Sound-Music-Interactive-Games

Article on the interactive music system in WWise.
http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=317

Audiokinetic's increasingly popular middleware is also now fully integrated with the Unreal 3 engine but unfortunately this capability seems only to be available to official developers - Boo !!

Music, Silence, Timbre

2008-11-30T13:53:00.004Z

Today's post is brought to you by a recent hard drive partitioning disaster and Music4games recent interview with Kevin Reipl.

M4G: What would you like to hear more of from game soundtracks?
Kevin Riepl: More silence, I think a lot of games use music too too much, playing and looping it constantly, under action sequences, under ambient settings, all over. As a gamer, I personally get more engulfed into a game when the sound design takes center stage to convey the environment. Of course I think music is an integral part of gameplay and story, it just seems that its used all too often as a blanket. When voice acting is top notch as is sound design, music can then be brought in to emphasize key story plots or important gameplay sequences.

Kevin's views about wanting more silence in games (or at least less music) is a surprisingly common comment from composers (both for games and films). In a thought provoking discussion (Mike Figgis - Walter Salles - Composer and director : Exploring the collaboration) Mike Figgis describes the over use of music in film like a kind of addiction.

Mike Figgis: ...a really important question for filmmakers is: When do you introduce your first piece of music on the film? And my experience is this, I try now not to put any music on for a long long, long time. Because I know that the minute I use fifteen seconds of music the film has lost its virginity, and has become a kind of sex maniac. In a way it just can’t have enough. And it has worked really well as a virgin up until that point, and then the minute you put something on you kind of go, wow, now it really sounds like a film, let’s get some more of that stuff. And then the temptation is just to wallpaper the entire film with delicious music that you have stolen from somewhere else.

One of music's most important roles in film is realised simply by being there. Stephen Deutsch, (Soundscapes : The school of sound lectures)

‘In most films , the appearance of any music at all is a signifier of emotional content. When the music comes on , we are told that the scene is invested with emotional significance and is different from those scenes which contain no music.’

So by having music there all the time in a game we are actually undermining it's effectiveness. (The increasingly blurred boundaries between 'musical' atmospheres and 'sound design' will have to wait until another post !)

Kevin goes on,

Also, I think video games need to stray away from trying to have the Hollywood sound. That certain sound that has become sort of a ‘brand’ in Hollywood is now heavily leaking into games and is causing many upon many of the games out there to sound very similar. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there is anything wrong with that style of music and by all means I am all for and love cinematic epic style writing and some games indeed call for that, but I honestly think if the industry as a whole had more confidence in being who they are and stopped trying to emulate film, it would allow composers more freedom and a wider palette to provide a signature sound for a game. Also, I think as an industry we have already met the standard of film and have passed it. Video games and film need to now head off in their own respective evolving direction.

I'm not one of those people who think that the only real 'game music' was from the glory days of 8-bit chip tunes but I think the point is well made. I was struck by how widespread the homogenisation of the 'Hollywood' score towards the orchestral template is when I tried to think of a single 'blockbuster' hollywood film in recent years that didn't have a full orchestral score (+ the obligatory pounding percussion) - I couldn't. If we look at the top grossing movies 2007 you can see what I mean (I can't speak for 'Wild hogs' as I haven't seen it and, unless trapped at 30,000 feet in some sort of in-flight-movie-hell, probably never will). (See also the USA top 100 box office films). In aspiring to create the 'blockbuster' game (particularly 1st / 3rd person shooters) it seems like game directors and producers are adopting a similarly myopic stance.

In the music history class during my first degree we were once given an assignment - 'Write the history of western music on the back of a postcard'. (I'm a great believer that if you really, truly understand something that you should be able to explain it simply and concisely - otherwise you don't really understand it, so this is in my view a great assignment to do on any subject !). Being immersed in the detail of music history at the time of course I thought it impossible, and failed miserably. Now however I think I may have at least a stab at fitting it onto the back of a postage stamp instead. The history of western music perhaps goes as follows :

Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Timbre.

Discuss.....

I think that in the age of timbre it is time that game producers had the confidence in their composers to allow them to use a wider palatte of instrumentation and sound. It's interesting to note how the film soundtracks that have explored this have become so influential (I'm talking about 'scored' movies here - not ones that use a lot of soundtrack music).

Morricone's 'westerns', Vangelis 'Blade Runner', Mancini's 'Pink Panther', Bernard Hermann's 'The day the earth stood still', and 'Taxi driver' (not to mention the unusual use of strings in 'Psycho') and other iconic scores are characterised not purely on their melodic / harmonic / rhythmic approach but by their instrumentation.

So a call for less music - more timbre ?

How does all this relate to my personal hard drive tragedy ? Well the drive that went down was the drive called 'Patches' that, in addition to having various commercial sample banks (which given endless patience I can reinstall), had numerous sample patches that I'd put together over the last few years. So given this discussion maybe it's a good impetus to get out the mic and start creating some new ones instead of reaching for the nearest 'Orchestral sample patch 101' ?

Faceache

2008-10-26T11:54:00.003Z

Now that's what I call interactive music !

In Space no one can hear you drone on about game audio

2008-10-22T22:03:00.005+01:00

I've heard the PC control scheme leaves something to be desired but I'm still looking forward to this game.

Original sound version interview

Music4Games

Another Music4Games - Interview with the composer Jason Graves

Interview about the technical implementation of the music with Don Veca.

Nobody likes to hear 'it's in the post'

2008-10-20T17:00:00.001+01:00

In a recent article in gamasutra by Alexander Brandon 'Next Gen Audio Square-off', Gene Semel, audio director of SCEA says,

'I foresee more robust real-time logic systems that will allow sound designers and production directors to actually make decisions and mix the game at a "post-production" like stage of development. '

Looking at examples like Scarface (Rob Bridgett Gamasutra postmortem, + mix magazine article here) the opportunities for 'mixing' the game audio soundscape, as opposed to treating it in the fixed way that has traditionally been the approach up until now, are really exciting.....

Scarface GDC 2007

(Another interesting discussion on game mixing on gameaudiopro here)

However we need be be careful not to wish the 'post-production' role upon ourselves anytime soon. (I'm pretty sure this is not what Gene really meant but let's discuss it anyway...). As I discussed in my related blog post what is needed is better , earlier integration with the planning and development stages, not to ape the unhealthy practices of many films.

