisecond is up (because then the buffers get swapped and it gets sent to the soundcard, which makes a hideous noise if you overrun). Of the next-gen consoles this should be possible on the PS3 at least (I hope) [:)]

When you design software for low end RTOS timing like this it doesn't mean it won't run at higher latencies, so it can be cross-platform. But software that isn't designed for low latency generally needs a complete re-design and re-write to make it work with in a low latency environment.

To summarise: low latency audio will make games more immerse. It will make a game respond much more like a musical instrument. This latency requires very tightly disciplined software development, as well as having an effect on system performance, but this effect is minimised by multiple and multicore CPUs.

Nice! [:)]

Okay with latency in mind... What kind of application can this be put to good and obvious use in a typical game environment - am I right in saying that what your talking about would allow accurate reproduction of the sound of every bullet being fired from an m-16. rather than just a prerecorded loop that cuts off when I stop firing.

And when and if possible it is slowed down, everything about the gun and the sounds it emits could be accurate to within 1-2 1000ths of a second?

Being a fan of playing games with a massive home theatre - earth shaking bass, bullet ricochets whistling past my ears etc - Im not sure how much difference that pinpoint accuracy is going to make to the whole experience.

Hearing would be believing thats for sure - but I do know that if and when it happens, the implications it has on animating the m16 for example, and having particle effects emmited all in harmony with the sound and being accurate to within that 1000 fps mark... well golly [:0].

*boggle*

Excellent - hit me with more. [:)]

You got it exactly [:)] The particle effect your talking about is called Granular Synthesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granular_synthesis (well worth a read, and you'll get some ideas of what I'm meaning by realtime scriptable audio synthesis).

This is quite doable on Linux, MacosX, BeOS, QNX, and IRIX right now, and has been for years [:D] (at a cpu cost that's prevented it for games though). It's also been 2-4 milliseconds per frame for Linux until recently.

You are likely to find this interesting too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time

Apologies for quoting myself- it feels rather odd... [:)] I'm just low on time.

2)Realtime scriptable audio synthesis

The following is from the proposal for my masters degree candidature:

quote:

One of the key differences between actual reality and the virtual realities of computer games is the comparatively static nature of the virtual realities. In graphics this can be exemplified by the BSP (binary space partition) tree, which needs re-compiling when any geometry changes. In audio this static nature comes about from the use of a small number of samples to represent a large number of events. This leads to the environments simulated in games seeming fake, and hence makes them less immersive.

The best solution to the audio side of this problem involves replacing direct sample playback with real-time synthesis, generating sounds unique to each event. Real-time synthesis takes considerably more CPU time than sample playback, but the results are well-worth it; for example instead of hearing exactly the same sound every time a sword hits a shield, the sound gets created from, or affected by, parameters such as the materials and size of the sword and shield, the position in each at which the collision occurs, the amount of force involved in the collision, etc. Real-time synthesis can bring some of the infinite variation of sound that occurs in reality into virtual reality.

Common techniques for audio synthesis include:
Additive: summing sine waves with potentially time variant frequency and amplitude to obtain a desired spectrum.
Subtractive: creating a sound by carving away undesired parts of a spectrally rich source with filters.
Distortion: frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, wave-shaping and discrete-summation all have the characteristic of producing spectra dependant on the amplitude of the input signal.
Wave-table: the combining of many real-time manipulated pre-recorded sounds into an instrument. This had been the dominant form of synthesis used by musical instrument manufacturers over the last 10 years.
Granular: mixing together a large number of grains or quanta of sound. Resembles a particle system.
Physical modelling: modelling the characteristics of a sound-producing object through equations.
Spectral manipulation: analysing a sound into a frequency/amplitude graph of partials using a transform such as the Fourier, performing manipulations on the analysis, and re-synthesising (the inverse of the transform).

Current games for the most part do not use real-time audio synthesis. If synthesis is used it is done offline, and the results stored in samples, which are simply played back in response to events.

The most spectacular (and most CPU intensive) of the synthesis techniques are

Physical modeling- with the sword and the shield example above, representing the acoustic properties of the sword and the shield, and the precise effects of the collision, mathematically in code that generates a soundwave that is sent to the soundcard as it's being calculated [:)]

Spectral manipulation lets you do beautiful and crazy things like truly morphing between sounds (spectral morphing), taking the parts of a voice that make it recognisable as speech, and applying it to another sound like fire- the result is quite literally talking fire (cross-synthesis), changing the length of a sound without changing it's pitch, changing the pitch of a sound without changing it's length, and many others. It's too complicated to me to explain how this magic works here atm

If you are interested in audio synthesis, you need to check out the software synthesis and linux distro sections on http://linux-sound.org .

