We are therefore dedicating this short post to a musical avenue that has only recently begun to receive credit amongst mainstream musicians, yet is one of the largest growing industries around! In doing so, we will hopefully answer of the questions we’ve been hearing more and more in our sessions at the 16 Steps studio…

“How can I find out more about writing music for video games and software?”

Of course, it’s not a surprising question really, considering the vast amount of people Worldwide that own a console, smartphone, tablet computer or even all three. With immediate access to millions upon millions of games, the doors are now wide open for composers, producers and sound designers across the Globe. Every game is based around its own concept and no matter how simple or complex this may be, requires a soundtrack to suit.

From the Electronic sounds of Wipeout HD Fury (PS3):
Booka Shade // Steady Rush

To the Orchestral Epic gamescore of The Last Airbender (Wii):
Mick Gordon // Zuko Enters The City

So if you’re thinking of finding a new avenue for your music, this could well be the industry for you. Our advice is to start by learning a little more about the music, composers and producers involved, the industry itself and then research techniques that will help you along the way.

These are a few of our favourite online game portals:

GameAudio Forum We love the Music Related and Sound Design forums on here
Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Leading Game Audio Forum and Community
Game Career Guide – Career guidance and job opportunities in the Gaming Industry
Game Sound Conference – Leading Game Audio Seminar & Conference

Some great interviews with some of the Industry leaders:

Mike Morasky (Portal 2)
Mick Gordon (The Last Airbender)
Hans Zimmer (Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2)
Michael McCann (Splinter Cell)

and a few ESSENTIAL books to get you started:

The Game Audio Tutorial – Richard Stevens
The Complete Guide to Game Audio: For Composers, Musicians, Sound Designers, Game Developers – Aaron Marks
Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design – Karen Collins

To find out more about the courses we offer and to learn more about composing electronic and orchestral music for games, visit 16 steps.

Software specifics: Space Designer, Buss Channels

One of the trickiest things to get right when making more minimal tunes is to be able to create depth in the track without cluttering up your mix. This especially applies to the drum elements. It can often feel like a trade off between getting a deep and lush vibe at the expense of the crisp and punchy drums that are pinning your tune together.

We’re going to be using Logic Studio’s Space Designer Reverb to create ambient interest with space and depth in a percussion loop without losing clarity in the mix…

Here’s our starting point – Just a dry 4 bar loop for now…

AUDIO 1

Sounds nice, but perhaps a bit too clinical.
The first thing we are going to attack is that snare hit.

AUDIO 2

We’re going to start by creating a send to Bus 1. We don’t want the reverb to be directly on the snare channel as we want the clean signal to come through. The snare is an integral part of the rhythm and must maintain its snappiness, so by creating a bus, we can blend the clean signal and reverb signal easily.

For the snare we are going to be using Logic’s Space designer. As the emphasis is on creating a subtle ambience, we are going to shorten the reverb to stop it running massively into the next snare hit. We can do this by adjusting the volume envelope, giving us a decay time of 0.93 seconds. This has made it a little quiet so to compensate we have turned up the output on the Space Designer to –11.5dB

As this is on a buss we don’t want any of the dry signal coming through the Space Designer, so the mix level is zero’d. Again the aim is subtlety so we are setting the send to -16.4dB.

AUDIO 3

Sounding good, but what else can we do to subtly go deeper?

Well, taking hits out of the sounds that are carrying the rhythm along (i.e. the breaks or hi-hats) and adding FX is a good way of making changes without having to go through the effort of making another element work with what you already have. Let’s hear the break…

AUDIO 4

Now you may have noticed that on the third bar the snare hits of the break are a touch louder. In order to add a longer reverb on just these hits, it is important to isolate the snares so we’ve moved them on to a new audio channel, preventing them from conflicting with the rest of the break. Again we want to keep the clarity, so have opted for reverb on a send. This time we are using Goldverb and have altered the predelay to 37ms.

