MontyPython
Guillaume joined
The 21st century brought us cheap and convivial sound recording and editing technology, resulting in often botched, amateurish results. Therefore, stating in my bio that I do master such technology is meaningless. Everybody has a home studio nowadays. When I put on my musician, sound designer or recording artist hat, I always try to work with my ears and use as little as possible, in a "less is more" approach. It's not about having the latest plug-in pack freshly downloaded off bittorent, it's about having the right music with the right sound.
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So... I've decided to learn UDK myself. This page has quite alot of ressources if you're new to UDK. At the moment, I am doing this tutorial, which makes you create a whole (very simple) game.
After alot of shopping around and testing microphones, I am now the owner of a brand new KEL Audio HM-1 small-diaphragm cardioid condenser mic. Canadian-designed KEL mics seem to be popular in the voice over/audio book circles. The HM1 has a very distinctive sound , unlike other budget price mics that simply try to mimic classic studio mics. Should cost around 150$. Worth about 400$ - meaning it would cost you at least 400$ to get a microphone that's just slightly better than the HM-1.
The HM1 is a simple tool. No swtiches (no pad, no phase switch). Don't need 'em. I can switch phase and pad on my pre-amp anyway (I use an ART tube MP. 15$ on ebay). Speaking of preamp, I had to turn the gain down a bit. The HM1 has a very hot signal. The reviews said it had a sweet sound on vocals, and that seems to be true (didn't have time to do extensive tests yet). The high frequencies are not exagerated, so it doesn't pick up much sibilance (unlike the competitors) and is very quiet compared to other cheap condesors I've tried (MXLs or Studio project).
I love the fact that it is a unique mic with a unique sound, one that I will certainly not sell later when I have enough money to uprade to a better condenser mic.
Time to re-record those voice overs.
Created a tutorial on voice acting and effects. Waiting for approval. Here's a quote:
Someone wrote: What you will need for this tutorial
- A sound editing software. I use soundforge (a bit expensive) but you can use the excellent and free Audacity. If going the Audacity route, remember to add the VST enabler.
- A couple VST effects. The one's we'll be using in this tutorial are all available for free. You'll need a compressor, EQ, reverb, chorus, vocoder. Freeware, all of them. I'm using mostly effects from Kjaerhus Audio here, but you can use whatever brand you want.
Before we start, remember that no amount of effects will make your voice sound good if the recording was not done the right way.
Quick tips for a better voice recording:
- Get a good mic and soundcard. Don't have much money? Try the M-audio soundcheck. Should be around 60$. M-audio also make a voice studio kit that includes everything you need. It's cheap but sounds kinda good for it's price. It's around 100 bucks. Still, if you are broke and stuck with a cheap-o PC microphone (or the mic under your laptop's keyboard) you can still try this tutorial.
- Put a windscreen in front of the mic. (Should cost you about 1.79$ at the music store) A windscreen will reduce or even eliminate the "pop" sounds of the "p" consonant and reduce "shhh" sounds (sibilance). Don't have one? Be creative. I use a nylon stocking mounted on a coat hanger. Been using that for years, even in a pro setting.
- Can't get a windscreen? Still hearing pops and hisses? Try not speaking directly into the mic. For instance, try recording while your face creates a 90 degrees angle with the microphone.
- Speak loud. This will improve signal to noise ratio and generally make you sound better. Can't project your voice? There are ways to improve that.
- Now that you have a clean signal with no pops or hisses, try applying some mild compression. Kjaerhus Audio are a pro company and they have free versions of some "classic" plug-ins. Try them out. (Altenate link).
Got any idea how many sound effect a recent FPS game requires? Take just a simple aspect of the game: a weapon. Most games have those. suppose you have 5 guns, you'll need 5 sounds, right? Think again.
You will need:
- A sound for when you draw the weapon out of the holster.
- A sound for when you pickup the weapon, another sound for when you drop it.
- Several good sounding sounds made by the weapon itself when used to attack. Different attacks, different sounds.
- A sound for reload, when it applies.
- A sound when you hit the target, a sound when you hit a wall, and so on. Different surfaces = different sounds.
- If the weapon does other stuff, like getting jammed, you'll nit more sounds for that.
- And so on and so on.
And that was just for one weapon. You'll have several of them, and you'll several variants of the same sounds to add more realism. That means more and more sounds, and we just discussed weapons. You also need to consider footsteps, doors, voice acting, ambient sounds, menu sounds, music, etc.
Creating all those sounds can often be a tedious and repetitive process. Just because there is audio involved doesnt mean that its all fun and games. Having the right effect by simply recording the right object bumping into something rarely does the trick by itself. You'll need to shape the sound, add effects, layer several sounds, etc. All of this takes time.
The project I'm working on (can't give much details atm) calls for about 140 original sound effects and 12 bits of music. That's at least 100 hours of work. With a full time job, I can still spread that work in about 20 weeks at 5 hours per week. That's about 4 months. Should be done by christmas!
I am making a "remix" (as in music remix) of a Thievery map, th-Kamasutra. I will use this version to test sound and music in-game.
So far I learned how to convert a wav to umx format and could keep the full 16 bit resolution (had to downsample to 22k though). I choose a very simple tune called "one note loop", which is exactly what it sounds like.
Next step: I will attempt to replace the current "lockpicking" sound.
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