The following is a quote from a research paper by my supervisor (Dr John Rankin) and myself, that is published in the proceedings of the ADCOG 2004 conferece, City University, Hong Kong, where I presented it. ADCOG is an anual games research conference http://www.adcog.org . I've included the references for the quoted section. Edit: just noticed the adcog site is down. Here's the google cache
[code]
Paste this into your browser, sumea refuses to link this url properly
www.google.com/search?q=cache:3bA3Sf1j8qwJ:www.adcog.org/+adcog&hl=en&i…

[/code]
quote:

Scriptable Audio Synthesis for Computer Games

Audio in computer games lags far behind graphics in every aspect. To someone from the computer music field this seems very odd, as computers have been used to synthesise sound since the days of punched cards, and leading companies such Hewlett-Packard, Bell Telephone Laboratories and IBM have conducted years of research on computer synthesis of music, and indeed have had composer-programmers on staff for the purpose of research into digital audio. Thus there is a rich literature of computer audio research, much of which relates to real-time interactive systems (which of course is what games are) just waiting to be made use of. To-date the results of this extensive research are not being used to the best advantage in the games industry.

Occupying a key place in this literature are the MusicN type audio synthesis languages [1]. The first MusicN language was Music1, developed by Max Matthews at Bell in the late 1950s. Matthews' made several more revisions (Music2, 3 and 4) before giving the source-code to two American universities- Princeton and Stanford, where audio synthesis research proliferated (as it does to this day). Each customised the software to their needs, resulting in Music6 and Music10 at Stanford, and Music4B and Music4BF at Princeton. Matthews also continued his work at Bell, producing Music5. The Princeton branch is the distant ancestor of the most widely known modern implementations: CSound [2] from the MIT Media Lab and SAOL [3] which forms part of the MPEG-4 standard, both of which were designed and originally implemented by the composer-programmer Barry Vercoe. MusicN languages are for the most part specialised scripting languages with high performance compiled Unit Generators, the arrangements of which are determined by scripts. These scripts are often called Orchestras and/or Scores, an orchestra containing Instruments (sound generators) made up from unit generators connected via Cables, and a score containing instructions for the playing of each instrument [4].

In this paper we are primarily concerned with the computer synthesis of sound effects rather than music within games.

In physical reality sound is produced by the vibration of objects. There is an inseparable coupling between the object and sonic signatures it produces when induced to vibrate. In current virtual reality there is no such coupling, and the sounds a virtual object appears to produce have no real relation at all to the object. A pre-recorded sound is merely triggered by an interaction. We propose that this is a key factor in game-audio seeming fake.

In most MusicN languages the orchestra must be given the instructions of "when to play" and "how to sound" from the score. It is the latter that is missing in game-audio, the "orchestra" is stored samples, and the "score" is the stream of game-play events and parameters. Games make great use of the events for triggering audio, and minimal use of parameters.

Current generation computer games for the most part use fairly direct sample (pre-recorded sound) playback in response to events, the most basic being a collision. It is fairly direct because the actual sound played for an event may be selected by means of a probability distribution, and the selected sound may have comparatively simple transformations applied. If synthesis and/or complex transformations are used at all it is during the creation of the samples, where it is frozen in place.

The score for a piece of music created with a MusicN language is also made up of events, which may be dynamically generated through algorithmic procedures and/or interaction with a performer via a transducer (an "interactive music system"- in many ways very similar to a computer game).

Thus one way to improve audio in games is to synthesise sound in real-time in response to game-play events, and such a synthesis system must be fully scriptable so that someone trained in music programming (as is commonly taught in university music departments) may take full advantage of the system. This is part of the rationale for SAOL. However it is common for games to embed a scripting language for controlling entity behaviour, and this behaviour invariably involves the production of sound. Using SAOL with its orchestra and score paradigm produces a weaker coupling between object and sound than is desirable.

References

1.Dodge, C; Jerse, T A: Computer Music. pp 12-13 Schirmer Books, New York, 1985.
2.Vercoe, B: The Public CSound Reference Manual. Available online at http://www.lakewoodsound.com/csound/hypertext/manual.htm
3.Scheirer, E D; Vercoe, B: SAOL: The MPEG-4 Structured Audio Language. Computer Music Journal 23:2 pp31-51. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1999.
4.Dodge, C; Jerse, T A: Computer Music. pp 12-193 Schirmer Books, New York, 1985.

The main change in my work since then is the discovery that scipting languages can be made that can run multithreaded and at low-latency, which has a bunch of implications for much better sound still.

edit: here is an updated URL for the CSound manual http://www.csounds.com/manual/

This one is going to take me awhile I'm afraid- it's full of the physics and psychophysics of sound. It takes time for me to figure out how to explain it concisely without using loads of audio technobabble...

3)Real geometry support

This is where the real processing power is needed [:)] To understand why geometry is important for audio you have to understand how current 3d game audio works: it's a crude physical model. Your brain uses "cues" (really these are hints) from the way sounds arrive slightly different at each eardrum, for example a close directional sound pointing straight at your right ear is going to be muffled by your head when it reaches your left eardrum, and the speed of sound dictates that there is a slight time delay before it gets there too. Expand into 3 dimensions and add some other cues as well and you have a basic understanding of how we percieve the position of a sound.

How game audio models these cues is the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). 3d sound in games is a kind of spectral manipulation synthesis- in an anechoic chamber (a room with walls that absorb all sound without a single echo) they take a physical dummy head, put small microphones in its ears, and start recording and cataloging "impulses" (short, percussive type sounds with large frequency range) played in positions all around it. By figuring out the differences between these recordings and the original impulse you get much of the information you need to position any sound anywhere using software. The FFT and inverse FFT are the magic that does this, it is hardware accelerated in your soundcard. This specific application is called the Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF).