Over on 'Sound-article-list' Randy Thom suggested reading an article from Film Journal International,
'Setting the scene : Inside the world of the production designer'

'Below is a link to an article on Production Design. Trying to imagine what it would be like as a sound designer to be taken even ten percent as seriously as a production designer, I think it's useful to learn as much as possible about their process with the director.'

(Read the full thread here)

Bob Kessler sums up a typical scenario,

'I work primarily on lo/no/micro budget projects. Most of the time I am retained after the first edit is completed, and that happens when the client realizes that there is more to sound than having an unpaid first-time PA with nothing better to do hold a cheap mic on a broomstick somewhere in the vicinity of the talent. That being the case I spend the bulk of my time doing noise reduction or incredibly painful ADR sessions and then adding what touches I can before a quick mix. On those rare occasions when I am consulted before shooting begins I mostly spend my time lobbying for them to hire a competent production sound team.'

Dave Stone also describes how the structure of film-making and the concept of sound as a post-production process mitigates against creative involvement.

It was refreshing to read Sande Chen's excellent article on Gamasutra and the call for a multidisciplnary approach.

'By espousing this multidisciplinary approach to narrative design, developers can elevate the art of game development as well as increase the bottom line. Meaningful games require advance planning, but players benefit much from the integration of story, art, gameplay, sound, and music. Using themes, narrative designers ensure that each play experience is not only immersive, but also a meaningful one....

If we're going to build really powerful games, we need interdisciplinary teams," says Sheri Graner Ray. As a freelance game designer and production consultant, Ray knows firsthand the level of collaboration that can occur when artists, writers, designers, programmers, and composers work together....

As with the narrative designer, Ray recommends bringing in a sound designer and/or composer early as part of an interdisciplinary team. She understands fully the power of sound and music in games. Just recently, she heard the notes from a once-favorite game and experienced an emotional pull back to those times. "I almost got misty over it," she recalls. "It was like a family reunion." Truly, the emotional heartbeat of a game can be heard through its music and sound design. Narrative designers can work with composers and sound designers to strengthen the emotional connection so that players always have a powerful and meaningful experience.'

So at a time when the technology seems to finally be there to allow us to play an equal role in the storytelling within games let us not be relegated to the 'post' production model of film.

I'll leave the last words to John Broomhall from this Music4games interview.

'I believe game audio pros have always taken inspiration from all other media. Looking at movies in particular, and thinking about the craft and artistry of sound design, there’s 80 years of development that I’m sure all of us in audio have drawn upon. It’s very exciting that, as technology barriers and constraints fall away, we’re all on more of a level playing field technically - and it’s the power of ideas that really matters. Whether film or games, we are all creating stories, emotional moments, intense action and drama – and sound is an amazing tool to deploy. ........

A few years back, it was a huge blast simply to bring virtual worlds to life – and realism was the watchword. As time progressed, we became able to create a dense literal description of the world with carefully placed sound emitters and x, y, z co-ordinates in 3D geometry spaces, sporting scientifically accurate acoustic reflections and reverberation. ......But what about the subjectively chosen sound treatments that are used purely to enhance and underscore drama and narrative? How many games have fully explored the potent force of sound that tells a story, provides exposition and characterization, leads navigation and drives primal emotional responses – sound that works beyond the literal using metaphor and suggestion?........

It seems to me that we have a job of evangelization to do and that’s something that needs to happen in every developer all over the world, week-to-week.'

Game Sound Book

2008-10-20T11:37:00.002+01:00

Karen Collins (of Gamesound.com) has written a rather good book !
I can highly recccommend it as probably the most academic (in a good way !) book on the subject so far. Particularly strong on dynamic and interactive music techniques it's a must read for anyone interested in game audio.

Multimodal Crisps

2008-10-02T10:37:00.013+01:00

I'm always interested in examples of multimodal perception so the recent Ig Nobel Prize awards caught my attention. Charles Spence won an award for his 'improbable research' on THE ROLE OF AUDITORY CUES IN MODULATING THE PERCEIVED CRISPNESS AND STALENESS OF POTATO CHIPS.
(Summary here.)

"We investigated whether the perception of the crispness and staleness of potato chips can be affected by modifying the sounds produced during the biting action. Participants in our study bit into potato chips with their front teeth while rating either their crispness or freshness using a computer-based visual analogue scale."

It was found that ,

"The potato chips were perceived as being both crisper and fresher when either the overall sound level was increased, or when just the high-frequency sounds (in the range of 2-20 kilohertz) were selectively amplified."

Ig Nobel Prize - BBC Coverage

In other words the sound associated with the crisps affected how they taste. (Charles has also done some work with the Chef Heston Blumenthal who has created a dish where the customers listen to the sounds of the sea whilst eating.)

This is not as bizarre as it sounds as our senses work together to help us perceive the world. There's some evidence that vision calibrates audio in terms of spacial information, sound calibrates vision in terms of temporal information as they are respectively more accurate in their different fields. Another classic example of the slightly bewildering outcomes of this is the McGurk effect.

Still not convinced ?Watch these two versions of these blobs moving across the screen. Without prompting most people see them as bouncing off eachother firstly, before a different version shows them flying past eachother. (Of course its just the same video with different sound)

It's clear that such multimodal perception permeates our culture when we think of statements such as 'That tastes very sharp', ' It's bitterly cold', 'That's a loud shirt'. There's also been the suggestion by some that the corss modal influence of shape and sound may form the original of spoken language - as shown by the Booba / Kiki effect.

If one of these shapes is called a booba, and the other a Kiki then which is which ? 95-98% of people agree - but why would they unless there is some sort of relationship between the visual shape and the sound of the word. (Great series of 'Reith Lectures' given by Vilayanur Ramachandran in which he discusses this here)

Why is any of this of more than passing interest to us as sound designers ? Well it's multimodal perception that allows us to do what we do, characterising a visual object through the bonding of sound and image (Synchresis ) or stretching the relationship between the audio and visual to create a sum that's greater than it's parts.

These ideas concerning multimodal perception are closely linked with the concept / condition of Synesthesia (wiki) where sensory information of one mode of perception is involutarily experienced through another. For example seeing letters of the alphabet in consistent colours, or experiencing sounds as taste.

This has a long history in the arts (Summary of 'visual music' colours and synesthesia in the arts)
and continues to hold a fascination for many, including Tetsuya Mizuguchi, designer of the game REZ.

Of which more another time ....

