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