Audio Polish for Games Panel
July 22,2014, Casual Connect Conference, San Francisco—A panel considered the factors that lead to good audio in games. Jesse Holt moderated the panel and panel members were Aaron Walz from Walz music and sound, Korby Sears a freelance composer, and Greg Rahm from Kabam.
The desired outcome of polishing the audio is to unify all the sounds and deliver a broadcast quality audio file that brings harmony to the whole game.
What do you listen for in voice over?
Walz considers equalization and balance and a good mix. The challenge is that different listening environments have different timbres.
Rahm acknowledged that mobile audio is hard due to the limited response of the speakers and the minimal processing power available. Important items to check include ads, volume, and the frequency ranges of all the inputs. The mobile speakers are only capable of reproducing the mid-range and lower parts of the high frequencies.
Research into mobile devices?
Sears commented that music needs to be addressed throughout the development. One big issue is the major difference in mix and balance between studio monitors and mobile devices. There is even a difference between iPads and iPhones in equalization. As a result, you have to master everything for any device.
Tools: studio monitors versus mobile devices?
Rahm stated that he creates on a laptop fro both phones and tablets. Unfortunately, even a laptop has better frequency response than a phone. The review process has to consider monitoring at the end of the path so any device is ok.
Software, plug-ins, localization, filters, equalization, spatial and stereo imaging?
Walz responded that equalization is the most useful tool, especially for mobile. It is important that there are no bumps in the response on the target devices. Most work in mixed in mono or stereo, so the spatial and localization tools are not too useful. The biggest issue is that the amount of compression causes all subtlety to be lost.
Frequency response?
Sears noted that all devices have access to ear buds for better audio, so this is something to consider in the final mix. Apple devices have the worst sound and sound crappy.
Rahm added that sound designers have very different listening skills than normal people, and can discern very little differences. It is important to consider the use cases for different markets.
Walz declared that mastering is important as are near-field monitors. The audio has to sound good on a good system, then gets reduced in quality for the various devices.
Sears mentioned that the master has to consider differences in devices and must map a frequency response geared to specific devices, e.g. iPad, iPhone, and multiple Android devices.
Holt talked about some other underlying technologies for game audio. Demonstrations \of HTML5 are still lacking and the web audio API is messy for sound effects for key-, ongoing-, and UI-sounds. These audio events need to change by feel, so music tracks for in-game, transitions, etc. have to be mixed and matched. All the sound events have to be checked for mix, balance, equalization, etc. pockets of sound per instrument or instance?
Sears described one of his pet peeves, a scene with lots of audio, like a battle, becomes just white noise with too much high frequencies in the mix. This high complexity sound mix needs to have the majority of sound sources low-pass filtered and only the highs for those weapons that need it.
Rahm suggested just evaluate the work and use your best efforts to adjust the mix for the target devices.
Walz stated that if it doesn’t sound polished, you have less than 10 seconds to get to a no go evaluation and possible loss of the sale. It is important to adjust the pace, mix, and other facets of the sounds to closely map to the game. A bumpy loop is bad, and a cash register sound is very bad.