Golan Levin has a comprehensive bibliography of synestheia and phonesthesia research.
See also John Waterworth's The case for synaesthetic media, do Get your synesthesia patching on : vvvv adds music features

Gears of war 2

2008-09-26T21:59:00.002+01:00

Gears of war 2 - big crunchy sounds - yeah !
Developer diary - Touch the sound.

Audio Engineering Society - Audio for games !

2008-09-26T12:54:00.002+01:00

The Audio Engineering Society 35th International conference is on 'Audio for Games' !
Should be good. 11-13th Feb in London UK.

Earth's Sonic Mysteries from Noise Addicts

2008-09-15T20:01:00.004+01:00

'If you listen closely, you’ll find that the earth is full of sounds. Some are things that you hear every day, some are truly remarkable and some sounds hail from origins completely unknown. What follows here is a list of “sonic mysteries” for your pleasure - many of them include audio.'

Strange an mysterious Sounds from the Earth - Mistpouffers,hum,bloop,Hell Hole,slow down,wow | Noise Addicts music and audio blog

'Found sound'

2008-09-04T21:02:00.010+01:00

Taking Luigi Russolo's advice from 'The Art of Noises' Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) has worked on the latest VW Golf ad 'Rhythms of everyday'.

“We must break out of this narrow circle of pure musical sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise sounds.” (Russolo)

Making of here.

Reminscent of Coldcuts 'Timber' it mixes the use of found sounds with a close audio-visual integration.

Coldcut were / are (?) involved in the development of the VJamm software - here's an illustration of how they use it in their sets.

As well as being open to all kinds of sound sources the use of 'Found sound' can also raise political points such as in Matthew Herberts 'Plat du jour' which examines problems in our food chain through the use of related sounds to create the music itself.

'I am tired of having to tolerate the international language of cheap convenience food - convenient mainly to those that make and serve it. The bright pinky orange of farmed salmon in aeroplane trays, the branded waters 1000 times more expensive than tap water, the dismal spread of the hotel breakfast buffet, with its pre-formed meat slices, pasteurised juices, mechanically produced bread and nestle yoghurts full of sugar and potassium sorbate…

This record then, aims to tell some of the hidden stories behind the overly-elaborate and wasteful packets. It looks at what's on the menu and asks you to makes decisions based on criteria other than taste. The album will include tracks made from a grain of sugar, 30,000 chickens, a salmon farm, the sewers below London and water.'

Similarly Matmos' album 'A chance to cut is a chance to cure' uses sounds recorded during plastic surgery procedures (not for the squeamish). (Good interview with Matmos here.)

On a games related note below is a track made by using the weapon sounds from 'Call of Duty' by Serpento.

Portal and Vocal Characterisations

2008-08-30T22:43:00.008+01:00

Coming late to the Portal party I have to say I really enjoyed the game although all the flying through the air and flipping around did make me a little queasy at times. There's been a lot of comment on the great voice characterisation of Glados and of course the now infamous Portal Song - don't watch this unless you've completed the game as it will spoil it !

There was some discussion of how the process was done at Engine Audio but it seems to have disappeared and so below is a youtube version instead :

There are a couple of ideas about how to recreate the effects here and CosmicD has done a tutorial on how to recreate the vocal effect using Melodyne (while your there look at the video doc on their new 'direct access' technology - impressive and certain to result in a flurry, more like slurry, of crazy remixes featuring Girls Aloud singing Bach Cantatas etc).

Whilst GlaDOS is great she still doesn't beat my favorite menacing-female-sci-fi-type-character Shodan from System Shock.

If you enjoyed the game then don't forget to check out the flash version and 'Still Alive' for the NDS. Also the highly amusing 'Day in the life of a turret'.

Don't try this at home ! Warhammer music.

2008-07-31T10:42:00.001+01:00

Came across this video via originalsoundversion blog. Probably not a good idea !

Wall-E Sponsored by Mac ?

2008-07-21T20:57:00.005+01:00

Unusually Ben Burtt as sound designer has been doing the promotional rounds for the film 'Wall-E'. (See my previous post). A great film with as you would expect some really nice vocal type sound characterisations.

A smirk was raised by Wall-E's 'reboot' sound which is uncannily similar to the Mac startup sound - a bit of an in-joke I guess. Reminded me of this related prank.

More on the mac startup sound here. I'm obviously not the first to notice this ! More on Mac referenced in Wall-E here.

Name That Game - Game sounds quiz

2008-06-25T12:46:00.002+01:00

The Video Game Revolution: Name That Game | PBS

I did particularly badly in this - not enough ZX Spectrum classics !

Game editors - Fun and Art ?

2008-06-24T09:48:00.003+01:00

This looks fun, but I don't know if anybody is still playing Quake III. Probably a few dedicated people left ?

Simpsons map for Quake III Arena - Boing Boing

As these game editors are so easy to use I'm surprised not to see a lot more experimental or artistic work taking place using them. I'm working on an installation using the Unreal 3 engine right now but haven't seen a great deal of other stuff.

I love this work by Alison Mealey (interview here) that uses Unreal Tournament processes to generate visual art.

Kurt Hentschläger has produced this work 'KARMA/cell' using the Unreal 3 engine.

There's a large array of digital art taking place in Second Life but if anyone knows of other game engine based work - let me know !

Audio-visual-physical

2008-06-22T12:00:00.004+01:00

This installation (Light Rain - wowlab)

reminded me of some of my favourite work by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman
- 'Messa di Voce'

When are we going to get this sort of stuff for the eyetoy ?

Sampling, synthesis and software instrument links

2008-06-19T13:02:00.007+01:00

Reaktor

Create digital music - Frankenloop and more

Grain delays

Sequencing

Creative Sampling

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec98/articles/creatsamp.318.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan99/articles/creatsamp.743.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jun94/sampling.html

Vst Instruments
http://www.kvraudio.com/

Richard Jacques On Game Music's Past, Present, And Future

2008-06-16T20:12:00.004+01:00

Gamasutra - Staying In Tune: Richard Jacques On Game Music's Past, Present, And Future

There's some implicit criticism here from the interviewer of the current trend toward ochestral scoring of games in favour of what is referred to as a more 'iconic' style. I'm not really sure what is meant by this but I'm guessing it's an argument in favour of game music sounding like 'game music'.

I can remember the theme songs of those older games, and part of it is, as you said, probably because I had to play through the levels so many times.