That all seems nice and sensible, but here are some fundamental flaws in this model:

*It only works properly with headphones. With speaker and room acoustics added in 3d sound gets decidedly dodgy.
*Everyone has a different head, and these cues are so tiny that the differences between heads can lead to large differences in audio- you are expecting different cues (from your experience in the real world) from the ones the head modeled by the software provides.
*It is impossible to ever record enough impusles, so an averaging (interpolation) process is used for positions without an impulse, leading to innacurracies.
*It takes no account of echoes and the sense of acoustic space (the feel you have for the environment you're in from the way it reflects sounds back at you)
*The number of simultaneous audio channels is limited largely by the number of FFTs and IFFTs that can be performed in real-time.

EAX (Creative's Enviromental Audio Extensions) are an attempt to solve the problem of acoustic space that's been bolted on top of this model, and they will be my next post.

This is all great stuff Lorien - thanks for taking the time to write this stuff down. Spectral manipulation sounds like a fun thing to play with..... And the sword and shield example above really is the guts of the stuff that im thinking of - and was the reason for bringing this topic up - Good to know its all coming along.

Real geometry support - aside from the accoustic space and echoes flaw and the more channels, what will an overall tightening up of the other flawed areas do for my sound experience while playing a game, how would they effect my ears and what I hear?

*getting into knowledge sponge mode* [:)]

There was a website I visited a while ago where you could type in a phrase and the news presenter (it looked like a flash animation) would speak it out. It did an unbelievable job too, far better than your standard speech ability in Macs or the extension from Microsoft. If anyone knows which site I mean, please post it here [:)]

Anyway, my contribution to this thread is that I'm surprised that believable speech synthesis for games still isn't common at all. We still have NPC's spitting out the same repetitive sentences when you try to interact with them. Can you imagine the improved gameplaying experience (and disc space savings) in RPG's and games like Grand Theft Auto where NPC's responses are only limited by the number of sentences written out for them by the developer? Couple that with the AI/interactivity experience of [url="http://www.interactivestory.net/"]Facade[/url], and we could be on some really fantastic immersive games. [:)]

HazarD: no problem, imho this stuff needs to be much more widely understood (as does sound in general) [:)]
Spectral manipulation is my favourite form of sound bending. I feel physical modeling is the ultimate goal of game audio. All the forms of synthesis can be combined into hybrids, and they all work perfectly well alongside sample playback too.

Real geometry support leads to much more than echoes and acoustic space- it has the potential to entirely eliminate the HRTF (the FFT is lossy). That's why I'm going to explain EAX first.

Souri: Speech synthesis is so insanely complicated I wasn't going to bring it up here. Think along the lines of trying to mimic the waveforms produced by the vocal chords, nasal cavity, mouth, tongue and lips. Speech is one of the most complex sounds, and it's one we are all very good at telling the real from the fake. It would be so cool to be able to do well in games...

Ah, [url="http://www.oddcast.com/sitepal/products/sitepaltts.php"]found the site[/url]. Are they pulling the words out of a big database of samples?

Wow, you guys are wanting way too much from game audio. Although it sounds interesting, I seriously doubt that procedural synthesis of sound effects will be viable. It just needs too much physics and will most probably be too hard for sound designers to control to ensure that they always get the sound that they want.

Take a look at FMOD Ex to see where I think next-gen sound is going. In case you don't want to look at it, basically next-gen game sound is going to be about DSP, mix routing and real-time data-driven design.

Granular synthesis is I guess something that groovyone has discussed with me recently, except we've labelled it "composite sounds". He'd like to use it for bullet ricochets to reduce SRAM usage whilst maintaining or improving sound variation, but I don't think it would really be viable on the PS2 without hacking FMOD or replacing it with my own low-level sound engine.... something I don't have the time for and something I don't want to do when there's much more interesting work to be done at the higher-level.

As for latency, of course it will be reduced on next-gen hardware, purely because of the multi-core nature and increased speed of the systems. I think the PS2 has a 12ms mixbuffer, but don't quote me on it. Since the PS2's sound chip (SPU2) is essentially two PlayStation sound chips (SPU) it is rather limited in what it can do, compared to the Xbox with it's DSP and AC3 encoder.

Improved reverb (can you say "DSP"?) and propagation (can be currently simulated with low-pass filtering) are two things that I think will add to the realism of next-gen sound, but at the same time I also wonder just how much realism you want. Movies aren't real, they exaggerate sounds to play your emotions. That's why I think that the real direction of next-gen sound is going to be in giving more control to sound-designers, or at least that's what groovyone and his cohort have led me to believe with their constant feature requests. =]

In the current game that groovyone and I are working on, we're implementing something we're calling 'mixgroups', which allow us to have different mixes for the sounds in the game to suit different scenarios like driving versus cutscenes versus a gunbattle. That sits on top of an existing system that allows designers to group contextually relevant sounds and choose what sort of sounds they are and their playback parameters in real-time whilst the game is running. We can already produce varying sounds from things like footsteps and collisions through the use of different samples of variations of the sound and playing them back with varying volume, pitch and bandpass filtering and making use of crossfaders that are fed values from the physics system.

