... And I would like your input.

I plan to target my blog towards people who are outside of the game audio industry and want to get a peek at what a sound designer does at a AAA studio like Cryptic. The topics I hope to address are as follows:

1.) The Day to Day Tasks of a Sound Designer
- This is meant to give the reader an idea of the kinds of issues, problems, and challenges faced by a game audio designer on a day to day basis. Instead of creating topics to address various points of interest, the topics relevant to game audio will be discussed naturally as I use all of the skills important for a sound designer in my daily dealings.

2.) Game Audio as a Career Option
- Something I constantly see in other forums is "How do I get into game audio? What skills do I need to be noticed by X game company?". I hope to answer some of these questions in detail.

I hope to have images and, of course, plenty of audio. I will try to get video up when available but videos take a lot of work to create and edit. From what I can tell there is not a lot of information out there for those who wish to get an inside look at how sound for games is created and implemented. This is where I need your help.

1.) Is a blog like this something you would be interested in?
2.) If so, what are some things that you would like to read about concerning game audio production?
3.) What kind of content would you suggest that I include in my blog?

Thank you very much for reading. I have begun working on my first posts already and I hope to have them up soon. However, all posts need to go through Cryptic's and PW's approval process first to make sure everything is synced with PR. So it could take a little time.

Thanks!

blog would be great, and a CO soundtrack would be pretty awesome to boot with it :)
i love the music and sounds in a game, and im one that would never say no to an inside look

Sounds like a plan to me.

And yes, a blog would be the way to go : plenty of developpers maintain a personal blog discussing their own experiences as well as insights on what it's like to work on the gaming industry.

As for what you'd include, maybe some explanations on previous existing works, such as the development process behind them (like going through approval meetings and such), or maybe some tips for people wanting to become/are audio designers.

And as for content, well, just a few sample tracks from games you've worked on will do, since it'd be fitting for an audio blog.

Just my two cents.

AAA studio like cryptic.

AAA studio, cryptic.

Nope.jpg

*edit*

Just my opinion of course.

That being said, any instance of a developer willing to share insight into the process of making the game is welcome.

I dabble in music as a hoby.
Some of the things i often wonder about with regard to pro audio in the gaming business are:

1. How are sound fx (explosions zaps ect) made.
2. what kind of processing techniques are used to create some of the strange and non human voices in games?
3. What kind of DAW do game designers use (i assume pro tools)?
4. What kinds of plugins are preferred by pro audio guys in the gaming industry?
5. does the same guy do the recording engineering and mixing?

Where would this blog be posted? I would assume that there are people at gearslutz kvr and other sights that would take an interest in this kind of thing.

EDIT:
If it wasn't clear, yea, i would keep an eye on the blog.

1) I'm interested in reading most things related to game design, so I'd likely give the blog a read every now and then;
2) Mostly interaction with other parts of game development. Are you called in only after something is made so you can supplement it with sound? Is design also sometimes based on your music or sound production (think the design process of FLCL, where they had the songs first, and then the actual animated scenes);
3) Whatever you feel like talking about at the time. Could be a whole article covering one single question or comment, or could be a QA or a 5-part series on a specific topic. Whatever's on your mind.

Wow, that would be awesome! I think getting an inside view on how sound effects are created is a biggie for me as well as just in general, what is it like and what do you have control over? I have absolutely no idea what it's like to a audio designer so I'd find it very interesting to learn about through your blog.

very interested in learning about the work you do. In particular I'd like to have a better appreciation of sound and music as a component in the ART of making a comptuer game. Why and how you make the choices you do and things of that nature.

I' actually play this game very often in a setting where I can't play with the sound on. I probably experience CO more often with the sound off than on. When I AM able to turn the sound on, wow what a difference it makes.

I'd be interested in this blog for a few reasons.

First, I want to support the CO community. If a dev posts an audio blog, I'll listen to it for no reason other than because a CO dev made it. At least once.

Second, I have little personal knowledge of what an audio designer does in specific. What tools do they use? How do they approach a specific project or task? What level of player interaction goes into it? How much of a project is guided by supervisors and how much is left to the audio engineer?

What I would like to see, for example, is an audio engineer working through a specific exemplar assignment for the game. From initial discussions to final product. I'd learn a lot from that. I'm never going to be an audio engineer, but what I am is an English professor, which means I have had and will have future audio engineers in my classroom and I would like to know what they do. I'm also an avid MMO player, and I would like to know more about my hobby.

PS: The blog of an audio engineer should be a podcast, or audio blog. An audio engineer who doesn't record his blog is like a film director using only a soundtrack. Leave the written word behind. Go all in audio!

The problem with this, is that an important element of sound design is matching the audio element to the visual element. With game sound design, the visual aspect and the aural aspect are linked because the two need to sync up in order to *feel* good. A sound in a game can't just sound good, it needs to feel good as well. So if I explain my process of creating a power sound, for example, the reader needs to know what kind of visual material I was working with because I base many of my production decisions on what I see.


Thanks everyone this is great feedback! I'm still trucking along trying to get my first post up and running. Keep the suggestions coming!