RJ: Yeah, the exposure...

But still, it's somewhat disturbing to me that I can't call to mind the music of recent games, a lot of them. Exceptions are like Halo, but that's partially because you have to wait on that loading screen for such a long time.

I'd certainly support as wide a variety of scores as is appropriate to the games but I think we should remember that game music, like film music, is part of a unified experience. Perhaps if you can clearly remember the themes then it is drawing attention to itself too much ?

I don't think music in games is going to be as memorable or invest itself with real emotional meaning until it is truly 'interactive' and at one with the scene' rather than 'reactive' (see 'Hellgate London" post below!).

KUNG FU PANDA

2008-06-15T22:08:00.006+01:00

Courtesy of filmsounddaily a couple of articles on Kung Fu Panda. Even in this streamed example is does sound great !

filmsound daily: KUNG FU PANDA pt.2

Some nice ideas for WHOOSHES (+ don't forget this)
And discusion of working closely with the music in terms of negotiating separate frequency bands to avoid 'sonic mud'.

Hellgate London - Music 'Interactive' or 'Reactive'

2008-06-15T21:00:00.012+01:00

Music4games great article on the music for Hellgate London by David Steinwedel.

Where our system shines is in micro-managing music. It allows for constant music cue changes according to the scope of a battle and how it’s going for the player. We can write cues and stingers for specific actions and conditions and switch to them instantaneously. As our audio programmer says, “It’s a good reactive music system.” And he’s right in most cases. However there are times when music needs to be proactive, looking ahead at what’s coming.

Here's the challenge of 'interactive' music. How do you build toward and anticipate an event (as film music does so effectively) when the player is in control, and therefore you don't actually know when that event is going to happen ?

I was playing Half Life 2 : Episode 2 recently. Excellent game and great, very sparing, use of music. However the game / music symbiosis remains clumsy. When the 'bad guys' appear the music kicks in. Great - this works really well, giving a real emotional significance to the encounter (in contrast to most of the game which is played without music). And when I kill the last one the music fades out. But we need this to work better. I want the music to hit a climax at the exact moment of my coup de grace and then subside as the creature falls to the ground. How can we possibly do this with the music? My last bullet is not going to coincide nicely with a beat or barline. No, what the designers need to do is to actually engineer the music / game to work together. Do I really know exactly how many bullets will kill it ? Will I notice the difference between 17 and 19 ? Would it matter if the game engine actually said - well officially this monster should die right now but I'm just going to hold off for .75 of a second until that point comes along and then do it - BANG ! A gold star to the brave composer who suggests that to their producer !

Here's an example from the otherwise brilliant Half Life 2 Episode 2 of the problem.

Mario music crazyness !

2008-06-12T18:46:00.005+01:00

Amazing but conclusive proof that some people have far too much time on their hands !

Custom mario levels by IsoTkh
Discovered courtesy of boing boing and Tom Jackson.

Related but unrealated - Mario composer Koji Kondo discusses his approach to composition.
Mario Maestro shares his secrets (GDC 2007)

DSP plugins and real-time mixing for games

2008-06-12T08:50:00.005+01:00

Guy Whitmore talks to John Broomhall in develop this month (here) about using the greater processing power of current gen consoles for real time effects. Guy has a permenant place on my list of games audio genius's for his score to 'No one lives forever', probably still one of the most convincing adaptive games scores out there, and certainly the one that first convinced me it was possible. He discusses it on the IASIG site.

It's great to hear them discussing the reasons why the adoptiong of real time DSP and mixing is vital and that is to move away from the very fixed way in which games audio is usually treated.

John Broomhall: As for dynamic mixing – presumably we also want to get funky with fader moves and DSP behaviours (in response to game variables we’re polling) for purely creative, moment-enhancing, subjective-effect reasons?

Guy Whitmore: Yes - I think most dynamic mix decisions would be based on emotional subjective things rather than realism. For me, mixing for games is way too stuck in a literal distance-based approach – everything getting quieter the further away it is, regardless of how important it is. We need a re-think and again, to me, DSP is a very important component, particularly when you’re getting into ‘I want this section to feel dreamy the second time’ or ‘I want the player to suddenly feel the sadness of the character’s feeling’. It’s the same type of emotional choices a sound designer for a movie might make but working in a non-linear context…

If you listen to a film soundtrack there is often a deliberate attempt to highlight the story through a manipulation of the soundtrack, for example by hearing the filmworld through one of the characters' subjective point of view. (Read Randy Thom's 'Designing a movie for sound' for more thoughts on this subject + all of filmsound.org while you're there !). When audio in games is treated as a fixed system we miss out on all of these creative opportunities.

Whilst working on a game I was once pleasantly surprised to come across a game designer who'd actually thought about sound.. At a certain point (when the player was crawling through an air duct above a room full of hostiles - classic !) he wanted all the sound to fade out and just to highlight the players movements and breathing in this confined space. Great idea (he'd obviously recently watched Bressons 'A man escaped') but impossible to do with our then 'state of the art' audio engine without significant amount programming time (and of course that wasn't going to happen was it !).

Over the past few years I've noticed a few specific instances where the audio system has started to become more flexible (in the now ubiquitous 'Shell Shock' effect - volume down + filtered sounds after proximity to an explosion - first noticed by me in the original 'Call of duty' but probably used somewhere before then) so lets hope this is a continuing trend.

Ben Burtt

2008-05-28T19:18:00.012+01:00

Here's an interview with one of the Godfathers of Sound Design, Ben Burtt.
Filmsound daily: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL pt.2

Lots of interviews here courtesy of Sven E Carlsson of filmsound.org fame

Another video doc on the Crystal skull found courtesy of UnidentifiedSoundObject

More from Ben Burtt - This time on Wall.E. also discussions in this Studio360 interview and this San Francisco Chronicle article.

You can see him manipulating a graphics tablet in one of his video interviews. I believe this is probably the Kyma system. he talks a little about how its set up in this interview - moviesonline.

Links to more articles via 'Create digital music'

Nice slightly related Creature sound deisgn article by Darren Blondin here.

