Inside the Black Box of AAA Game Audio
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We have a good understanding of the music recording industry and the processes involved in recording mixing and editing. We have a good grasp on what goes on in live touring audio. Mastering is not a mystery and the world of TV and film is not a secret… but what about AAA games?
A world of specialist techniques, coding and software not found anywhere else in the audio world – but also a world fiercely protected behind the wall of nondisclosure agreements. In this presentation AES Scotland has managed to persuade some elves to knock out a couple of bricks in the wall and let us join a conversation on the other side….
Created by the Glasgow School of Art: Games Audio and Sound for the Moving Image Departments
Importance of Loudness
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A discussion of Loudness for Broadcast and Streaming. We will have a summary of AES73, CTA 2075, and a preview of the Recommendations for Distribution Loudness of Internet Audio Streaming and On-Demand File Playback.
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FXpertise: Expansion and Gating
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Compression stole the dynamic effects spotlight. In this tutorial, we’re stealing it back. Your mixes will benefit from creative applications of that ‘other’ dynamics processor: the expander/gate. While offering all the virtues of expanded dynamic range, it has the power to create a far wider variety of effects. Expanders are a tool for altering timbre, reshaping sounds, synthesizing new ones, overcoming masking, and fabricating the impossible. Parameters with names like attack, hold, release, decay, range, depth, slope, and side chain filters don’t exactly invite creative exploration. This overview of effects strategies brings structure to the sonic possibilities of expansion and gating so that you can quickly find the parameter settings that let you achieve your production goals.
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Audio for Social Justice
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In light of recent events in America, we have learned that audio is a powerful catalyst of social justice. As the world heard the last words of George Floyd and the shock spanned the globe, the tragedy of his death in the larger scope of police brutality in America was recognized. Today, high quality audio recording is available to anyone with a cellular telephone - we need to talk about how that is changing the world today and what our role as audio professionals could be.
We are living in a social media driven age where substance is often hidden by external appearances. As a songwriter who learned the craft in order to share my own message through music, I soon learned others had crucial information to share and started helping them to tell their stories through the use of professional audio techniques. Marches, conferences and direct action are taking place every day across the world, but may not be properly documented without quality audio. I worked on the wrongful conviction case of a woman named Kirstin Blaise Lobato where a single piece of audio was a crucial piece of evidence.
When setting out to help with audio for social justice, there are a number of challenges any audio professional may face:
Budget
Audio recorded improperly
Single channel audio
Static and mic noise
Audio overloaded by improper mic placement
Limited audio knowledge
Though editing tasks may be cumbersome and the availability of equipment onsite for events may be unpredictable, there are many gifts our community has to offer that could make the difference between a successful social media event and a failure for the visionaries who need it most. I will explore these topics in depth and will be happy to do a follow up presentation to expand on this.
Streaming as the Future of High Resolution Audio Distribution
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Streaming is now the dominant method of distributing audio, including high resolution audio (HRA), to consumers. Although HRA has been a small percent of the total, the major labels and the RIAA predicted from 2017 onward that high quality was of strong interest even to young listeners and should thrive given streaming's new affordability and portability. This workshop looks at current uptake and future directions in high quality audio streaming. Important to both sustainability and growth in this dynamic area are the evolving nature of music distribution infrastructure and the ability for all players in the area - major and indie labels, music streaming services, and designers of platform-spanning software and hardware - to address important issues. Those include growth models expanding to younger listeners, adequate remuneration of artists including indies while limiting costs, worldwide bandwidth constraints, differentiation from one another, and innovative provision for user requests like performance data, music discovery, radio, podcasts, etc. A very exciting new direction is live streaming, that for the first time permits HD video to be combined with HD audio.
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The Boring Allpass Filter?
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When one thinks of filters, one thinks of classical filters in traditional engineering textbooks -- for example lowpass, highpass, bandpass, and bandstop filters.
In the field of audio, one encounters other filters as well.
In this tutorial we take a deeper look at allpass filters – where phase (instead of frequency shaping) is used as a manipulating tool.
We start with the basics of allpass filters and look at how they may be used for audio processing.
Then we look at how allpass filters may be used as building blocks for more complicated topologies to create even more interesting filters.
Tech Tours: Studio 150
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Studio 150 is a music production studio located in Amsterdam. They renovated an old monumental church building into a full-grown recording and mixing facility. The construction work took them almost four years, in which they tried to preserve the original atmosphere of the church as much as possible. The result is a very elegant, musical and versatile environment. Joeri, engineer at Studio 150 takes you on a tour to show you around their facility, sharing the studio’s passion for acoustics, analog equipment and vintage microphones!
Tech Tours: Dutch and Dutch
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Dutch & Dutch is a young company from the Netherlands. Dutch & Dutch believes that the sound quality in your studio or home is primarily determined by three things: your speakers, the acoustics of your room, and the interaction between those two. Dutch & Dutch currently makes one product, which is a DSP-based full-range monitor that is designed to work together with the acoustics of your room. It adapts to your room, and Dutch & Dutch claim it sounds great even if the acoustics of your room are less than perfect.
*Keynote Address* Creative and Alternative Audio Adventurers
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This presentation is to celebrate individuals who currently are using sound and audio technology in creative and alternative ways that enhance the human experience.
Some examples:
Roy Allela, an engineer from Kenya who has created gloves that turn sign language into audible speech.
Ellen Reid, creator of "Soundwalk", a GPS enabled work of public art that uses music to illuminate the natural environment. She has composed musical works to stroll through Central Park and hike in Los Angeles' Griffith Park.
Jonathan Ward, an audio archeologist who collects 78rpm records from around the world including Nigeria, Madacascar and Panama. Author of "Excavated Shellac, an alternate History of World Music".
Brian Bushway, Greatest Blind Mountain Biker and master of Echolocation, how blind people see with sound.
Education Panel: Coding
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A discussion on introducing audio coding into our respective curricula and resources for educators to do the same.
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