Besides the increased processing power that will allow for more channels, DSP effects and flexibility in mixing (because it's going to be all done with software), the really big bonus of next-gen platforms is the drastically increased amount of RAM we'll have available for samples (I would love to have 8MB or more!) that can be longer and have higher sampling rates and the increased storage I/O for streaming.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 rant for now.

No WAY!

Next Gen is all going SID FARMS with DSP FARMS to support them!!...
128 channels of SID Madness + 16 effects busses! We can digitize speech into 4bit pulse data to be played back on SID chips!

No CPU hit! True synthesis!

Long Live SID!!!

Bleep bleep bleep!

:)

Oh.. as for 5.1 DTS sound, we can just pump banks of SIDS out to different speakers :).

Long live SID!!!

quote:Originally posted by groovyone
Next Gen is all going SID FARMS with DSP FARMS to support them!!...
128 channels of SID Madness + 16 effects busses! We can digitize speech into 4bit pulse data to be played back on SID chips!

Oh.. as for 5.1 DTS sound, we can just pump banks of SIDS out to different speakers :).

My god man! Imagine how many filter caps you'd need! Maybe that explains why those PS3 alpha kits are so frickin' huge... they aren't using surface mount components yet. =]

wow! opening up the ps3 dev kit, this is what I found:
[img]http://www.dansdata.com/images/srsthings/valveclose440.jpg[/img]

woohoo!

[:D] I've warned before that I'm an audio freak...

For those who think this is too much just wait till you hear the geometry stuff [:)]

Also Intel and AMD have been making noises about putting 32 CPU cores on a single chip in future. Running high end audio stuff on one or two of these cores really won't make much difference. And I suspect the Cell SPEs could do a hell of a job at audio synthesis.

As for it being too hard to control for sound designers, physical modelling isn't too hard for musicians... Commercial physical model synths have been around for 10 years or so, and now on MacOS we are seeing commercial low-latency physical modeling softsynths. Even guitarists can manage them [:D] I don't really understand this point, because synths have been used for music for years and years, and synthesis is what originally made game sounds.

SID did rock- imho it was the Right Way (tm) to do game audio: put a close to pro level (for the time) synthesiser in a game.

I know you were joking groovyone, but multicore CPUs will allow what you describe, all in realtime, while all the rest of a game is running in parallel, and the Cell is a "streaming media processor" i.e. the SPEs could be looked at as being independent floating point vector DSPs.

I know the sort of things that the new fmod can do (it includes putting software effects on sounds in realtime, geometry support in the software mixer, etc, etc). IMHO it's not nearly enough. You can read about some of the new features on the mainpage of http://fmod.org .

My take on scriptable audio synthesis is that it is entirely about giving more control to sound designers. Just a sound designer with some different skills than you commonly see atm. The "scriptable" stuff is to make it useable by audio people rather than dedicated programmers. Musicians have been using this type of tech for a long time.

I completely agree that exact realism isn't always desireable, synthesis allows to to do all sorts of crazy exaggeration, it's just as easy to provide exagerrated parameters to a realistic physical model as it is to a crude one, just the results will be better.

I think aspects of what I'm talking about will make it into next-gen, and more aspects will make it into the generation after that.

I also think that if people start doing full-on audio stuff in software in games, the hardware designers are likely to notice (we already have people doing audio on GPUs), and actually make some sensible soundcards (though I'm sure Creative would have their normal try at buying out anyone with better tech and closing them down).

Thanks guys, it's good to have audio people other than me talking here [:)]

Souri: I think that software must be using a database (probably of the building blocks of words rather than words themselves), and combining spoken audio together in realtime. Not speech synthesis as such, and probably not something that you could get to sing a song. Very cool though.

Physical modelling and synthesis is all great, and I am sure there may be some games who go as far as to use this for certain spot "effects" but as a main stream thing it's going to require oodles of time to properly program/script them to do anything useful. Not only that, but how many sound events occur in real life and are needed to be modelled in game? How much time will it take to model something to the point that it's almost recognizable? It only takes a sound designer a few hours to build a complex sound. To generate something by synthesis that sounds anything like it would take days if not a week, and they may still not even come close.

I agree that For instruments, synthesis is useful. Imagine being able to change their filters, timbres in real time to help change the mood of the music. (ala SID)

All I say for now is give us:
1) Memory
2) A sound DSP CPU for software DSP
3) HardDrive for buffer/streaming

I've never suggested that a sound designers job should be to model everything sound by sound... I've more been thinking along libraries of tweakable scripts, which a sound designer can add to and modify if they choose to.

Most of they synth techniques are nothing like as processor hungry as physical modelling.

We have different goals I think- yours is directly making games, mine atm is finding different ways to make games (a research degree), hence I'm aiming high and immediate commercial application is not a huge concern.

This engine/scripting language I'm making is a professional sound library that can be used in games (much of it will be open source btw). It's being designed to be good enough to use in creating pro realtime music software, and if people making commercial games don't want this tech yet that's fine by me of course [:)] I'll be using it in art and indy games. There is still probably 1 1/2 years of work before it's ready for release anyway- to get RTOS like timing you have to start from a very low level indeed [:(] and I finish my MSc halfway through 2007.