Wall-E

Troels B. Folmann

2008-05-28T18:58:00.002+01:00

Interviews discussing his approach to composing music for games.
Courtesy of FilmSoundDaily.org

Generative music for games

2008-05-28T18:56:00.011+01:00

Some have argued that to be truly reponsive, and indeed interactive, music for games will need to be increasingly based on generative systems. Existing systems are already 'generative' in the sense that they generate new content based on rules (even if that is just to the extent of recombining randomly chosen elements). Perhaps we'll see a more low level example of generative game music in the procedurally based 'Spore'

GameSpy: The Beat Goes on: Dynamic Music in Spore

Will Wright and Brian Eno interview

In other news on the generative front is the announcement of new formats for 'Interactive Music' Computer Music. Perhaps people are bored with the idea of music as a fixed, repeatable phenomenan. Instigated by the advent of sound recording 130 years ago perhaps this was just a curious blip in the history of music. Brian Eno puts it better than I could.

"Until 100 years ago, every musical event was unique: music was ephemeral and unrepeatable and even classical scoring couldn't guarantee precise duplication. Then came the gramophone record, which captured particular performances and made it possible to hear them identically over and over again.

But now there are three alternatives: live music, recorded music and generative music. Generative music enjoys some of the benefits of both its ancestors. Like live music it is always different. Like recorded music it is free of time-and-place limitations - you can hear it when and where you want.

I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: "you mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?"

(More on generative music here and here. Noatikl, generative music software and heir to Koan here)

It could be argued that a similar situation is arising with 'passive' film watching vs 'interactive' gameplaying. (I'm sure you've all read the comparisons of GTAIV's opening weekend profits / Hollywood movies etc). Obviously it's not that these forms are going to suddenly die out (after all people still paint don't they ??) but I'd be surprised if interactive gaming has not replaced film as the mainstream lesuire activity within the next 50 years. .. I digress..

Given that the kind of manipulation offered by these formats (MPX4, MT9) would necessitate the avaiability of multiple audio channels (and consequently imply huge file sizes) I can't help thinking that this might imply the return of midi ! It would seem crazy to maintain the current approach of :

Indeed this very issue was raised by Jason Page and Michael Kelly (of Sony computer entertainment) in their suggestion that Midi is the future of game audio.

Some more discussion of this topic here (including an answer to the old "but midi sounds rubbish" chestnut !)

The most exciting / promising development afoot from real control over interactive music (strictly 'generative' or not) is of course the development of the ixmf format. There are many people looking forward to the first implementation of a tool for this - although this may take some time to appear ! In the meantime we can pine over the much neglected DirectMusic Producer.

Unreal Tournament 3 - Sound and Music

2008-05-28T14:39:00.001+01:00

Lately I've been getting up to speed with the new Unreal engine's sound and music capabilities.
Much more user friendly than UT2004 and with real scope for some interesting projects.

Interview with the composers

The Game Audio Explosion - A Guide to Great Game Sound

2008-05-28T11:54:00.001+01:00

Two part article on Game Audio by Steve Kutay
'the co-founder of Radius360, an award-winning audio post production company, specializing in sound for film and games, located in Los Angeles, California.'

Part 1
Part 2

Surround sound in games

2008-05-27T21:06:00.003+01:00

Interview with Rik Ede focussing on surround sound in games.

Music 4 Games -- The Future of Rock n' Roll & Interactive Entertainment. Est. 1999.

Game Music goes mainstream !

2008-02-17T19:50:00.004Z

The Guardian had an article on game music last friday.

I have to agree with them that Bioshock's use of diegetic music is very effective at adding a real depth to the world. I don't think I've come across as good an example of the use of source music in games since Mafia's evocative use of Django Reinhart. It will be interesting to see how roles such as the Music supervisors used in film may start to emerge for games as well.

'Reality' in documentary sound

2008-01-12T20:27:00.001Z

A few articles recently have got me thinking about the public perception of sound as representing 'reality' - particularly in documentary and news context. The big hoo-har at UK BBC and ITV stations in recent months about 'fake' competition results and phone-in scandals has led to a bit of a media witch hunt to find example examples of 'fakeness'. Here's one about sound being dubbed onto a news broadcast - ironically probably originally intended to make the situation represented more 'real'. I read an article some time ago about a filmaker choosing to leave in clipped distortions of explosions in a film because it also made it seem more 'real' as we have become used to that sound through war reporting bulletins.

There seems to be at least some awareness that the notion that 'the camera never lies' is deeply flawed but not as much about the manipulation of audio. The fact that our hearing (or rather listening) mechanisms give us a completely subjective experience of the world and that a recorded soundtrack must be one persons interpretation of this is not as much discussed but has great implications for the choices a 'reality' (news / documentary) film maker must make.

Somebody should write an interesting article about this sometime :)

(There's some nice discussion of using documentary sources for the soundtrack of 'The Kite Runner' here.)

Mix Online - New game audio supplement

2008-01-12T20:21:00.001Z

Mix Online are apparently starting up a game audio supplement - the first sample of which is here.

Feb issue out here

Mix Game Audio Homepage .

+ Short podcast on games audio here courtesy of The reboot.

Unreal 3 Audio engine

2007-12-08T13:30:00.000Z

These videos from creative labs look at the implementation of audio in the Unreal 3 engine.
The UT2004 was pretty weak in terms of sound in it's basic incarnation (although many developer extended this significantly for their own games) so I'm looking forward to seeing what they've come up with.

Film music links

2007-12-08T13:18:00.017Z

General
See also 'Film Music' Section here

Music for the movies : Bernard Herrmann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX46Z8VAF7E&feature=related

Music for the movies : The Hollywood sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCEqRdEU7vI&feature=related

Randy Newman Interview

http://www.randynewman.com/toclittlecriminals/littlecriminalstidbits/filmtvmanners

Hans Zimmer

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=41337E7EBD7311FC&search_query=hans+zimmer+interview

John Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsbKZnaT8E

List of leitmotifs

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Leitmotif

Elfman style

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/features/elfman.asp

Senior VP for music universial picturtes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-esS80tsplw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkViKwUaZx0&feature=related

Michael Kamen on Robin Hood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMxypoEAlik&feature=related

Bobby Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ivlqmH1xwY&feature=related

The incredibles scoring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgl2g0XhBTE&feature=related

John Williams – Saving private ryan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDq1gETo18w&feature=related

Jerry goldsmith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAhZP9BpPG8&feature=related

Lots of movie composer interviews

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2AEAC76E9C054CB9&search_query=featurette+composer&page=2

General intro

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Film_score
The Process of Film Scoring with Richard Davies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLdg5MU7sgk&feature=youtube_gdata

Making a living from music for picture (Sound on Sound articles)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Orchestration and Instrumentation
Italian Terms used in Music (See Dynamics, and Techniques Sections).

