New Short Term Goal - Sound Design Demo

It's been a rainy week in Atlanta. Thankfully, I like the rain, but I haven't been able to really enjoy it because it's been a busy week. Also, thankfully, I love what's making me busy! Aside from working on various sound design projects for work, I decided that my new short term goal would be to make a demo reel of some sound design work. My first task? Take a piece of a movie from one of my favorite games, remove all the sounds, and then create new sounds for it! What's the game?

Mass Effect 2, developed by BioWare, is arguably the most popular game that has come out this year, and one of the greatest games I've played in a long time. So I took a portion of the official theatrical trailer and now in the process of adding my own sound design to it. It's so much fun! I've completed my gun sounds pass and now I'm working on footsteps. I'll be sure to post it when I'm done!

Mahalo!

Chillin' With My H4n, Tellin' Jokes

Finally got my Zoom H4n in the mail the other day and I've been having a blast with it. It's a small digital recording gizmo with two built-in condenser mics and two mic inputs. You also probably noticed it's sporting a wicked hair-do. That's a black Redhead Windscreen that I also got from many recommendations from fellow audio friends. It does an amazing job at eliminating wind noise while out in the field.

I spent the afternoon at the park recording various noises like kids on scooters and throwing rocks at trashcans. People probably thought that I was some hoodlum or something. I also got some pretty awesome quacks from the local ducks at the lake! Which reminds me of a good joke a friend told me:

A duck walks into a bar and the bartender asks, "Whadya have?"

The duck asks, "Got any grapes?"

The bartender yells, "We don't have grapes here, only drinks, now get out!"

The duck hops off the stool and waddles out.

The next day, the same duck walks back into the bar and asks the bartender, "Got any grapes?"

Irritated, the bartender yells, "I told you yesterday we don't serve grapes, only drinks, now get out!" So the ducks walks back out.

Sure enough, the very next day, the duck walks into the same bar and asks the bartender, "Got any grapes?"

Infuriated, the bartender pounds his fist on the bar and screams, "I told you two times we don't serve grapes, we serve drinks! If you ask me ONE MORE TIME I'm going to nail your beak to the wall! Now GET OUT!"

The duck shrugs and walks out of the bar.

The next day, the same duck walks back into the bar and asks the bartender, "Got any nails?"

The bartender looks at him and says no. So the ducks asks, "Got any grapes?"

May we all be as persistent as that duck is when it comes to what we want in life. I know I will be;)

More Crunch. Less Bloops.

Today I was working on some ambient noise that could be heard in a volcano. Forget that it'd be pretty tough to stay alive in one, just try to imagine what it would sound like. My initial thoughts? Some fire crackles here, low rumbles there, and some low pitch bloop sounds for the lava. Right? After designing an initial sketch, the bloop noises didn't quite sound natural in a volcano. It made it sound too watery and goopy.

After some thought and advice from friends, I decided to take out the bloops and to add more crunch with rock crumbling pitched lower to add more body. I also added a couple layers of fire thrower sounds with burning woodcrackles mixed in and VOILA- you're in a volcano. Be sure to check out the night life.

It's a small detail, but most of the time those are the most important ones.

Ready To Surf These Waves!

Aloha friends!

So I decided to pick up blogging again after a short break, but have it focus on my developing career as a composer and sound designer for film and video games. I'll be blogging about my radical stories of trials and triumph into designing sound and maybe post a couple things I'm working on. It'll be interesting to see my progression as an artist.

Until then...

Hang loose!!