I think what you are saying is you want things that will make the job you're doing now easier. I understand that completely and I sympathise for anyone trying to get good sound out of the current consoles except the xbox (which has simple audio scripting btw). I think FMod is fantastic for getting the day to day needs of commercial game dev looked after very quickly. But from my own experience with FMod 3.x I know if you want to do something that is out of the ordinary, all the work the Firelight put into making FMod so easy really gets in the way (i.e. you end up fighting it and hacking around some of its features rather than using it).

I'm looking at doing the job differently, and where I'm finding inspiration isn't games, it's pro and research audio and music software.

quote:Originally posted by lorien
to get RTOS like timing you have to start from a very low level indeed
I think you're overblowing the latency thing way too much. At 60Hz you have a 16.7ms mixbuffer. There's no point in reducing latency below the point at which you are triggering sounds, which is purely dictated by interval at which the game state is updated. Games with parallelised rendering pipelines are already one or two frames behind the current game state, so really there's no issue with syncing sound to gfx.

quote:I sympathise for anyone trying to get good sound out of the current consoles except the xbox (which has simple audio scripting btw).
Simple audio scripting? I don't want to sound rude and arrogant, but do you even know what you're talking about? Are you talking about XACT?

quote:I think FMod is fantastic for getting the day to day needs of commercial game dev looked after very quickly. But from my own experience with FMod 3.x I know if you want to do something that is out of the ordinary, all the work the Firelight put into making FMod so easy really gets in the way (i.e. you end up fighting it and hacking around some of its features rather than using it).
Which is why I was talking about FMOD Ex. =] MacOS X's CoreAudio and Audio Units are pretty much the same thing.

quote:Originally posted by Shplorb
I think you're overblowing the latency thing way too much. At 60Hz you have a 16.7ms mixbuffer. There's no point in reducing latency below the point at which you are triggering sounds, which is purely dictated by interval at which the game state is updated. Games with parallelised rendering pipelines are already one or two frames behind the current game state, so really there's no issue with syncing sound to gfx.

Fine, no problem [:)] I just think otherwise... Latency is one of the cues used to determine the position of a sound, and I'm working in multiple threads anyway, so it's independent of game state i.e. I have audio rate (processing samples using SSE vector operations), realtime control rate (single float processing, 1 per frame), and game control rate (completely asynchronous to audio), and latency on the realtime audio and control rates is a killer. The thing about 60 Hz on windows is you can't do it. Sure you can get way over 60fps, but just try to get each frame to take a constant amount of time, so you can actually get that 16.7 msec latency. Also while I agree ~17 milliseconds is acceptable for triggering samples that's not what I'm trying to do.

quote:
Simple audio scripting? I don't want to sound rude and arrogant, but do you even know what you're talking about? Are you talking about XACT?

I'm talking about AudioVBScript, which is also part of the DirectX sdk and DirectMusic Producer. It's simple because it's a toy language and doesn't let you touch most of DirectSound/Music, but it seems to be designed to give more control to sound designers: the idea seems to be that programmers call script functions which are written by a sound designer. It doesn't do synthesis at all.

[snip my stuff about fmod]
quote:
Which is why I was talking about FMOD Ex. =] MacOS X's CoreAudio and Audio Units are pretty much the same thing.

Stick with FMod then! [:)] All I'm saying is it's not for me (nor is Core Audio for that matter). You won't be getting any marketing division trying to push synthesis on you (at least not from me), this software is going to be free, people will be able to use it if they want, and if they don't it's no skin off my nose.

But if you would like to experiment you will be able to (actually you can now, though with a system that is not designed for games at all- CSound has become a VST plugin, FMod Ex supports VST plugins, therefore you could probably use CSound in a game if for some strange reason you felt like it).

LOL

Ok, here is what I want with next-gen...

1 - More bloody disk space so I can stop listening to 22kHz sample rates.

Thats pretty much it sorry guys. There is no way that we will have realistic voice synth anytime soon (thank God to be honest), nor real-time sound generation (ie, when the player knocks a can off a wall the engine GENERATES that sounds rather than playing back a pre-recorded .wav file. To me, its the same as pretty high-poly models, they are nice took look at but it adds NOTHING to gameplay. I think that the only sound element, apart from surround sound, that will enhance gameplay is disk space.

quote:Originally posted by Shplorb
I think you're overblowing the latency thing way too much. At 60Hz you have a 16.7ms mixbuffer. There's no point in reducing latency below the point at which you are triggering sounds, which is purely dictated by interval at which the game state is updated. Games with parallelised rendering pipelines are already one or two frames behind the current game state, so really there's no issue with syncing sound to gfx.

Yeah, I completely agree with this point, glad someone typed it out. The order in which parts of the game state get updated within a frame has nothing to do with real-time. That's why both graphics and audio treat the frame as an quanta, firing off everything at the same time at the end of the frame.

Games with floating frame rates have all sort of additional sync issues that dwarf a few extra milliseconds of latency. There's the fact that the physical time that a frame or two of lag produce changes with the frame rate. In addition the update code can only scale the time for a state update by that of the previous frame, not the current (since it doesn't know how long that will take to render - there's just an implicit guess that it will be as long as the last frame).

