Flashforward Boston: Designing with Sound
Rough draft of notes
Dave Schroeder, pilotvibe.
Sound is a powerful communicator
Sometimes more powerful than visual and can be misused
Design is about seeing what isn't there as much about as what is there. Design is inventive and reductive. Sound design can be dangerous.
Sound design: Voice over, sound effects, navigation sounds, ambiance, music.
Visual story-telling: on screen, off screen, non-digetic (out of story space).
Sound relationship: sympathetic, contrasting, abstract/emotive. Bad day movie clip shown with 3 different sound tracks. showing each relationship.
How plan audio in interactive. Goal of audio, time & budget, mission statement + asset list, reference points hard to talk about sound (almost like a foreign language).
- music
- voice over
- ambience
- navSounds
- sound effects
Working with sound.
Music: focus on mood versus genre, creates singular/linear space, it can convey abstract things. Tempo and complexity. May focus your attention.
Voice overs: pro talent, one file = one thought, location recording (consistent background noise), inflection. Record some quick / fast and make sure it works before doing it all.
Ambiance: complete the picture, hard to find the perfect loop (build with layers instead), only need essential sonic cues. Non routine sounds can't loop. Speaking, accidents, etc.
Navigation Sounds: help user navigate and explore, focus attention on visuals, meaning derived from relationship with sound, reinforces communication goal.
Same sonic space (wet & dry sound). Reverb (delay) does a lot, helps to locate and place objects. EQ helps with that. Easier to make a dry sound wet.
Spatial sound: x: balance/pan, rising less low end, moving away less high end
Audio editing: Likes Pro Tools, important to input/export .wav, .aiff, .mp3, record to wav, high quality master files, import movies to work against
Tracks: 4 tracks of playback, separate tracks fof VOs/effects, layer sounds to ceate sounds, mock up a sound scheme.
MP3: compression is hard. Use EQ to shave off the top freqs. length is important, trim tight, respect tails. 80kpbs or higher is great, but be consistent.
Pro Tools example. Cut in middle drag end to beginning and overlap in middle with cross fade. Easier way to make a good loop.
Voice overs: Find highest peak across all files and make it louder. Normalize across all takes.