Interesting little documentary about Marco Baltrami's score for 3:10 to yuma particaularly his imaginative use of instrumentation, no doubt inspired by his mentor Ennio Morricone. Mix Magazine interview with Ennio Morricone.This theme is also picked up on in another short doc with Marco and Tommy Lee Jones about their collaboration on 'Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'. (Related article on the sound for 3:10 here.)

Midi Orchestration
Scoring March of the Dinosaurs
From Mockup to Orchestration
Garrtian solo violin demo

Northern sounds forum

Principles of orchestration

Videos of orchestral performances

Garritan Philharmonic Orchestra Features / techniques

Garritan General tips / tutorials

Garritan Rimsky-Korsakov orchestration course

Sampling midi orchestration scoring pirates of the carribean 3

Sample libraries
Vienna symphonic library

Vienna special edition

Garritan

Halion symphonic orchestra

Kontakt
Kontakt 4 Orchestral Library Info
Syncing
Cue excel sheet calculator http://www.richardbrice.net/cue_calc.htm
Miguel d’Oliveira looks at the history of using streamers and punches to provide cues for orchestra conductors scoring movies and looks at more recent digital methods of providing the same cues

Cubase tutorial video files

http://www.steinbergusers.com/cubase/cubase_vguides.php
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/articles/cubasetech_0710.htm
Marker Tracks and Timewarp Tutorial

Sound on sound articles

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov05/articles/cubasetech.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec05/articles/cubasenotes.htm

Logic tutorial video files
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep10/articles/logic-0910.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul07/articles/logictech_0707.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY62_fbwkTc&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL265AC51F7AC1B1B5
Working with Video Tips

Extracting DVD to vob files (PC)
Dvdfab http://www.dvdfab.com/download.htm
Dvdshrink http://www.dvdshrink.org/
Dvd decryptor http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/

Extracting DVD to mov or avi (Mac)
Handbrake http://handbrake.fr/

Converting vob (or all) to avi / mov etc
MPEG streamclip http://www.squared5.com/

Converting between video filetypes or changing video compression codecs
Virtualdub http://www.virtualdub.org/
Open video file. Choose ‘Video / Compression’ (ctrl + p).

Recommend DivX or Xvid (or any other of your choice). Then ‘File / Save as avi’
Super http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
Online video conversion http://vixy.net/, http://www.mediaconverter.org/

Identifying video codecs
GSpot http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Rendering to video

If your DAW won't allow you to render the audio and video out together as a video file then export your music as a stereo Wav before using one of the methods below to add it to your video.

- For Cubase File / Export / Audio Mixdown, then File / Replace Audio in Video File.
- Both iMovie and Windows Movie Maker willallow you to add your soundtrack to the video.

- In Adobe Audition you can insertyour video into the Multitrack view, then add your wav, andthen export the movie.
- In Virtualdub - open movie then choose ‘Audio’/ ‘Wav audio’ and add your track. Then ‘Save as avi’.

Don’t forget to check to compression onyour final video. See above - Converting between video filetypes orchanging video compression codecs ).

Trigger Happy (The inner life of videogames) FREE!

2007-11-21T14:27:00.000Z

News courtesy of wemakemoneynotart that Steven Poole's excellent book 'Trigger happy' has been made available for free download. A link to the download + copies of all of Steven's articles for Edge magazine are available here.

'Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It was first published in 2000; this is the revised edition with the Afterword written in 2001. It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only. I’m not sure how limited that time will be, so grab it while it’s hot.'

Film : No country for old men

2007-11-18T14:08:00.000Z

Saw the Coen Brothers new film 'No country for old men' yesterday . Like their other films it's a great example of a film designed with sound in mind and consequently worthy of study (as well a being an excellent film of course !). I was struck by the way the film engaged the audience with the act of active listening again and again, making us focus in on the smallest sounds before hitting us with a shocking dynamic contrast. Best supporting actor role should almost go to the wind in this film, used very evocatively at a number of key points throughout.

There's some discussion from filmsounddaily here.
Some more here.

Hans Peter Kuhn - Artist talk in Leeds Nov 20th

2007-11-16T15:44:00.000Z

Sound / Light artist Hans Peter Kuhn is giving a talk at Leeds college of art and design next tues 20th Nov.

http://www.leedsinitiative.org/default.asp?initiativeIdentifier=20021224_3292263

Location and production sound recording

2007-11-13T12:17:00.010Z

Great post from filmsounddaily on the issues and challenges surrounding location recording on Ridley Scott's American Gangster.
Location recording videos Rob Noakes
1 , 2

Call of duty weapon recording

Equipment emporium Inc guide to production sound

A beginners guide to field recording by West Latta Part 1, Part 2

More articles

Quiet on set please !
Location Sound Mixing
Ric Viers Location Videos

ipod rhythm action

2007-11-07T12:57:00.000Z

News courtesy of createdigitalmusic comes of a new ipod based rhythm action game Phase. Like vib ribbon and dance factory you can use you own music to generate gameplay - presumably derived from some form of signal analysis.

I guess it must be something in the air ... 'Beats' for PSP.

Blitz games open days

2007-11-07T09:27:00.000Z

The games company Blitz are running their open days again this year. For those of you wanting to find out more about working in the games industry they are an invaluable experience. I went last year and found them to be a really nice bunch of people who genuinely care about the development and well-being of their staff - not a bad place to work then !!

Blitzgames

Sounds of science

2007-11-04T19:08:00.001Z

A couple of great programmes from radio 4.

' Acoustic Engineer Trevor Cox takes us on a two-part journey into the world of acoustics research, starting with the sounds we love to hate.'
' Exploration using sound is carried out across science, from inspecting the structural integrity of bridges, to testing sea temperatures to measure global warming.'

Always amusing - Star wars spoof

2007-11-03T10:56:00.000Z

Via Unidetified Sound Object

An embarassment of festivals in yorkshire

2007-11-02T20:45:00.000Z

Starting weds 7th Nov 'Leeds international film festival' - of most interest to those of an audio-visual / exprimental bent is the Nexus strand.

A week later on weds 14th Nov the 'Bradford animation festival' kicks off which features a gaming strand.

Last but by no means least is the 'Huddersfield Contemporary music festival' 16th - 25th Nov.