But floating frame rates blow - I really hope that the TRC/TCR requirements for next-gen mandate 60Hz (or at least fixed frame rates). Might screw some PC developers but if they want to do console stuff they should do it right or stick to PC.

As for what HW features would make good audio, I reckon disk space, 6 channel output and a ludicrous amount of programmable DSP power with the bandwidth to keep it processing.

pb

I've actually been talking about running this stuff in a separate thread all along (means it runs at a frame rate completely independent to the game frame rate).

Mick, my favourite games are actually Elite and Nethack [:)] It's very rare for me to play a AAA title. I whole heartedly agree with high poly models and audio synthesis doing nothing for (normal) gameplay. IMHO for games they are fluff. I've been interested in sound and audio synthesis for much longer than I have in games, and I plan to use this engine for plenty of things which aren't games too [:)]

Ludicrous amounts of disk space and DSP power are for me pb [:)]

quote:Originally posted by lorien

I've actually been talking about running this stuff in a separate thread all along (means it runs at a frame rate completely independent to the game frame rate).

But the events that trigger game sounds all quantize to the game frame rate (or at least they should since the physical order of update within a frame is meaningless).

The best you could do is put the game logic on a seperate thread (pure server style) and run as fast as you can, then put graphics and sound on their own thread so they can pick out discreet frames from the game logic. If you can update game logic 600 times per second your sound thread could grab each update and the graphics thread might only get 1 out of 10 (or however fast it can manage). But that's a lot of processing to burn to shorten the latency by an amount that will be different to the latency of the graphics pipeline.

These days game logic consumes a larger portion of the frame than it used to. This is largely a result of DMA driven graphics acceleration shortening the render side whilst physics, AI, big complex worlds and lots of random access on architectures that have massive CPU:memory speed ratios result in slower game update. That means its not practical to have an ultra fast game update thread. If it were you would've seen more (any?) PS2 games doing all their game logic on the IOP and leave the rest for rendering.

pb

A big concern for me is a hi-resolution "control rate" (k-rate in CSound terms). Yes, of course the game sounds getting triggered will quantise to the game frame-rate, but things like fades, envelopes, and synth parameters should often (imho almost normally) be independent from game FPS anyway. A bunch of functions get triggered by the game logic thread, and continue on their own in the audio thread.

With a control rate much below 1000 fps it's fairly easy to hear quantisation artifacts in audio parameters, hence the non-realtime softsynths don't have a control rate at all- it's the same as the sampling rate.

No argument about CPU/memory bandwidth issues, afaik it shouldn't be so much of a problem on the PS3. In the normal computer world things are going NUMA (non-uniform memory architecture) to solve the bandwidth problem, this is how Sun's Opteron based servers work now. NUMA means each CPU gets it's own memory, and whilst every CPU is able to use every other CPU's memory, it is much faster to use their own, so they heavily favour it. NUMA is part of the Linux kernel right now (it's one of the things that got SCO so upset).

FMOD Ex sound designer tool is putting all of the control into the sound designer's hands. Complex audio models can be built in it, and the programmer interaction is minimal.

The low level FMOD Ex engine is extremely advanced, the DSP engine can do virtually anything, including realtime sound synthesis (which there are demos for). If you only take a quick look at the API you might it looks simple to start with (actually that's our aim), but dig deeper and there is a whole range of possibilities available.

We are only half way into our feature list, we've built it to be very flexible, so I really think it is well on its way to providing 'next gen' audio. I'm pretty excited by it :)

quote:Originally posted by Shplorb

I think the PS2 has a 12ms mixbuffer, but don't quote me on it. Since the PS2's sound chip (SPU2) is essentially two PlayStation sound chips (SPU) it is rather limited in what it can do, compared to the Xbox with it's DSP and AC3 encoder.

The granularity on the ps2 is blocks of 256 samples @ 48khz so the minimum latency is 5.33ms. We usually mix on most platforms now using a 5ms buffer so i don't think latency is an issue except on windows and linux, but we find 50ms is generally acceptable and stable enough these days. Lorien has mentioned 'latency' but i think he actually means 'granularity', which is a trivial matter to solve and not always nescessarily a problem that needs to be solved. (ie a car engine pitch bending at 60hz is perfectly smooth to the majority of ears.)
pb is right about the audio syncing to the framerate, and especially with things like weapon sounds, even the graphics can take a few frames to actually kick in and display the firing graphics anyway.

As for the PS2, it is fairly low spec now, but we're really pushing it to the limit. We're hoping to allow a benchmark of 32 voices with multiple DSP filters per voice and keep the EE cpu usage under 5%. This is thanks to VU0.

Get that marketing out there Brett (just teasing) [:)] Good to see you on sumea btw.

I'm talking about both latency and granularity, they are different, but related. One kind of latency is a lag between input and output, this is what prevents people from using windows as a guitar effects processor for example. Big lag between playing a note and hearing the results. Granularity is the control rate stuff. Latency and granularity are related- certainly you can have 1 msec granularity and 1 second latency, but you can't really have have 1 msec latency and 1 sec granularity...