A longer predelay can give the impression of distance (as sounds that occur far away from you take time to hit your ears).

AUDIO 5

Nice, but the track is still a little empty. To remedy this we are going to add some percussion to play off the rhythms we have already.

AUDIO 6

Hmm… Sounds rough. These sounds really need to become less a part of the rhythm section and more ambient effects. As the aim of this exercise is to create a sense of space and depth, we will give each sample its own channel and then pan some of them slightly left and right. So that we don’t waste precious processing power, we only really need one reverb unit for the lot. The way to do this is to route all of the channels for the perc sounds to one bus by changing the output on each channel to Bus 3.

On Bus 3 we have the a Space Designer with the initial settings (a nice length of reverb for this technique), sounding like this.

AUDIO 7

So let’s take a listen, and I think you’ll agree that the track has become instantly more interesting and spacious.

AUDIO 8

FINAL TIP:

when applying reverbs to any sounds, be aware of what frequencies are coming through, as the low mids are likely to clutter the mix or appear a bit ‘boomy’. If all else fails stick an EQ in line (either before or after the reverb) and filter out anything you don’t want to hear.

I hope you’ve found this tutorial useful. We’d love to hear from you with any comments on the mix itself, or any further suggestions you might add.

Author: Alex Pinkerton, for 16 Steps Music Production School (Rutile)

From time to time, we’ll be showcasing their successes in our blog, so without further ado…

The first of our student profiles – Rick Maia

Download Rick’s May Promotional Mix

Rick Maia has developed to become a DJ with extraordinary technical ability and a producer with an ear that binds together the best of the underground with a hook that promises production success on a much grander scale. With his first release, Lucky Strike working dance floors across the globe and promos already making waves with many DJs on the scene, he has the enthusiasm, intelligence and understanding of the dance music environment that makes him one of the scene’s current hottest prospects.

Rick’s debut production is now available on our 16 Steps label, with support from Slam, Paco Osuna, Anderson Noise, Neil Quigley, Leigh Morgan and many more! Also includes Alex Parsons remix

Rick Maia & Adam James – Lucky Strike (Rick Maia Remix)

Beatport
DJ Download

The summer is upon us! The nights are getting lighter and Friday nights after work are about to get a lot more exciting! On Friday 3rd June we bring to you the freshest PARTY in London town, Diasco @ The Corner Shop. We are kicking the fun back in to partying and bringing you some serious tunes to get your groove on! We take over both floors of the newly refurbished venue (formerly Jamm).

The owners have injected some cash in to this venue with a Funktion One Sound system and it has been completely refurbished. The party will be rocking upstairs from 7pm so you can enjoy the summer evening then we have the basement when the lights go out so we can continue the PARTY! Our main aim is to bring FUN to your Friday nights, catch up with friends and have a BOOGIE! Best of all its free!!

With big tunes from our resident DJ’s James Clayton and Dan James and some special guests over the summer months.

DJ’s for our launch party
Benjamin Coates
James Clayton (DIASCO)
Dan James (DIASCO)
Wolf Cooley

Let’s DIASCO!!

James is soon to feature on our 16 Steps label, with a debut EP to be released after the summer. Visit our label page for updates and to listen to selections from our back catalogue of student releases.

By now, Most of us are well-used to using Dropbox for our audio and file sharing needs. We live in a time when sharing tracks, artwork… anything with friends, colleagues and record labels couldn’t be easier. Simply pulling your files into a shared folder automatically synchronises them with all of your workstations, your smartphone and tablet for you to share as you will.

One problem… We’re all running out of space!

Before you reach for your credit cards. Here are a few Dropbox alternatives, all offering at least 2GB space, totally free and of course, more if you recruit your friends.

Spideroak
http://spideroak.com

Box
http://box.net

Live Mesh 2011
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mesh?os=mac

Incidentally… In case you’re one of the few who haven’t jumped on the Dropbox bandwagon, grab yourself a free account with 2GB space here: http://db.tt/Ht6nwSi