Layered music in Splinter Cell double agent

2007-10-28T19:34:00.001Z

Michael McCann discusses the layering approach to interactive music he used for Splinter Cell Double agent.

http://uk.music.ign.com/articles/741/741211p1.html

These stress cues are extremely static. Aside from random effects throughout (percussion, small string builds, vocals, etc.) the primary layers are totally steady and non-dynamic. The reasoning for this is that they can be made dynamic in the game. If there are 15 instruments in the stress cue, they can all be treated independently and rise / fall as Sam approaches and engages danger. So if it's a steady orchestra line or percussion element, it can rise as Sam comes up behind an enemy and continue to build right up to the point of engagement. When I saw this work in the game for the first time I was blown away, especially by the interaction between 'stress' builds and the calmer infiltration underneath.

The last main challenge was the cinematics. As I was saying before, many of the Xbox 360 cinematics are interactive. Basically you come into the scene with a synced cue - scored direct to picture - then you move to a loop-able part, then back to image sync, then to loop, then to ending. All the endings and loops have to be dynamic, meaning the player chooses when he moves to the next step, so the music has to be written to allow changes at any time. This was probably the hardest thing I've ever done musically - in comparison it makes scoring a film a walk in the park!

Other interviews on the same subject 1 2

Interactive music videos

2007-10-25T14:31:00.001+01:00

Arcade fire 'interactive video'

I'm guessing this might be done with quartz composer ?

Game Sound Design Links

2007-10-25T13:15:00.021+01:00

Our blog posts relating to Game Sound Design

Main links
Game Audio Relevance Links

Game Developers Conference

The Game Audio Podcast
Kenneth Young's Gamesound

Karen Collin's Gamessound

Game Audio Network Guild

Gamasutra Audio articles

Develop Magazine Articles

Mix Magazine's Game Audio Supplements
Lost Chocolate Lab + Lost Chocolate Blog
Designing Sound
Rob Bridgett Lectures
Project BBQ

Various
Everything you ever wanted to know about footsteps !
Mixing for games - AMPS Panel Discussion MP3
A beginners guide to adaptive audio for games
The Sounds of Skyrim
Next-Gen Audio Square-Off: PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360
Microsoft games studios audio director Guy Whitmore on DSP plugins for the 360

Creating an interactive audio environment

Producing audio for Halo

Challenges in sound design for interactive media

Audio design documents

Singstar

James Hannigan's writings

Harnessing the power of music and sound design in interactive media

Sound Design resource

Oblivion game audio diary

Weapon recording for games audio

Extract from ‘Audio Programming for interactive games’

Rail Simulator and EAX

Call of duty

Sound design for Call of Duty PSP

Audio at electronic arts

Tips for game sound designers

Sound for the Playstation 2

Sound design for Heavenly Sword

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

Gears of war 2

Little big planet
Game audio article in 'Electronic Musician' By Nick Peck

Vehicle sound design

Car / Vehicle sounds for games
Sound for flatout 2

Capturing engine sounds for games
Various links from TrackTimeAudio
Rev - Procedural modelling for engines

Game Sound Acoustics

Audio concepts in plain English

Modern audio technologies in games

Mixing

http://gameaudiomix.com/

Panel discussion GDC Canada

Old Skool / Solutions for small / Mobile
Brian Schmidt on an ingeneous old skool solutions for the XBox start up sound.
FMod for Android

Sound artist talk at Common Place Leeds Sun 28th Oct

2007-10-25T09:21:00.000+01:00

"Hello all, on Sunday October 28th Janek Schaefer will be giving a talk and performance at The Common Place, Leeds

This is a rare opportunity to spend the evening with one of the UK's finest sound artists, follow this link for details

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5626710582

Janek Schaefer;
While studying architecture at the Royal College of Art RCA annual prize, he recorded the fragmented noises of a sound activated dictaphone travelling overnight through the Post Office. That work, titled 'Recorded Delivery' [1995] was made for the 'Self Storage' exhibition Time Out critics choice with one time postman Brian Eno and Artangel.

Since then the multiple aspects of sound became his focus, resulting in many releases, installations, soundtracks for exhibitions, and concerts using his self built/invented record players with electroacoutisc collage. The 'Tri-phonic Turntable' 1997 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the 'World's Most Versatile Record Player'. He has performed, lectured and exhibited widely throughout Europe [Sonar, Tate Modern, ICA], USA/Canada, [The Walker, XI, Mutek, Princeton], Japan, and Australia Sydney Opera House.

The context of each idea is central to its development and resolution. His concerts and installations explore the spatial and architectural aspect that sound can evoke and the twisting of technology. Hybrid analogue and digital techniques are used to manipulate field recordings with live modified vinyl and found sound to create evocative and involving environments. His CD 'Above Buildings' 2000 was released on Fat Cat to considerable praise The Guardian CD of the week.

Janek was selected as the 'Sound Designer of the Year' by Creative Review in 1999, and was awarded the 'McKnight Composer in Residence' for the American Composers Forum, USA 2002/3. He won an 'Honorary Mention' [Above Buildings, 2001] and an 'Award of Distinction' [Skate, 2004] at the Prix Ars Electronica competition.

This truly is a rare opportunity, not to be missed.

Date:
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Time:
7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location:
The Common Place
Street:
23-25 Wharf Street
City/Town:
Leeds"

Game audio development tools and middleware

2007-10-23T21:55:00.000+01:00

fmod

Wwise
Article in mix magazine

XACT

Directmusic Producer

Articles in mix magazine by Alex Brandon looking at all of these and more !
1 2 3

Evoke - sound to light

2007-10-22T20:14:00.002+01:00

Installation by Usman Haque in York, UK - audiovisual.

http://www.haque.co.uk/evoke.php

DVD's with sound / music commentaries of documentaries

2007-10-21T15:30:00.001+01:00

DVD’s with sound design commentaries and documentaries

Seven – Sound design commentary

A Bugs Life (2CD edition): Isolated 5.1. Sfx track. + Documentary

Monsters Inc special edition : Isolated SFX track

LOTR – Extended editions. Sound design Documentaries

THX1138 – Commentary by Walter Murch

Underworld – Technical commentary incl. Sound design

Alien – Alternate score and production sound track – compare production sound with post production

The Conversation – Commentary by Walter Murch

Terminator 2 Ultimate edition – No commentary but good documentaries

Das Boot – Directors commentary has lots of discussion of sound

Bourne identity – Short doc and interactive sound mix

DVD's with music commentaries and documentaries

Final fantasy : Composer commentary / Isolated Score

Hollow Man : Composer commentary

The 6^th Day : Composer commentary

Edward Scissor hands : 10^th anniversary edition – Composer commentary

Seven : Composer commentary

Planet of the apes : Composer commentary

A bugs life : Isolated score

War of the worlds (Speilberg) Special edition : 'Scoring war of the worlds' Short doc featuring John Williams.