I'm not bagging fmod at all, I truly think you guys have done great work, but I'm not going to use fmod in my work (no matter how much the api has improved) unless it goes dual license (open source and commercial). Free binary for non commercial use doesn't cut it with me I'm afraid. I remember from a discussion we had on the fmod forums quite a while ago that you really don't want to do this.

quote:Originally posted by lorien

One kind of latency is a lag between input and output, this is what prevents people from using windows as a guitar effects processor for example.

I don't know about that, we have a 'record' example that records, processes the audio and plays it in about 3ms turnaround using the asio output driver for realtime voice fx. That is pretty good for user level hardware.

quote:
Free binary for non commercial use doesn't cut it with me I'm afraid. I remember from a discussion we had on the fmod forums quite a while ago that you really don't want to do this.

It doesn't really bother me, but i don't see why having the source is so nescessary. Would you use memcpy if it was closed source? Most people wouldnt touch the source because they don't need to, the interface does everything that is needed.

MD is non-professional, it uses lossy compression (like jpeg compression except for sound, mp3, ogg and plenty of others are lossy).

That said, if you aren't planning to do much to the sounds after recording them MD is likely to be fine.

Pro people use portable DAT, which has no compression at all.

I don't know much about DVCam, except that video-wise it is not a pro format, I suspect it uses lossy compression for audio too.

Surely the quality of the microphone is more important than the format of the data? Setting up the equipment to use the full amplitude without clipping must also be high on the list...? Otherwise you can end up with perfectly recorded crap...

pb

I have no argument with that pb [:)] For recording most game sounds (i.e. not at marshall stack volume) a high quality capacitance mic is the best choice- they capture every last tiny detail. They are expensive [:(] Dynamic mics are much cheaper, and can handle high volume. They don't catch the same amount of detail though.

Also pick the right type of directionality mic, they come in omni, cardioid, and super/hyper cardioid. An omni directional mic picks up sound in every direction (perfect for environment recording), the different cardioid types just get more and more directional i.e. a hyper cardioid mic basically picks up things it is pointing directly at (ideal for recoding speech or an individual instrument).

Then there are techniques for stereo mics, which this thread isn't the right place to discuss.

probably should have mentioned, I'm no pro. I'm only doing this as a sort of one man hobby but i am willing to spend a bit of money, just not expecting to grab a highest quality standard type rig. Thanks for the input though, good point about the microphone thing

RECORDING DEVICE

I'd go for something like a iRiver H120 or H140. 20 or 40 gig HD audio jukebox similar to iPods. However these wee beasties can record UNCOMPRESSED WAV at 44.1kHz stereo as well as MP3 VBR! They act as an external USB2.0 hard drive to boot! They'll set you back a good $600 AUS for one here.

If you must use a DV Cam, make sure you can use a cable mic. DON'T use the internal crud on the camera. All you'll get is motor whine through all your recordings. Also make sure the sample rate is set to 44.1 or 48kHz rather than the default 32kHZ that is preset on most cameras.

MD is useful for a cheap recording tool. Don't use any LONGPLAY feature. Always use short play. Minidiscs do compress the sound, so doing too much pitch shifting or audio compression on the sounds will bring out the worst of the compression. Also make sure you have a nice longish cable so you don't pick up the tic tic tick of the disk writing!

MICROPHONES

For Microphones it depends what you are recording.

1) For Ambiences, stereo matched pair condenser mics is what you'll need. Or a single condenser stereo mic.

2) For SFX recording, you can't go past a good condenser. Something like a Rode NT3 or AKG C1000s are both affordable and both have 9V internal battery options so you don't need any power source.

3) Shotgun mic.. something like a Rode NTG1 is affordable. This will help spot your target sound better and cut out side noise.

Really I'd go with choice 2 above to start with. If you do any vocal recordings with a microphone, invest in a mic stand and a pop shield.

Hope that helps.

People interested in portable recorders should have a look at http://www.core-sound.com/ they do high sample-rate/bit-depth cards for PDAs running windows and linux.

and these binaural mics would imho be wonderfull for abience recording http://www.core-sound.com/lcmics.html though of course the high-end binaurals would be better http://www.core-sound.com/mics.html .

Binaural recording is a technique of 3-dimensional recording on 2 channels with 2 mics. It sounds best when listened through headphones, but is perfectly fine over speakers too. The 3d sound in games comes from faking this sort of recording (the faking is called an HRTF- head related transfer function).

quote:Originally posted by groovyone

RECORDING DEVICE

I'd go for something like a iRiver H120 or H140. 20 or 40 gig HD audio jukebox similar to iPods. However these wee beasties can record UNCOMPRESSED WAV at 44.1kHz stereo as well as MP3 VBR! They act as an external USB2.0 hard drive to boot! They'll set you back a good $600 AUS for one here.

