Posted in Audio Design | Jan 14, 2014 | by Leed:Audio
Happy New Year!
After proper gluttony and blissful inactivity over Christmas, the New Year stares us in the face with large, questioning eyes and is wondering when „Schein“ will finally take the stage of the world.
Well, there are loads to do before that! – that was the result of our first team meeting this year. Let’s keep to our own little heap of work, which we would like to get done for the Beta release.
In the time before Christmas we began working on the story again, since nobody seemed fully satisfied with its ending. We took up the motto „back to the roots“ (only the team knows how painfully literal that is to be taken!) and dug out an old version, which is currently being completed, adapted and recorded.
This proves that a critical look to the past is never wrong and often the first spontaneous ideas are the best you will get.
We further continue composing the score. The ideas for the last levels have already been fleshed out, but it is difficult to match the mood and structure of the level, as well as to preserve a fitting overall picture. In general it helps to take a look at the assets and the script. Which colors dominate? Is it bright or dark, hard or smooth, round or angular? What happens in the level? Is speed important, or is it all about skill or puzzling? And how does the story evolve? What happened earlier and what follows?
With these aspects in mind, we search for matching tunes. Those can be instruments of a classical orchestra, or also synthetic sounds. And throughout we always regard the score before and after the current level to see in how far we can create a connection through instrumentation or by continuing musical themes (melodies, rhythms).
Also the soundFX section is receiving a little more attention now. As soon as the game mechanic is complete, we can make adaptations, replace temporary sounds and complete missing material.
Often fitting samples can be found in the depths of one’s library, however rarely something that fits in perfectly. There are many possibilities of transforming a sound beyond recognition: Modifying the pitch, stretching or clinching sounds, creating distortions, clipping or accentuating frequencies, etc. But the goal must be clear! Should the sound be organic, mechanic, or even synthetic/futuristic? Often a technique called „layering“ is used, to merge two different sounds – each of which has already been repeatedly modified itself! So it can already be an elaborate process to create a snipped of only 1.3 seconds duration.