P.Williams Amazon list of DVD's with sound design features

Comprehensive list (in German)

Books, Journals, and Conferences

2007-10-21T15:27:00.011+01:00

Game Audio specific
Conferences, Journals, papers
Game Developers Conference
Audio Engineering Society
Audio Mostly
Digra

Magazines
Edge
Develop Magazine
Audio-Media Magazine
Game Developer Magazine

Books
See also : http://www.thegameaudiotutorial.com/biblinks.html

Boulanger,R., Lazzarini, V. & Mathews, M. (2010) The Audio ProgrammingBook. Har/DVD. MIT Press.

Brandon, A. (2004) Audio for Games: Planning, Process, and Production. New Riders Games.
Bridgett, R. (2010) From the Shadows of Film Sound : Cinematic Production & Creatuve Process in Video Game Audio. Blurb. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1658613
Collins, K. (2008) Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. MIT Press.
Collins, K. (2008) From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media. 5th ed. Ashgate.
Grimshaw, M. (2010) Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments. Information Science Reference. (Available Online)
Jorgensen, K. (2009) A Comprehensive Study of Sound in Computer Games: How Audio Affects Player Action. Edwin Mellen Press Ltd.
Marks, A. (2008) Game Development Essentials: Game Audio Development. 1st ed. Delmar Publishing.
Marks, A. (2008) The Complete Guide to Game Audio: For Composers, Musicians, Sound Designers, Game Developers. 2nd ed. Focal Press.
Sanger, G. (2003) The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness. illustrated edition. New Riders.
Stevens, R. & Raybould, D. (2011) The Game Audio Tutorial: A Practical Guide to Sound and Music for Interactive Games. 1st ed. Focal Press.

Film Sound
The New SoundTrack Journal
OffScreen

Altman, Rick.(1992) Sound theory / Sound Practice, Routledge.
Amyes, Tim. (1990) Audio Post-Production in Video and Film. Focal Press.
Beauchamp, R (2005) Designing sound for animation, Focal Press.
Beck, J. Grajeda, T (Eds) (2008) Lowering the boom : Critical studies in film sound. University of Illinois Press.
Chion, M.. (1990) Audio Vision, Columbia University Press.
Chion, M. (2009) Film; a Sound Art, Columbia University Press.
Emmett, H. (2010). Sounds to Die For: Speaking the Language of Horror Film Sound, Flaithulach.
Holman, Tomlinson. (2010) Sound for Film and Television, Focal Press.
Kenny, Tom. (2000) Sound for Picture, Artistpro.com.
Lobrutto, Vincent. (1998) Sound on Film, Greenwood Press.
Mott, Robert. (2008) Radio Sound Effects: Who Did It, and How, in the Era of Live Broadcasting, McFarland & Co Inc.
Ondantje, Michael. (2004) The Conversations, Alfred A. Knopf.
Purcell, J. (2008) Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures, Focal Press.
Rose, Jay. (2008) Audio Post Production for digital video, Focal Press.
Sider, L (ED). (2003) SoundScapes: School of sound seminar articles, The School of Sound.
Sonnenschien, D. (2001) Sound Design, Michael Wiese Productions.
Viers, R. (2008) The Sound Effects Bible, Michael Wiese Productions.
Weiss, E. and Belton, J(Ed) (1985) Film sound, Columbia University Press.
Whittington, W. (2007) Sound Design and Science Fiction. Univeristy of Texas Press.
Yewdall, D. (2007) The Practical Art of Motion picture Sound, Focal Press.

Film Music
Music and the moving image journal
MUSIC and IMAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY Gillian B. Anderson and Ronald H. Sadoff

Adorno. (2007) Composing for the films. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
David Bell. (1994) Getting the best score for your film, Silman-James Press.
Burt, G. (1996) The art of film music. Northeastern University Press.
Carlin, F. Wright, R. (1990) On the track, Schirmer Books.
Cohen, A. (2010) Music as a source of emotion in film in Music and Emotion. Oxford University Press.
Davis, R. (1999) Complete guide to film scoring, Berklee Press.
Dickinson, K. (2002) Movie Music: The Film Reader, Routledge.
Gorbman, C. (1987) Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music, John Wiley & Sons.
Hagen, E. (1995). Advanced Techniques for film scoring, Alfred Publishing Co.
Harper, G et al (2009) Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media, Continuum.
Powrie, P. Stillwell, R. (2005) Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-Existing Music in Film, Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Reay, P. (2004) Music in Film: Soundtracksand Synergy. Wallflower Press.
Rhona, J. (2000) The reel world, Miller Freeman Books
Scruton (1999) The aesthetics of music, Clarendon Press
Stror, A. (1997) Music and the mind, HarperCollins.

Games General / Game Theory
Poole, S. (2004 ) Trigger Happy, The inner life of video games
http://stevenpoole.net/blog/trigger-happier/
Games and Culture Journal

Game Audio Programming

Boer, J.R. (2002) Game audio programming. Charles River Media.
Boulanger, R.,Lazzarini, V. & Mathews, M. (2010) The Audio Programming Book.Har/DVD. MIT Press.
Wilde, Martin (2004) Audio Programming for Interactive Games, Focal Press.

Techniques
Chadabe, Joel (1997) Electronic Sound; The past and promise of electronic music, Prentice Hall
Dodge, Charles & Jerse, Thomas (1997) Computer Music, Wadsowrt
Holmes, Thomas (2003) Electronic & Experimental Music, Routledge
Miranda, Eduardo Reck (2002) Computer Sound Design, Focal Press
Roads, Curtis (2000) The Computer Music Tutorial, MIT
Russ, Martin (2003) Sound Synthesis Sampling, Focal Press

Game mapping . modding
Busby, Jason (2005) Mastering Unreal technology, Sams.
Flynt, J.P. Booth, B (2007) Unreal Tournament Game programming for Teens, Thompson Course Technology.