Hmmm.. do you know anything about the H340? I bought one - fantastic player, and a colleague is getting one to do audio recording for this exact purpose. ~$550, and can play OGG Vorbis and even movies too ;) http://shop.centre.net.au/index.html?cat=0008F60008F70008FD&it=product&…

Incidently La Trobe music department (closed down several years ago) used to produce the "composer/programmers" the article refers to, as does- I believe- ACAT (the Australian Centre for the Arts and Technology, now renamed the Centre for New Media Arts). I went to both [:)]

Speaking of music in games, is there such a discipline in any institution at all in Australia that concentrates on music in the gaming/movie industry? (Please don't say "The Con").

Hey Guys!

Errr...'The Rise and Fall of Game Audio' is quite an odd title for a report which seems mainly focused on creativity with a digital medium.

There is no Diploma of Game Audio that I have been able to find ANYWHERE in Australia which is only because the industry is young. We are spoiled that QANTM and AEI even offer courses geared towards other aspects of game design. If you want to do a great correspondence course out of the UK I recommend you check out http://www.musicforthemedia.co.uk. They offer a Diploma of Media Composition and cover a wide range of media audio. The second unit is Music For Games which Tommy Tallarico helped put together (for a cool note, the lead audio engineer at Rareware got his job after 11 months of the course).

I personally would not recommend the Con. If we ever meet in person I will tell you why ;-)

Mick Gordon
Lead Audio Engineer
Lava Injection Studios
www.lavainjection.com

I think the basic argument in that paper (that's bring the "rise and fall" into the title) is that there is almost no GAME audio anymore- it's been replaced with something designed to be more like film sound, but it doesn't work to well- no offence Mick :)

IMHO it's actually a good thing that there are no diplomas in game audio here. Why? Because as far as I've been able to tell there are very few people employed full time doing it.

I wouldn't recommend Sydney Con either (though I haven't been there, I know plenty who have). I would however strongly suggest a composition major BMus, particularly one with a tech focus- like the Canberra School of Music and La Trobe's were. Mind you studying 20th/21st century electroacoustic composition could well cause you to become very bored by commercial music...

If anyone is interested in honours level comp-sci specialising in audio programming I'm able to be a co-supervisor.

I'm not going to say much about the article on sumea yet- after the panel.

On a slightly different topic (but still game music) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4670009.stm (found it on games.slashdot.org just then)

Yeah, the Video Games Live concert was well received. I wish I could be there!!!

Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico - Legends and my 2 favorite game composers

Mick Gordon
Lead Audio Engineer
Lava Injection Studios
www.lavainjection.com

Have you heard of Jeremy Soule Mick? He's worked on Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and even Morrowind (I think). I love his work, and when I start composing some big orchestrations, I'll be composing in a similar adventuristic style.

Problem with the Gaming industry's music is that the industry is so closely linked to and structured like the movie industry, just will different Job titles. I find that like most music for movies, the music is quite emotive, much like what game music requires (for example, a dark creepy house should have sliding tremolo strings with quick accent changes and such, including rolling chromatic timpanis, which i love).

I totally agree with you Morphine, but I think games are looked on nowdays as an interactive movie. The biggest trick for me is to score the game in such a way that you enhance the gameplay and emphasize the story whilst keeping the interactive spontaneity aspects that makes games, games.

Jeremy Soule is fantastic and I also really like Chance Thomas, Andy Brick, Jesper Kyd and Vladimir Simunek. Vladimir's soundtrack for 'Mafia' is one of my all time favorite scores.

Mick Gordon
Lead Audio Engineer
Lava Injection Studios
www.lavainjection.com

I was actually considering studying to secure a job in this type of field. But from what I have heard in this thread it sounds like a lost cause.

I was considering studying Diploma of Screen (Digital Sound and Music For Media) at Southbank Tafe in Brisbane www.southbank.tafe.net/course/dom/cuf50401-4.htm

I was searching around and found that to be my best option.

If anyone could offer any opinions or advice on this course it would be greatly appreciated

H

That was a good article which raised some interesting points, especially about the philosophy of innovating as opposed to imitating.

I guess in the end it's whatever works, if it supports the storyline, interactivity, gameplay and the game elements then does it really matter?

lol. Thats where I am :P

Depends. If you are a game player then no, if you are an audio developer - particularly if you are one of the mutant freaks talked about in the paper with a combination of "classical" composition training and computer programming, and you want to advance the state of the art along with making games that actually sound like games, then yes it does.

But it's an industry that doesn't give a crap about sound really, and the very few composer/programmers who taught me this stuff and that I studied with who were interested in video games have got the hell away from the industry. Every one of them has been ripped off, exploited and burnt, and mostly they advise people to steer clear of the games industry- as do I.

Also as far as I know there isn't a music department/music school/conservatorium left in Aus that still properly teaches composers how to code.

cheers,
Lorien (and my 1st post on sumea in many years)

AFTRS

You should have a read of "The Decline of Improvisation in Western Art Music" by Robin Moore (do a library database search, it's in Jstor and other places- journal paper rather than book) if you are curious about why conservatoriums might be particularly unsuitable places to study this stuff. It's hinted at even in the name "conserve". There is a huge load of stuff people won't have told you about why conservatoriums were created in the first place, oddly enough it WASN'T to develop amazing musicians.

Its a paper that's likely to upset you quite a bit- it did me, but the conservatoriums do some good too.

Lorien (signing off sumea for another few years most likely, games and game developers bore the living daylights out of me these days)