2014 was such a wonderful year for us. Among the many, many wonderful projects, The Chris McDonald Jazz Orchestra’s No Pews Required and two big album releases in Latin music, Oscar d’Leon’s Classicos de Big Band and Ricardo Arjona’s Viaje were especially fun to contribute to. (more…)
Category: Game Audio
Gundam Wing – Suiting Up For The Mix
At last I can share the latest video game release I worked on, Namco’s Gundam Wing: Blue Destiny, the newest side story remake in the Mobile Suit game set for PS3. The Gundams are mechanized battle suits (much as seen in Pacific Rim) which, along with their pilots, were made popular in Japanese comics, video and games. As you can imagine, there can be some pretty intense battles… I’d want to blow stuff up if I had a suit like that.
I mixed the score which includes some new orchestrations of the original themes as well as all new material all done by New York based composer/ orchestrator Zac Zinger (www.zaczingermusic.com). While most of the score is synthesrated (created with sampled orchestral instruments and sections,) Zac played all the winds live and added some live violin passes for enhanced phrasing. As the score is mostly battle music, the game directors wanted lots of percussion, lots of brass and lots of punch. The result is huge.
Below is the trailer for the game which, while it’s occasionally buried a bit beneath the sound design, features one of the cues from the new score. And while I’m working steadily on my Japanese, I have little idea what they are saying!
Pro Tools HD3 to HDX System Upgrade – A Survival Guide
Doing the right thing is rarely easy. But,”Am I doing the right thing?”… this was the question that plagued me as I broke the seal on my new Pro Tools HDX card. But let me back up a bit.
I’ve been running a Mac Pro 8 core with a PT HD3 system (48 ins 40 outs) since 2008 and it was a beast of a system. I do mostly audio production (most all of it being done at 96k,) but also do a fair amount of programming and composing so I run Vienna Ensemble Pro with a bunch of high quality (resource hogging) virtual instruments. The 8 core, running PT 8.1 on OS 10.6.8, did a great job keeping up, so I put off upgrading to PT10 as long as I felt I could.
Pro Tools 10 is sexy. I’ve been using it in other studios for quite a while now and while it didn’t blow me away running on an HD system, it is near unstoppable on a good HDX rig. Tracking an orchestra at Ocean Way Nashville recently, (more…)
Dan Rudin’s Audio Blog – Best Of The “How To’s”
Over the years, I’ve printed a few audio recording, midi and music business tutorials and “how to’s” that have received much positive response from readers. The other day I was having a difficult time locating one of the older posts for myself, so I decided to put together a short list of links to the favorites.
Thanks to those who’ve taken the time to email and continue discussions on these topics.
Midi and Tempo Mapping:
– Midi: Four Letter Word or Composer’s Best Friend?
– Are You Leading or Following
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GDC 2012 – Experienced
Each year, the GDC in San Francisco offers an incredible array of information, networking opportunities and chances to see friends old and new. GDC 2012 was certainly no different! Since the experience is so overwhelmingly broad, here are just a few highlights from my trip this year.
First off, there were a few stand-out presentations on Game Audio. The game audio community is comprised of some of the finest composers, engineers and sound designers working today and a few of those were on hand to share some experience in a presentation. (more…)
Software review – Audio Impressions’ Notatation Switchblade
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Audio Impressions’ Notatation Switchblade, here’s what I found:
Making accurate, readable score parts from DAW midi tracks takes a bit more know-how, elbow grease and time than most people are willing to devote. Among the biggest challenges from session to page are the optimum stemming of notes (the grouping of sub-divided beats to be most easily readable), dynamic markings and articulations. And when working with a copyist, any vagaries in your midi file can add up to extra charges while the copyist verifies all instrument, mute and articulation changes.
Enter Audio Impressions’ Notation Switchblade. The company claims that Switchblade can save you time by interpreting your midi data and simplifying some of these chores for you. Switchblade reads standard midi files (.smf) and outputs Music XML (MXML) for importing into score preparation apps like Finale and Sibelius. (more…)
Nashville Film, TV and Game Music Production Survey
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Are You Leading or Following?
How to make useful tempo maps for recording sessions, Part 2
Click tracks are often used in music recording, keeping ensembles playing tightly together and helping ensure that specific musical events happen exactly when they need to, as when scoring to picture. As discussed in part 1, a good tempo map will generate an audio click track that leads musicians easily and musically through performing a piece of music. (more…)
Midi: Four letter word or composer’s best friend?
Preparing and using midi files and tempo maps for live recording
If you’re a composer today, you’re often tasked with twice the work you once were. Not only are you composing a score, but also creating an elaborate virtual instrument mock-up (or even final master recording) of the composition at the same time. When you add all of the hybrid musical styles used in scoring for games or picture, you end up with an almost infinite number of combinations of work-flow, software, and virtual/live instrumentation to manage – all within the allotted time and budget.
If only there was a tool that could allow you to successfully manage all these tasks, from composition to final audio master.
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New site for Music Game Studio
Music Game Studio makes game play versions of artists songs for games like Rock Band, and we’ve got a brand new look!
The site has individual artist pages for our artists. Each has a photo, bio, links for more information, and of course links to their games! There is also a Video page; an easy to navigate, easy to watch collection of preview videos for all of our games. Come see our work in action, or just relax and listen to some great music.
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