Sonnox - Audio Media

John Broomhall talks to Audio
Director, Stefan Strandberg,
about his team’s awardwinning
work on DICE’s
acclaimed military firstperson
shooter
Strandberg: “We were really, really nervous about recordings we make during the military exercises that take
getting up on that stage! But it was such a big honour place around Stockholm periodically. Running around the
– we got this final approval from the upper echelons of forest with shotgun mics ‘recording from the hip’ also yields
the game audio community – and that feels really great. some fantastic assets…
We’ve been thinking that we’ve been doing something right “You get back and update your libraries and find stuff
but when someone says it officially like that… It was a big you just love – and you think, ‘This one sound changes
deal for us and it’s resonated well within the company too, everything!’ Then you adapt other audio to work with that
strengthening our way of looking at and hearing things. sound – it’s like you’ve found the Rosetta Stone. For instance,
We humbly accepted the BAFTA award and we’re very proud we got a much bassier recording of a machine gun and used
of it.”
it at different pitches to homogenise a lot of the weapons.
It really helps to create iconical differences between assault
A Mere Decade Ago…
rifles and machine guns. In fact, we’ve worked very closely
Rewind ten years, and Strandberg was working with fellow with design to make sure there are small sonically unique
veteran DICE colleague, David Mollerstedt, at a local music identifiers for everything in the game providing important
studio. However, his spare time was frequently occupied with audio cues which will improve you as a soldier. Though
they’re not mentioned in the manual, it’s cool how people
pick up on them – it’s all part of the gameplay depth.”
Battlefield
Bad Company 2
‘And the BAFTA for ‘Use Of Audio’ goes to…’
Developer/Publisher
DICE/Electronic Arts
The Audio Team
Audio Director
Stefan Strandberg
Sound Design
Bence Pajor
Mari Saastamoinen
Ben Minto
Stefan Strandberg
Olof Strömqvist
Original Music
Mikael Karlsson
Dialogue Direction
Olof Strömqvist
Audio Programming
Jonatan Blomster
Björn Hedberg
customising the audio content of his favourite computer
games – so-called modding. It was a pastime that was to
prove a useful testing ground, as he explains: “Even in those
days the thing I cherished more than anything else was the
right source sound – I’m not a sound designer in the sense
of sound manipulation. This ‘right source’ principle carries
right through to what we do in DICE nowadays. There are
two sides to our production: first, we are fortunate to work
with fantastic sound engine technology and accompanying
technical sound design talent that totally supports the ethos.
Second, we are provided with great source audio and have
a finely-attuned selective ear. This encapsulates the DICE
approach to game audio – our collective mindset. We’re not
manipulating as much as people might think. Perhaps if we
were making a role-playing game with spells and magic it
might be different, but I’ve always worked with real stuff like
cars and guns and soldiers.”
When it came to collecting the right source material
for weapons, the team were able to take advantage
of a quite extraordinary gun wrangling and recording
session in LA and Fort Irwin (complete with mocked-up
Iraqi village). “I think it’s the biggest gun recording ever
attempted – a joint venture with the Medal Of Honour
team. For two days we had movie guys Jean Paul Fasal
and Brian Watkins there with an 80 microphone set-up
capturing every weapon sound you can imagine to both
computer and analogue tape recorders. We even had
people sync-recording in the mountains 5km away. The
resulting Pro Tools sessions allow you to create any kind
of weapon sound you like, though the portrait of the tail
is a constant, which is why we still like to use ‘guerrilla’
Strength In Battle
One of Battlefield’s obvious strengths is its use of acclaimed
dynamic mixing system ‘HDR’ (high dynamic range) which
automatically and ‘intelligently’ governs playback of the
myriad sound triggers occurring in a complex gameplay
scene. Just because a 3D sound is calculated as scientifically
or theoretically within hearing range of the player’s ‘listener’
position, does not necessarily mean it’s appropriate or
desirable that it should actually be heard. Context must
be considered. In fact, other sound-dense games with a
relatively thoughtless mixing methodology have frequently
suffered from fatiguing cacophony – ‘everything, all the
time’. HDR on the other hand can, for example, use a 20dB
‘window’ which is moving forward in time reacting to sound
triggers. A 150dB explosion being triggered will cause the
‘window’ to pop up to say a 150-130dB range and all sounds
below will be culled. As the explosion rolls
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AUDIO MEDIA MAY 2011